Female Serial Killers

by Peter Vronsky

  BERNARDO: How did you feel?

  HOMOLKA: I felt proud. I felt happy.

  BERNARDO: What else?

  HOMOLKA: I felt horny. It’s my mission in life to make you feel good.

  BERNARDO: (Into the camera) That is why I’m going to marry her.

  Skoal to the king.

  HOMOLKA: I’m glad you made me lick her cunt.

  BERNARDO: Are you a fully fledged dyke?

  HOMOLKA: No, I’m not.

  BERNARDO: You were having sex with your little sister.

  HOMOLKA: That was different. It was my little sister.

  (Homolka strokes Bernardo’s penis.)

  BERNARDO: Love in the family. Do you believe in that concept?

  HOMOLKA: You know I had fun doing it. You know I liked it.

  BERNARDO: What did it teach you?

  HOMOLKA: Well…we like little girls. I like you to fuck them. If you’re going to fuck them, then I’m going to lick them. All the little girls.

  BERNARDO: What age should they be?

  HOMOLKA: Thirteen.

  BERNARDO: Why?

  HOMOLKA: Because it will make you happy.

  BERNARDO: But why thirteen?

  HOMOLKA: That’s a good age.

  BERNARDO: Because why?

  HOMOLKA: Because they’ll still be virgins.

  BERNARDO: What are you saying?

  (Homolka and Bernardo look at each other.)

  HOMOLKA: I’m saying I think you should fuck them and take their virginity. Break their hymens with Snuffles. They’re all our children, and I think you should make them ours even more.

  BERNARDO: You’re absolutely right. That’s a good idea. When did you come up with it?

  HOMOLKA: Just now.

  (Homolka performs more oral sex on Bernardo and then gets up and walks out of camera range.)

  HOMOLKA: I have a surprise for you.

  (Homolka re-enters camera range, and holding a paper bag in her hand, sits down beside Bernardo. From the bag she takes out a bra and panties and hands them to Bernardo.)

  HOMOLKA: It’s Tammy’s.

  (Bernardo smells Tammy’s bra while Homolka rubs his penis with the panties.)

  HOMOLKA: I want to rub Tammy’s underwear all over your body. It will make you feel so good. I’m so glad you took her virginity, Paul. I wish we had four kids, Paul.

  BERNARDO: Yes?

  HOMOLKA: So you could fuck each one of them. (Rapidly rubbing the underwear on Bernardo’s penis.) How does the king like that?

  BERNARDO: Yeah.

  HOMOLKA: I think the king should turn over.

  BERNARDO: Okay.

  HOMOLKA: Because his little slave has some more things to say and do.

  (Bernardo gets on his hands and knees while Homolka positions herself behind him. She probes his anus with one hand, licks it, while with the other hand she strokes his penis.)

  BERNARDO: Oh, my little ass-licker.

  (After several minutes, they change positions. Bernardo lies on his back while Homolka strokes his penis with a long-stemmed rose.)

  HOMOLKA: You know what we’re going to do with this? (Holding up the rose to the camera.) We’re going to take this to Tammy’s tomorrow, and put it on her grave.

  BERNARDO: Why?

  HOMOLKA: Because it will give you pleasure. You loved her. She loved you. You were her favorite, you know. The things that you did, you know I loved it. The way you fucked her in what, sixty seconds? She loved it. She loved it.

  BERNARDO: Your titties are bigger than hers.

  HOMOLKA: I know.

  BERNARDO: They taste better. When Tammy was alive, what did you used to do?

  HOMOLKA: You made me lick it and suck it. And now I’m doing it on my own because I loved it, Paul. I loved everything you did with her. She was our little play toy.

  (Homolka resumes fellating Bernardo.)

  BERNARDO: And we both loved her so much.

  HOMOLKA: Yes, our little virgin. She loved us.

  BERNARDO: What else?

  HOMOLKA: I didn’t give you my virginity, so I gave you Tammy’s instead. I loved you enough to do that.

  Homolka then began to talk about the girl Bernardo brought back to the house the night before.

  HOMOLKA: (Clutching at Bernardo’s penis.) You fucked her with this. You fucked her cunt. She sucked you. She sucked Snuffles. She put it in her mouth, like this…You put her on her knees. You fucked her. And I let you do that because I love you, because you’re the king…I want to do it again.

  BERNARDO: When?

  HOMOLKA: This summer, because the weather is too bad in the winter. If we can do that then it’s good.

  BERNARDO: Good.

  HOMOLKA: If you want to do it fifty more times, we can do it fifty more times. If you want to do it every weekend, we can do it every weekend. Whenever we can. Because I love you. Because you’re the king. Because you deserve it.

  BERNARDO: Virgin cunts for me.

  HOMOLKA: Yeah.

  BERNARDO: Virgins just for me. It’ll make me happy…going from one cunt to another, from one ass to another. Will you help me get the virgins?

  HOMOLKA: Yes, I’ll go in the car with you if you want, if you think that’s best. Or I’ll stay here and clean up afterward. I’ll do everything I can because I want you to be happy. Because you’re the king.

  (Homolka sucks on Bernado’s toes.)

  BERNARDO: Oh, footsies.

  HOMOLKA: Got to treat the king like a king.

  BERNARDO: Good and what else?

  HOMOLKA: I’m your little cocksucker. My nipples are so hard. I’m your cunt. Your little slut. Your little ass-licker. Your little virgin.

  BERNARDO: (Raising his glass to the camera.) It’s good to be king.

  HOMOLKA: I’m your cunt-licking slut, the keeper of your virgins. Your ass-licking bitch. And I love you. I want to marry you.

  (Video recording stops.)

  The tape ended without Bernardo climaxing. It was an extraordinary insight into the minds and dynamics of a serial killer couple. Not only did they record their crimes, but also their intimate moments in which the fantasies of these crimes were brought to the surface.

  “Why Couldn’t It Have Been the Same with Tammy?”

  Karla’s parents were indeed tired of having Bernardo around. They were also upset by how Bernardo constantly hovered over their daughter, never leaving her alone with them. When they would speak with her, Bernardo would speak in her place. They asked Bernardo to move out, explaining that they needed privacy to grieve over Tammy’s death. To their dismay, Karla moved out with Bernardo in a huff.

  The couple rented the house in the picturesque little lakeside town of Port Dalhousie, just outside of St. Catharines. Bernardo and Homolka were alone with their fantasies in their own private space.

  Life with Bernardo was horrendous. Any time Karla made a mistake, Bernardo would unwind full punches to her upper arms—places where the bruising could be covered with a long-sleeved blouse. Another punishment he inflicted he called the “terrorist attack.” He would wait until Karla had fallen asleep and then he’d suddenly jump on her, entering her anally and pummeling her with his fists. Her nights became long, restless stretches of semisleep, hovering between the nightmares of her dream-state and those of her waking life. One night, Bernardo was tossing and turning. Finding the bed too small, he pushed Homolka out on the floor. From that night on, he insisted that she always sleep on the floor while he occupied the entire bed. Not once did Homolka consider not marrying her Prince Charming. The wedding planning continued in earnest.

  In the meantime, Paul prowled at night and in the early mornings, attacking women and brutally raping them. He would tell Karla about the attacks. She scolded him when he raped a young woman jogging one morning in Port Dalhousie. Too close to their home, she complained.

  On June 6, 1991, while Bernardo was out, Karla invited a 15-year-old girl known only as “Jane Doe” for a sleepover at their house. Karla had met the girl
when the girl was 12—she used to hang around the pet-food store Karla worked in. Jane looked up to Karla and thought of her as a beautiful princess. She was a little surprised at the invitation, but eagerly went over to the house in Port Dalhousie. As they watched the movie Ghost, Karla plied the girl with drinks spiked with sedatives. When the girl lost consciousness, Karla phoned Bernardo on his cell phone, telling him to come home because she had a “surprise” wedding gift for him.

  When Paul got home, Karla offered up the unconscious girl to him. Bernardo was unsure at first, expressing concern over what had happened to Tammy. Karla reassured Bernardo that this time she had the drug dosage under control.

  They videotaped themselves raping the unconscious girl. In the fifteen-minute videotape, Bernardo is seen forcing his way past the virgin girl’s intact hymen, commenting, “Shit, I’ll have to bust it.” Karla rubbed her genitals against Jane’s face, rotating her hips lasciviously, and then inserted the girl’s limp fingers into her vagina while aping for the camera. Karla pretended to put a big, sloppy, fat kiss on the camera lens and performed cunnilingus on the girl.

  The next day, Jane Doe awoke feeling sick but unaware of what had happened to her the night before. After driving the girl home that morning, Paul brutally punched Karla in the arm as he had a tendency to do when she did something he did not like.

  “What was that for?” Karla whined.

  “Everything went so smoothly with Jane,” Paul complained. “Why couldn’t it have been the same with Tammy?”

  But Karla had shown Paul she was ready to play and could even take the lead.

  The Murder of Leslie Mahaffy

  A week later, on the night of June 14 or June 15, 1991—exactly two weeks before Bernardo and Homolka were to be married—Paul went out prowling as he often did. Bernardo had often told Homolka that if he saw an appropriate “virgin” victim, he would kidnap her and bring her back. It did not seem to particularly concern Karla. That night, however, Bernardo had another mission in mind as he prowled the quiet residential suburbs of Burlington, yet another anonymous and affluent town in the Golden Horseshoe between Toronto and Niagara Falls. He had left his accounting job and was now a full-time liquor and cigarette smuggler. He used stolen license plates on his car during his smuggling runs in the belief that Canadian customs agents were staking out the parking lots of duty-free stores on the U.S. side and radioing back the license numbers of Canadian cars parked there. Wearing a dark-hooded sweatshirt, Bernardo surreptitiously made his way between the dark yards and driveways of the sleeping housing tracts, looking for suitable license plates to steal. His prowling must have stirred all sorts of sexual associations for him of window peeping and pouncing on unsuspecting women to rape them. At about 2:30 a.m., Bernardo slipped into the backyard of Deborah and Dan Mahaffy’s house. There he saw their 14-year-old daughter, Leslie, sitting alone in the dark of their backyard on a picnic bench.

  Leslie Mahaffy was a cute girl with long, straight, honey blonde hair and braces gracing a warm smile. She was a highly spirited, independent, and rebellious girl—but reasonably responsible. After one argument too many with her parents, she had recently run away from home. Unlike most teenage runaways, she did not run to the streets, but instead to the home of her best friend. Her friend’s mother allowed her to stay there and Leslie phoned home every day, assuring her parents she was fine. After about ten days, tired of her independence, Leslie returned home; there seemed to be less tension with her parents. The main issue had been that Leslie was expected to come home by 11:00 p.m. sharp.

  On Tuesday night, four of Leslie’s fellow high school friends were killed in a horrific car accident. That Friday, she and her friends had gathered together at the funeral home and later at a park to mourn their friends. Leslie’s mother had dropped her off at the funeral home and told her that she could stay out a little later than 11:00 that night, but she was to phone home. Leslie stayed out until 1:30 a.m., and in a world still without pocket cell phones, she never telephoned.

  A male friend of Leslie’s walked her home. When they arrived at her house, everybody had gone to sleep. Her friend wanted to wait until she went inside, but Leslie assured him that she would go in through the side door, which was always left open. She told him to go home. Alone, she discovered that both the side and back doors were locked. Leslie used to have a key, but when she ran away her parents had changed the locks on the doors. When Leslie returned home, they had not given her a new key. It was an oversight that cost their daughter her life.

  Afraid that her mother would not let her go to the funeral the next day because of how late she was getting home, Leslie decided not to wake her parents up. At 2:00 a.m., using a public phone near their house, Leslie phoned her friend at whose house she had previously stayed. She wanted to go over and stay the night there, but her friend’s mother would have to get up and drive over to pick Leslie up. That was not a good idea, the two girls agreed. At about 2:20 a.m. Leslie hung up the phone and walked back to her house. She sat down on the family’s picnic bench out back and must have been wondering what to do next when Bernardo emerged out of the shadows.

  Standing before her was a handsome, blond, young man with an angelic face. Leslie asked, “What are you doing here?” Bernardo told her that he was burglarizing houses in the neighborhood.210

  The rebellious 14-year-old’s response was, “Cool.”

  They chatted for a while and Leslie explained to Bernardo that she was locked out of her house. She then asked Bernardo for a cigarette. Paul replied that he had some in his car, which was parked on the next street. They walked over to his vehicle. Bernardo invited her to sit down inside his car. She agreed, but cautiously told him that she would keep the door open. She sat in the passenger seat with her legs dangling out on the road, smoking the cigarette that Bernardo had given her. He sat in the driver’s seat. At one point, Leslie turned toward the open door to blow some smoke out. At that instant Bernardo struck like a snake: He leaned over and placed a knife around her throat and ordered her to lift her legs into the car. Bernardo then pushed her into the rear seat, blindfolded her, and threw a blanket over her. He then calmly drove thirty-five miles back to his home at Port Dalhousie, assuring Leslie that if she did everything he told her, no harm would come to her.

  As soon as Bernardo got Leslie into the house, he set up his videocamera and began taping his beating, raping, sodomizing, and tormenting the girl. As the video camera rolled, Leslie was punched, slapped, her nipples were twisted by Bernardo, she was forced to urinate before the camera, to perform fellatio (with warnings from Bernardo not to scratch him with her braces), and was repeatedly raped and sodomized. She was blindfolded all the time. Fearing that she would be killed if she got another look at her assailants, every time the blindfold came loose, Leslie would alert Bernardo. She is seen in the video begging Bernardo not to kill her and cries that she desperately wants to see her baby brother again.

  During this time Karla sat downstairs reading the Bret Easton Ellis novel, American Psycho. Occasionally, when called, she would go upstairs and hold the videocamera while Bernardo repeatedly raped the girl. When asked in court during her cross-examination how she could possibly read while a girl was being tortured and raped upstairs, Karla missed the point of the question and incredulously replied that she was easily capable of doing two things at once.

  It would be pointless, cruel, and perhaps even immoral to dwell on the detailed transcripts of the torture and rape inflicted on Leslie Mahaffy. From the video transcripts already quoted here, one can easily surmise what Karla and Bernardo put the girl through and what was said. If any reader should need the exact details of what was on the videotapes, they can refer to Toronto crime reporter Nick Pron’s book, Lethal Marriage. Pron made the difficult decision to publish the transcripts in their entirety, and one such source should be enough.

  Leslie Mahaffy suffered for nearly twenty-four hours. Sometime in the middle of the night, while Leslie lay handcuffed in th
e bedroom upstairs, Bernardo and Homolka went down to the kitchen and had a conference. There was a problem: It was Father’s Day and Karla’s parents were expected for dinner later in the day, their first visit to the house Karla and Paul had recently rented. According to Karla, Bernardo decided that he had to kill Leslie because she would identify him if he let her go. Homolka says that she insisted on going upstairs and feeding Leslie sleeping pills so she would not feel anything when she died. Karla gave Leslie a teddy bear named Bunky that Bernardo had given her, to comfort the girl as she curled up in a fetal position and went to sleep. Then, Homolka says, Bernardo entered the room with a black electric cord, wrapped it around Leslie’s throat, and strangled her. A pool of urine formed under Leslie as she died on the carpeted floor of the Bernardo’s bedroom.

  Bernardo ordered Homolka to destroy the pillowcases and blanket stained with Leslie’s blood. Homolka argued that they were her favorite set of bedding. She would carefully wash them instead.

  Bernardo took Leslie’s body down to the basement and hid it in a cool corner. Then the couple went to bed to sleep as Leslie’s urine dried on their floor. Bernardo let Karla sleep in the bed that night. They got up toward noon and Karla bustled about preparing dinner for her parents. When the Homolkas arrived, Bernardo took them for a tour of the house, carefully avoiding the basement where Leslie’s body still lay.

  On Monday morning, while Homolka went back to work at the clinic, Bernardo set up a clear plastic sheet in the form of a tent in the basement. He lined the bottom of it with sheets of newspaper. He then dragged Leslie’s body into the tent and carved it into ten pieces with a power saw. The entire interior of the tent was splattered from top to bottom with blood, tissue, and body fluid, which spilled out from the corpse. The electric saw was caked in flesh and bone. Bernardo attempted to wash it clean in the sink, but only succeeded in clogging up the drain with body matter.