taiiiing a story entitled, “My Husband Is Attracted to Little Girls.”
From the storeroom, identification officers trotted out Exhibit 677, which consisted of twenty-seven books, all true crime and horror, along with four other books—noted as Exhibit 965—that had been personally seized by Inspector Bevan. Perhaps they were looking for clues to their defense in Karla’s books: Understanding Abnormal Behaviour and Teenage Sexuality.
The lawyers started listenmg to audiotapes Bernardo had made, including one on which the prosecution w^as clearly focused called “Deadly Innocence,” Paul’s title for his forthcoming rap album. In the mind of the prosecutors, the lyrics were Paul’s theme song.
“I’m young and hype,” the rap lyric went. “I get paid to rock the nation. Sometimes I be cool. Sometimes I be chilling. Sometimes I be kiUing. I’m one in a million. I’ll drain your brain. And steal your chain. I got no remorse. I got no shame.” Of course the rap ends with the dyslexic white rapper never getting caught, ” ‘cause I’m a deadly innocent guy.” The defense asked for copies.
Before Murray and MacDonald left, the police finally released Exhibit 268—the one-minute, fifh’-eight-second videotape known as “Karla’s Sex Video.” It had been in their possession a full nine months since its discovery on February 21.
The police knew it was an edited version of something, but they had no idea that Ken Murray knew exactly what that something was. The hooker in Atlantic Cit' really meant nothing except that the episode pointed to character and procHvitN’.
It was the chps with the comatose Jane that meant more to Murray and MacDonald. In those chps, the Crown’s star witness—the abused and psychologically damaged, depressed, post-traumatically stressed Karla Homolka—could be seen doing her own despicable thing and obviously enjoying it.
Having seen the entire hbrary of videos fi-om which those clips had been taken, and with Paul Bernardo’s help. Ken Murray had been able to figure out that the sequence with Jane Doe happened only six months after Karla had killed her sister with the exact same combination of Halcion and halothane. Ken
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Murray also knew that his chent had not been at home when Karla put Jane down.
Murray understood two things. Because he had what he felt was a much clearer, truer picture of Karla Homolka than the prosecution had, he knew there was more to the relationship between her, the police and government than his “deal with the devil” hyperbole. Murray had once been a prosecutor. He knew the ropes and he firinly believed he was being railroaded.
It was inconceivable that the police and the prosecution had gone ahead and made the deal, having seen “Karla’s Sex Video,” which so blatantly portrayed her as other than the battered and abused victim of the sexually psychopathic Rasputin they had so carefully painted. There was much more to their collusion, and he felt that if he could get to the bottom of it he might change the course of his personal history.
Only a week earlier, emissaries from the Green Ribbon Task Force had travelled to Ottawa to have the videotape analyzed by image processing and photogrammetry speciaHsts from the Department of National Defense. Vince Bevan was not satisfied with the results he had received from the police lab in Toronto.
As the meeting came to a close. Constable Michael Kershaw and his colleagues inquired about certain items that had been in the house before Murray and crew did their May, 1993 house clearing: a Giorgio perfrime bottle from the upstairs washroom, for instance, and a rubber mallet that was on the workbench in the basement.
Karla had told the police that when she and Kristen French were being “girlfriends” together and trying on perfume, Kristen had chosen the Giorgio. The police wanted the perfume bottle. The rubber mallet was the tool Karla had used to guard Kristen when Paul was out of the house getting Swiss Chalet and renting videos. They wanted that, too.
Murray told the police that when he went into the house in May he had an acquaintance arrange the muscle for the move. He said he deliberately did not know any names. All Murray remembered was this one, big, black guy who had been able to carry the washer and dryer up the basement stairs all by himself
Murray said he had been much more concerned with
papers than physical objects. They had separated the stuff in garbage bags marked K for “keep” and G for “garbage.” Only a few bags, including some foodstuffs, actually made it into his own vehicle. The Bernardos’ fridge had been well stocked with fancy condiments, civilized appointments that Murray seized in partial recognition of his services.
Nevertheless, it appeared to Constable Kershaw that certain items had been removed intentionally, while others had been left behind: for instance, the rubber-headed hammer for which they were looking was gone, but a simihar hard-headed mallet was still in the basement.
There had been an antique wood plane that was quite valuable, some Fostner bits and a miter saw. Murray said he did not know anything about those items, or anything else they were looking for.
Kershaw made an off-the-cuff remark about how Murray probably had “the tape,” but Murray ignored the reference. He said the garbage bags marked G had been dropped at various dumps around the Toronto area to thwart all the Bernardo souvenir hunters.
Outside of the exhibit room, Murray took aside the smaller and more affable identification officer, Richard Ciszek: “I know what you guys are thinking, another slimeball lawyer, but honestly, I don’t know where … the items went.”
While Canadians scrambled across the border to get copies of the Thursday, November 23, Washington Post, which finally provided some accurate details about Karla’s trial and described the murderess as a Cinderella, Karla was intently discussing her need to be “nice” with her psychologist.
Karla and Jan Heney talked about what Karla described as her almost pathological need to do what others thought she should do. Karla was continuing to learn her lessons well. She went back to her cell and wrote Kathy Ford: “You know it’s not really fair. My trial is over and done with, but none of the pain is… .”
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Almost wistfully, Karla added that her Ufe with Paul “wasn’t supposed to end this way.”
At the end of November, Dr. Brown put a note in Karla’s file saying that Karla was “gaining in self-esteem and self-confidence noticeably.” In her sessions, Heney was hammering on the theme of “niceness” and Karla’s “inability to identify an enemy.”
The pubUcation ban had become an enemy in the outside world. Washitigkm Post reporter Anne Swardson’s story was picked up by major newspapers across America, and Canadian Customs was dogged in its determination to confiscate the banned newspapers.
When Canadian universities started shutting down computer bulletin boards, cyberspace cadets went into paroxysms of debate over whether or not the ban was justified, while others sought out or created “gory details.”
With her psychologist, Karla discussed her growing paranoia about her lack of control in her current situation. Karla was very concerned about what Heney described in her notes as the “imphcations of others.”
The New York Times published an editorial headlined “A Bad Gag Order in Canada.” It said that Canada was behaving like a third-world dictatorship, burning magazines and newspapers and stopping people as they tried to cross the border—not searching for drugs or other contraband, but for newspapers and magazines containing banned details of Karla Homolka’s trial.
Even CNN talk-show host Larr>^ King blanked out audio portions of his phone-in about the topic. “The ban affects Canada. The ban does not have any effect in the U.S.,” typed one American Internet adherent to the website known as alt.fan. karla-homolka.
“Obviously false,” came the reply. “Since I can’t watch Larry King in Washington, tell me in New York what happened. It affects people big time.” But at least one Canadian thought things were getting a bit too frenzied. “Honestly,” came the reply, “who cares about Larry King
?”
On Monday, December 6, Karla received a new visitor, Sergeant Gary Beaulieu. Beaulieu had interviewed Karla’s estranged husband following his arrest. Karla liked meeting new people. The introductions were handled by her “private” guard. Rick Waller. Waller proved to be the perfect choice for Karla. He had spent years on dog patrol at the men’s prison. With guard dogs and sleeping cons, Waller functioned well. Any man who loved dogs was a man Karla could love.
Sergeant Beaulieu spent an hour that morning talking to Karla. From his notes it was apparent that they discussed some issues to do with the Scarborough rapes, which was quite bizarre given what would follow in the afternoon.
Beaulieu asked Karla if she knew when Paul had first committed a rape? The question was loaded, because Beauheu knew the house search had turned up the chronological list of Scarborough rapes, handwritten and authored by both Paul and Karla. The perennially cooperative Karla’s answer was 1983, which was the date of the first charge widely reported in the press. The prosecution knew that Bernardo had not started raping until he met Homolka in 1987. However, they also included an unsubstantiated, unprovable charge they had coerced from Bernardo’s unfortunate ex-girlfriend, Jennifer Galligan, thus exonerating Karla as the catalyst and facilitator.
When Beaulieu returned after lunch he brought Sergeant Gillies with him, and they officially screened the one-minute, fifty-eight-second video for Karla. Karla had probably seen this tape before. It was clearly evident she was familiar with its contents. She had been shown stills from the video the previous May, during her “induced” and “cautioned” statements to the police. Knowing what was on the tape, Karla had yet to figure out how it fitted into what she knew the police already knew and where it might fit with her “dream.”
The first segment had an orangey tint. In it, a naked Karla, complete with suntan lines, was prone on a beige quilt-covered, king-size bed with another blond. They caressed each other’s bodies, then Karla leaned back to allow her nipples to be sucked and she spread her legs to be fondled by the blond hooker she
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had hired. Karla had already told them what this was all about in an interview before her trial.
“I’m the one on the right,” she agreed, but then she said it did not really look like her. She placed the time as August of 1992, when she and Paul had stopped in Atlantic City on their way home from Florida. “He had beat me real badly,” she explained, “and he said, ‘there’s only one thing that’s gonna make me love you again and that’s if we get a hooker and you do stuff with her,’ ” so she had said all right.
“He kept asking me, ‘What kinda girl do you like? What kinda girl do you want?’ and I said I don’t care. So he said fine, we’ll get a blond.” Even so, according to Karla a “pretty” brunette turned them down before Paul convinced this blond to take them on.
Karla and Paul had dined at Ivana’s restaurant that evenmg and dropped a bundle, something Karla seemed to think the entire hotel staff noticed. “People were treating us well and then they saw us walking in with this hooker, I felt so disgusted, so disgusted,” she said.
Although she could not remember the hooker’s name, she did remember that the woman had said she was four months pregnant. Paul paid her three hundred dollars for one hour and forty-five minutes of her time, and he videotaped the encounter by setting up the camera in a suitcase and triggering the remote to start as soon as they came in the room.
“Paul didn’t really like her,” Karla explained. “She made him wear a condom and he does not wear condoms, so he never ejaculated.” When the hooker left, Karla said she had to “quote, suck him off, unquote.”
During the playing of the second segment Karla turned her chair to get a good look, and then she asked for the segment to be replayed. From the carpet, she thought the video must have been shot at 57 Bayview. She suggested that the young woman in the video “had to be” her dead sister, Tammy, but she allowed as how it was hard to tell. When it was replayed from a freeze frame, she identified a quilt as one from Paul’s house and said that the segment must have been videotaped shortly after
they moved in together, which would obviously rule otit her sister as the subject.
In the second section of this short segment, Karla became more certain that what transpired must have occurred in the master bedroom of the house. Her dresser was in the shot. She then speculated that the “unidentified female” could be Kristen French or Leslie Mahaffy, smce she had performed with them in that location. Beaulieu noted her comment that the “only person who taped her doing things like that was Paul Bernardo.”
There was no noted discussion about the fact that Karla was shown close up in this clip, with her lips on another woman’s blond pubic hair, variously blowing on it and burying her face in it, while her right hand lay casually, familiar and unconcerned, on the unidentified female’s stomach. There was no discussion about Karla’s wagging tongue or her insipid grinning. No question and answer period followed about why Karla had stood up, lifted the unconscious girl’s unresponsive arm and inserted the finger into her vagina.
After forty minutes, Beaulieu and Gillies switched off this contentious exhibit. They asked Karla to initial the photographs of her with the hooker and the piece of Trump Tower stationery with the name “Shelly” and a phone number written on it.
Confused, Karla said she thought Gillies and BeauHeu were there to interview her about Jane Doe. She remembered giving Jane booze and piUs. She wanted to talk about the fact that she had made an emergency 911 call when Jane Doe stopped breathing while Paul was assaulting her. She had canceled the call when Jane started breathing again. Karla said it must have taken place before the wedding, too. Jane Doe was at the wedding with her mother.
The officers did not want to talk about any of that. They told Karla that any discussion about an alleged rape would be conducted by the Metropolitan Toronto Police. They were handling any and all rape issues. Karla would not be interviewed until long after Christmas—sometime in late January or early February, so Karla should just relax and have a good hohday.
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By the middle of December, Karla was feeling much better. Over an hour they spent together then, Karla told Jan Heney that she had been able to use the visualization exercise “to contain and put away feelings.”
She was continuing to struggle to put her relationship with Paul into context, but Christmas was coming, and Karla and Heney began to discuss strategies about how Karla could cope with that.
Over the next few days, Karla committed herself to her correspondence. Kristy Maan had a new house and had written to Karla with all kinds of questions. Off the top, Karla advised Kristy that she watched the soap opera “Another World,” not “Young and the Restless,” although some of the “girls” were trying to move her Y&R-side.
“Ok. The people I’m in with. #1 is Jane. She’s 34 and in for smashing a window (???). She’s been in Sc out of jail for 17 years. She’s into drugs. Very nice person.
“#2 is Judy. She’s in for armed (addendum: She’s 33) robbery. She’s also into drugs. She’s quite a violent and unpredictable person & goes from liking me to hating me. They don’t let her & I out together at all. She has lots of tattoos. (So does Jane.)
“#3 is Margaret (addendum: She’s 33). She’s in for theft over ($1500, I think). She’s also into drugs. She’s very nice. Also has tattoos. I teach her EngHsh and law in the afternoons. (Now I have a full-time job!)
“Those are the only ones up on this side of seg right now. On the other side (the punitive side) there are a couple of murderers, attempted murders, etc.
“I’ve pretty well made friends with everyone I’ve met. I guess I’m a naturally friendly person.”
Karla assured her old friend that the “little prayer” Kristy had sent had been placed prominently on her cell bulletin board, and although the holidays would be difficult, she had two visits with her family to look forward to. “P.S.,�
�� Karla
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wrote, “What about a title for that book about the Moors Murders?”
From the time she had arrived in prison, Karla had been planning a reunion with all former members of the Exclusive Diamond Club. Early on, she had to except Debbie Purdie, now married, with a child. Karla’s erstwhile best friend had seen through her and severed their relationship. Debbie forbade Karla to write her any more letters.
Kathy Ford, however, remained a penpal and encouraged Karla to keep writing.
“Maybe this isn’t healthy,” Karla wrote to her, “but I don’t even think to myself that I’m in Prison for Women. I think I’m away at school. Whether it’s healthy or not, it works—I don’t feel bad.”
Karla took Kathy into her confidence: “I want to work with abused women. I want to help prevent women from being abused and also work with women who have already been abused.”
For Christmas, her parents were bringing Sesame Street towels and sheets. “My room is going to be the most juvenile in the whole institution, but, hey—I like it that way,” Karla explained.
“I know what you mean about Christmas. It’s always been my favorite time of the year. Of course, since Tammy died things haven’t been the same. But one thought I’ve always held is that she wouldn’t want us to live in misery over the holidays… .
“Whenever I think about it (Paul’s preliminary and trial) I get a sick feehng. It’s going to be so hard. The cops were here asking more questions last week and it was awful. They were nice! Paul’s lawyers are going to try to put the whole thing on me. It will be one of the worst things I’ll ever go through. But I keep reminding myself that this is all a million times better than living with him. And it truly is.”
While Karla was contemplating ways to utilize the “coping strategies for Christmas” that psychologist Jan Heney had shared, one of the Scarborough rape victims, Deneen Chenier filed a ten-million-dollar lawsuit against Paul Bernardo [Teale], who, she contended, was “aided and abetted” by his estranged wife, Karla Homolka, during her rape, which had occurred in an underground parking garage on December 22, 1989.
Invisible darkness : the strange case of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka Page 43