Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka (The Ken and Barbie killers) - Part 1

0:00 Hi, I'm Tina and I'm Rich. And if there's one thing we've learned in over twenty years of marriage, it's that there's some days you'll feel like killing your wife and some days you'll feel like killing your husband. Welcome to love, Mary Kill Hey Rich, Hey Tina. How are you. I'm doing pretty good. How are you? I'm good. We were getting this one in by the by the skin of our teeth, of our teeth, that's that. I couldn't think of it. I'm so tired. It's a weird phrase, it is. Yeah, I've been. I've been a little worried about you, a little worried that this, this case is the one that's finally going to break you. It came close, Yeah, right through it. Yet we are not through it yet. I'm hoping to say goodbye to it today. It's a little long. It's going to be two parts because we've never done a three part I don't I don't think we planned to do any three parts. Had a hard time sleep being this week, yeah, because I was up working late and then really the case material just wait on me. So yesterday when I was at Target, I bought the goalie Dreamy sleep gummies and I think it was a combination of not sleeping well all week and taking this. But man, I'm still I feel like I'm still not awake. I made you take one and you seem fine. Yeah, I mean I slept good, but I feel I feel fine today. I'm not gruggy. Well, And you asked me what was in them, and I said, lemon balm, botanicals, magnesium, and vitamin D. But

1:33 then I missed the melatonin. There was there is melatonin in them, but ACKed me out pretty good. Well, he probably needed it, I think. But yeah, I think it was a combination of just being kind of sleep deprived and yeah, so I'm not I guess I recommend them. Saw the Barbie movie yesterday, oh yeah, which is a lead into our case today. Oh Ken and Barbie Killers. Oh boy. Yeah, I'm so. I'm still dumb. And I thought oh would be cute because I didn't know about the case, and I was like, I don't know what I thought it was, but it's horrible. Yeah, I know, I don't I don't know. I know a little bit about it just from years ago.

2:14 I remember hearing about it, and it's one of the most horrible cases I remember every yea, if you thought about doing this case, bread about it, and then decided not to do it, very smartly, right exactly. I go for the simpler, the easier cases that are true, but this one is particularly horrible, which leads me to reading you this content. Warning listener, discretion is advised for today's episode. While most of our episodes contain violent and graphic content, today's episode is particularly disturbing, containing graphic sexual content, including underage rape and extreme domestic violence. Please listen with care. Good advice. Oh yeah, so our Canadian friends, this case occur, you know, happens in in Canada, not that far from us, really, So I know that Canadians know this case super well. And I think if you my impression that if you go to Canada and you tap anyone on the shoulder and say, hey, can you tell me about Paul Bernardo and Carlo Homoka, they'll punch you in the face and be like, I don't ever want to talk about that again. So Canadian friends, I totally understand.

3:21 Just skip this one. You skipped this one, It's okay because I know you know the story well. I don't know what I would compare it to in the United States, because I mean Canada, there's there's in general just less violence, but maybe Ted Bundy. Yeah, kind of on that level of fame, yeah, or infamy. Yeah. Well. Paul and Paul Bernardo and Carlo Homoka were dubbed the Kennon barbie Killers by the media because they were both attractive and blonde. They were Canadian couple responsible for a series of horrifying crimes in the late nineteen eighties and early nineteen nineties. They're attractive and seemingly normal appearance mass their depravity, and they engaged in a spree of kidnapping, sexual assaults, and murders, primarily targeting young women. The case gained significant media attention due to the brutality of their crimes, Carla's controversial plea deal, and the shocking revelation that she had been a willing participant in the heinous acts alongside her husband. The Barbie Killer's case remains one of Canada's most notorious and disturbing criminal Sagas, I just wanted to give you a little yeah, can't wait. Yeah, but we haven't had snack time yet. Alight after after you've laid the groundwork there and talked about how disturbing and horrible this is going to be. Let's let's just take a quick break and have a snack. Instant, well, you know, we gotta have her snack.

4:41 So probably about a month ago, I saw we're big fans of the Great British Great British Baking Show is a great show. Yeah, okay, I didn't know. It depends on where you watch it, and if you watch it in Europe it's called the Great it's called something else I can't remember. Ba. Yeah, but we're big fans of that show. And I saw on Instagram that Paul and Prue are taste testing twinkies at Hohes, so we thought we would do that too, and their reaction was like, oh, this is disgusting and we hate it. And yeah, So because this is a two parter, I thought we do twinkies and one and the other one.

5:24 I think we should do them both and compare, because we should compare, or say who which one we prefer. I don't have a snack for the second episode, so let's just do one and then we'll do the other and then we'll compare. All right, fine, I know everyone knows what a goddamn tweaky taste like. But all right, we'll take a quick break. All right, So we tried the twinkie, and I'll just say, I'm a twinkie man. You are a twinkie manes, But no, I grew up. I love Twinkies and I still enjoy them. You know. I have bought them over the years here and there. I don't think I've eaten one in ten years. I'm not a Twinkie fan. I bought them for you and the kids, for lunches and whatever. But I have to say the twinkie was better than I thought it was going to be. Kind a delightful light sponge to it. Sponge is good, but it's the cream.

6:18 The cream is well, yeah, the cream is it's just kind of coach your mouth and it's kind of gross. There's a lot of preservatives and stuff in there. I'm sure how you think I still like them. So we've been doing some ad swaps with some of our fellow hardworking podcasters, and we have one today from our friend Debbie, Professor Debbie at True Crime University. And I love Debbie. I think she does such a fabulous job. I love her voice, her content is great. I love the fact that she gets into like the why of why criminals do what they do kind of more of the psychology aspect of it, which I think is really interesting. Yeah, that's yeah, she's great. So let's let's run Debbi's promore real quick. So you like to listen to people talk about crime, but did you ever wonder why criminals do the things they do? Like what makes them tick? My name is Debbie and I'm a professor at True Crime University.

7:10 Join me in the classroom Thurst Days wherever you get your podcasts for intellectual discussions about crime, psychology and why criminals do what they do. See you there, So give Debbie listen. This morning I listened to her Guy Family Murders Updated episode, and I think she's great. So give Debbie listen. So we here at Love Mary Kill are about to hit a very significant milestone for us. We're about four thousand downloads away. So if you have to listen twice this week to our episode to get us to the next one. Now, of just kidding, but it's pretty exciting. It is. It's really way beyond what I think either of us ever expected. Well, now people are gonna be like, oh, they're gonna hit a billion downloads. It's it's much much, much much lower than that. But to us, it's it's exciting, it's significant, and as always, obviously it's all because of our awesome listeners who put up with us. We have the best listeners.

8:09 We have the best listeners and the best cats. That just came into the room and I was going to mention to our thunderstorms in the area again, Yeah, a lot of rain. All right, Well, I guess I can't put it up any longer. I think it's time. It's time. All right, We're all in this together. We're going to get through it. Carla leean Hamolka was born May fourth, nineteen seventy to Dorothy and Carol. Carol was an immigrant from Czechoslovakia and worked as a salesman. Carla and her two younger sisters, Lori and Tammy, grew up in Saint Catharine's, Ontario, about twenty minutes northwest of Niagara Falls. I've spent a lot of time in Saint Catharine's, have you really. I used to work for General Motors and they have a they have a plant there and I went there quite a bit. When I was back around the time we started dating. Okay, I vaguely remember that. Can you say anything about Saint Catherine's. It's a cute little there's like a little town area. I think it's called Niagara on the Lake, and it's really just a cute, adorable, quaint little town. We have never gone. I have never seen the falls from the Canada side. I've seen them from the US side, and you and I think other people say that the Canada view is much better. Do I.

9:26 I don't remember that, but I may have said that at one point in my life we should do that. Can you tell that I'm procrastinating. They were a close knit family who liked to have fun together, and the girl's friends were always welcome. Carlo was loud, expressive, and stubborn. She was smart and pretty too. She made demands and sometimes swore at her parents, which often shocked her friends. She was quick tempered with her friends too. She marained friends easily, but wasn't afraid to cut them loose if they made her mad. And Carlo had her own fashioned sense. She was a natural blonde, but changed her hair color off into a rain bow of colors. She wore lots of jewelry and bells on her shoes. Her signature fashion was wearing long underwear under boxer shorts, which was different from most of the kids at her school who wore preppier styles. She was, I guess a little gotha. A lot of kids thought she was weird yet unique, but she didn't really care what the other kids thought about her. When she was sixteen, Carla got a part time job at a pet store. She loved animals and wanted to be a veterinarian or a police officer. Rats, hamsters, two rabbits, and a cat all came home with Carla from her job at the pet store. She was a little on the wild side, and she was the first of her friends to get a fake ID. Carla lost her virginity to a male friend in Kansas when she went to visit him.

10:46 She later told her friends that they had done cocaine and he had tied her up and beat her while having sex. Carla was nonchalant about the incident, which alarmed her friends, who worried about how easily she could be influenced by a man. Paul Kenneth Bernardo was born August twenty seventh, nineteen sixty four in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada, about thirty miles outside of Toronto, to Kenneth and Marylyn Bernardo. Have you been to Scarborough? Never been to Scarborough? You've been to Toronto. Marylyn, who had been adopted by a wealthy lawyer and his wife as a baby, wanted to marry her high school sweetheart, but her father wouldn't allow it because he didn't come from a good family and he had few career options, so she settled for Ken Bernardo, who was going to college to become an accountant, and her father approved of him.

11:37 Ken's father was an Italian immigrant and his mother was English. What Maryland's father didn't know was that Ken's father was an alcoholic and abusive to his family. David, the oldest Bernardo child, was born in nineteen sixty two, and Debby came along in nineteen sixty three. Paul was actually the product of an affair Maryland had with her high school sweetheart, but Ken Bernardo was listed as his father on the birth certificate, so somehow, yeah, somehow, he made peace with it, or did he. Paul would not know this until he was much older. The Bernardos struggled financially while Ken finished his accounting degree. But a year after Paul was born, they were able to afford a house in a nice, family oriented neighborhood. They bought a second car and built a pool. From the outside, looking in, they seemed to be a happy family, but they were secrets brooding behind their front door, and the house was full of misery. Ken sexually abused his daughter Debbie, sometimes in front of other family members. I know, I thought that couldn't be true, but I corroborated it with several different sources. That's very disturbing, so disturbing. Ken kept Maryland on a strict budget. She never spent money on herself. She became with John and depressed, and over time she became morbidly obese and was subjected to daily name calling and ridicule by her husband.

12:58 Neighbors were put off by the odd couple. They just seemed there was just something weird about them, despite Ken's meticulous dress and hygiene. But Paul, from an early age, was charming and handsome, with bright blue eyes and dimples. People were just drawn to him. He spent more time at his friend's houses than his own. Marilyn didn't have much interest in making meals or nurturing the children. Opening cans of spaghetti or soup for dinner was usually what she did. Ken frequently yelled and criticized the children. Marilyn, around nineteen seventy, found her birth family in nearby Kitchener, Ontario, and began spending more and more time getting to know her sisters, even renting an apartment there, often spending weekends away from her husband and children. When she was home, she slept in the basement. She began seeing a psychiatrist around this time, but it's not clear if this helped her. She was never a very pleasant person, but who could blame her. Her husband was pretty horrible.

13:56 Yeah, this whole thing so far sounds like a recipe for how to make a psychopath. I think that's true. Paul was a good student, industrious and a hard worker. He was a boy scout and played sports, but he wasn't a great athlete. He always had a big idea and a scheme. He and his friends started a business when they were in high school, digging up and selling worms. When Paul was about sixteen, during a heated argument with his mother, she called him a bastard and told him that he was the result of the affair. He didn't know that until this point. Paul was stunned, but suddenly he understood why his father treated him with such vitriol. The neighborhood watch in the Bernardo's neighborhood had been on high alert after some young several young girls reported seeing a man peeping into their windows at night. Oh, that's so creepy. It became habitual, and some neighbors recognized the peeper as Ken Bernardo. They called the police, who said, quote, peeping Tom's are harmless ute. But in nineteen seventy five, he was arrested and charged with fondling a young girl. Not risingly, Paul's siblings, David and Debbie, moved out of the Bernardo home as soon as they turned eighteen. Jeez, Paul and his friends became Amway salesman. Do you remember Amway? I do remember Amwai. How could I forget? What do you remember about Amway? Well, I had a friend in business school that called me up one day and said, Hey, I've cut this business proposition.

15:22 And I was just fresh out of business school and I'm like, cool, it sounds interesting. And I went to his house and within five minutes I realized it was an away pitch, and I got up and left. I don't remember that at all. I had a friend also that did the same thing to me. So if you don't know, AMWI and short for American Way, it's an MLM founded in nineteen fifty eight by Jay Van Andel and Richard Devas in the Great State of Michigan, selling cleaning, health and beauty products. Amway has fought and settled many lawsuits through the years, paying tens of millions of dollars in settlements that claim it operates as a pyramid scheme. In twenty nineteen, Amway made guess how much am we made in twenty nineteen. That's the latest figure. Oh, I don't know. Two billion dollars, nine billion dollars operated, operating in over one hundred countries. I think we could do a whole episode at the Amway. But I've been to Amway headquarters. Well it's it's not far from here. I think it's like an hour and a half from here. Yeah. Well, why were you at? Did you? They were a customer of a software company that I worked for not long ago. Oh? Interesting, Yeah, what did you?

16:30 I should know this story. Did anything interesting happen or no, not really. We just had some meetings out there and you were, okay, working with a multi level marketing. They're good, good paying customer. You gotta gotta take it where you can get here and here in Michigan, the DeVos family is well known for a lot of little controversial well and Betsy Divos was one Donald Trump's Secretary of Education. Somewhat controversial secretary of Education. Let's say Paul loved the idea of selling p well better versions of themselves. He was good at sales and talking to people. He also enrolled in the Dale Carnegie How to Make Friends and Influence People course and became entranced by tell evangelist Jim Baker, even becoming a card carrying member of the PTL. Wow, do you know what PTL stands for? Praise the Lord? Okay, how did you have that so quick? As the ready? You were like, praise the Lord? I say it stands for past the loot or paid to flye. There's another episode we should do, so episodes we could do.

17:37 We have job security here, well, not that no one killed it, but a good scam to me is really interesting to like the MLM stuff, and not that Paul was religious, but he was fascinated with Jim and Tammy's ability to get people to trust them and hand over their money. Paul was able to use his newly found charm and persuasiveness to win over the ladies. Well. Still in high school, Paul and his friends liked to make up elaborate lies to woo the ladies. He was good looking, smooth, and always well dressed, and he knew it. In nineteen eighty three, he graduated from high school. Under his yearbook photo it read stud We'll remember Laurier. That was the high school human too, where he pursued his favorite pastime, meeting females. He plans to become rich and famous. Oh he sure did become famous so he can go to California and quote meet the girls on the beach. Paul says, the only way to get through life is to go for it. Peebe's activities are swimming, working late nights, and staying out even later. He plans to go into commerce, probably at the uf T University of Toronto. Great guy, right, Yeah, Paul Bernardo was ahead of his time. He bought a cam quarter and began recording everything and everyone in his life. Despite hating his father and declaring at a young age he'd never be an accountant, Paul enrolled at the University of Toronto in the fall, majoring in accounting. The two things that were most important to Paul were making money and getting girls to sleep with him. Paul's boyish good looks

19:07 and quick smile made him irresistible to women, but it soon became apparent to his friends that he was becoming cocky and abusive to them. He used them and quickly discarded them. He was especially fond of virgins. As Paul gained sexual experience and confidence, he became rougher and more aggressive with his partners. He enjoyed playing sado masochistic games. He had a few serious girlfriends, but always cheated on them while they were captivated by him. Paul, along with a couple of his childhood friends, Van and Steve, began operating a scheme buying and selling stolen goods along with check writing fraud. Despite doing well in his professional career, he had landed a job as a junior accountant at Price water House Cooper after his graduation from the University of Toronto in nineteen eighty seven.

19:56 He was smart and good at his job, dressed in flashy, expensive suits, and drove a nice car in an attempt to impress co workers and of course girls. What do you think of Paul so far? I don't like him. You don't like him. I don't like him? Why don't you like him? Kind of know how this is going to turn out, but but I do. I also feel like he had a really bad upbringing, not that that excuses what he later did, but he's smug and cocky and just all about the outward yeah impression that he's making on people. I always wonder about someone like that too, that. I mean, he has a lot going for him. He's smart, he's doing he seems like he's moving in the right direction of his career, and yet he chooses to do things like, you know, right, bad checks and traffic, stolen goods and what you're going to get into later. I'm sure, but it just you just wonder why somebody you know decides to take that route when they've got a lot going for them. He liked to make fast, easy money.

20:52 Yeah. In October seventeenth, nineteen eighty seven, Paul twenty three and his friend Van went to their usual one of their usual hangouts, the Howard Johnson Restaurant in Scarborough, good old Hojo's. Yeah remember Hojo's vaguely? Yeah, I don't really. I mean I just remembered seeing them everywhere, kind of ubiquitous and may Ad met and they were on It was on math so a lot of people might know it from that, but it was a hotel and usually there was like a restaurant, like a kind of a diner attached, right. Wasn't it like a cracker barrel or something, wasn't it. I don't really remember it. I don't know if I probably ate it one, but but they were just kind of all over, remember, Okay, So when we used to drive to Chicago all the time, like the desk planes oways, I think that used to be Howard Johnson's and then it became a McDonald's. Like when I was a little kid, I think it was Howard Johnson's. Someone can tell me if I'm wrong, but I remember that being in Howard Johnson's, but I don't think we ever went there. The Howard Johnson Restaurant had a hotel attached that seventeen year old Carla and her friend Debbie Purdy, were staying out for the week again for a pet convention along with the manager of the store they worked at called Number One Pet Store and Saint Catharine's. So it just was kind of odd to me that the manager of the store was like, Yeah, I'm gonna take these two seventeen fields with the convention to the convention with me. Paul and Van walked into the restaurant, and as soon as Paul and Carla locked eyes, it was love at first sight. They made small talk, but within the hour they were having sex in the hotel room while their friends awkwardly tried to make a connection of

22:26 their own on the uncomfortable pullout sofa while Paul and Carla ravaged each other's bodies just a few feet away within an hour of meeting. Yeah that's fast. Yeah, so, and the friends like, I don't know why the friends would be like, yeah, let's go. Maybe they thought they were going to hit it off better than they did. But the friends ended up falling asleep in the same room and Carla and Paul allegedly had sex for four hours. They became obsessed with each other and despite the six year age gap, like a ninety minute they lived ninety minutes apart they began dating. So how would you feel if our seventeen year old started dating at twenty three year old?

23:10 I don't think i'd be too happy about it. Like, she's a junior in high school, right, and he's a college graduate. Yeah, it's a little bit lucky. I guess there's five years between us, not right, But we didn't start dating until you were a little bit older than seventeen exactly. So. Paul lived in Scarborough, about an hour and a half from Saint Catharine's, where the Homolkas lived. He would come visit Saint Catharine's multiple times a week to see Carla. The Homolkas liked Paul and eventually relented and let him spend the night on the couch so he wouldn't have to drive back and forth. They called him their weekend son. But he wasn't fooling anyone when he stuck snuck into Carla's bedroom at night and reappeared on the couch before the family woke up. But after several months of dating, Paul was allowed to sleep in Carla's room. Laurie and Tammy, Carla's sisters, loved Paul. They thought of him as the brother they never had. Emmy and Paul had an unusually tight bond. Paul was a perfect doating boyfriend.

24:04 He bought Carla expensive gifts, frequently bought her flowers, and called her daily. That's called love bombing. Do you know what love bombing is? It didn't, but I think I know now. Carla was in deep and her friends and family knew it. She talked incessantly about how wonderful Paul was and how well he treated her. So if someone's talking all the time about how well someone's treating them, you have to kind of wonder. Carlo's friends met Paul and couldn't help wondering why a twenty three year old college graduate would want to date a girl in high school. Crax began to show in their relationship, though, and Carlo's friends wondered if Paul was too controlling. Carla wanted to cut her hair short, but Paul wanted it long. He didn't like her to wear clothing that was too revealing or not in his preppy fashion.

24:51 Carla began eating less and losing weight, even though she was already at a healthy weight. Carlo's friends saw a pair of handcuffs in her bedroom, and when asked about them, Carla just laughed it off and said Paul liked to do kinky things in the bedroom. A friend also found a note Carlo had written to herself and in her bedroom, titled Carla's self improvement List. The list included reminders to eat healthy, exercise, practice good hygiene, but included more disturbing items such as never let anyone know a relationship as anything but perfect. Don't talk back to Paul. Always smile when you're with Paul. Be a perfect girlfriend for Paul. If Paul asks for a drink, bring him one quickly and happily. Remember you're stupid, Remember you're ugly, Remember you're fat. I don't know why I tell you these things, because you never change. Obviously Paul had dictated these things, and Carla had written them down.

25:45 Yeah, there's some morning signs right there. Lots of red flags. Paul's favorite things about Carlo were her malability and her slavish devotion to him. She never said no to him. One thing that bothered him was that she hadn't been a virgin with they met, because I remember, he's obsessed with virgins. Carla had only one other partner, but Paul hated that another man had claimed her virginity. He was obsessed with innocent, virginal girls. Sometimes he made Carlo put her hair and pigtails and dressed like a schoolgirl. Carlo, however, was one hundred percent de voted to Paul and never looked at another boy. But Paul had another girlfriend in Scarborough and went to clubs and picked up girls there too. He wasn't seatiable. Helmolka family quickly embraced Paul.

26:30 He became another member of the family. As soon as he walked in the door, Carol would present him with a beer. Everyone felt comfortable around him, especially Tammy. Paul was obsessed with Tammy. She was cute, with blonde hair and a good sense of humor. She looked a lot like Carla, but had a sweet innocence about her. Sometimes she would sit on Paul's lap, which Carlo really didn't like. Tammy was just beginning to date, and Paul was concerned at the thought of someone else taking Tammy's virginity. How old was Fammy? She was about thirteen or fourteen, okay. In May nineteen eighty nine, on Carlo's nineteenth birthday, Paul gave her a promise ring. They seemed to be very much in love and couldn't wait to be married. Carlo was accepted to the University of Toronto, but declined because Paul said it was a waste of money and that he'd take care of her.

27:17 She began working full time at a veterinary clinic. Did I say it right? This time? We usually I'd have the emphosis on the wrong Salabel. Will you say it veterinary? Veterinary? Yeah, perfect, perfect. It's not clear what happened, but Paul stopped working at Price Waterhouse. He had been studying hard for the Certified Accountants in exam, but he failed at three times. That's a really hard exam, though, right, most people fail at the first time or two. I'm sure it is. Yeah. In December nineteen eighty nine, just before Christmas, Paul proposed to Carla at the Niagara Festival of Lights. He dropped down on one knee in front of the Nativity scene. Carlo said, yes, of course. Paul had difficulty finding a steady job. He was surviving on his unemployment checks and seven nearly maxed out credit cards. He owed over twenty five thousand dollars forty eight thousand dollars today in Canada's at Yeah, it wasn't cheap being Paul Bernardo. He was still dividing his time between Scarborough and Saint Catharine's and dating multiple women. And when I say dating women, he did have like a couple of girlfriends that he had on the side, but he also was going out and meeting as many women as possible. Paul was granted bankruptcy protection, but opened new credit cards in Carla's name. And this is the time when he bought a video camera and began filming everything and everyone in his life. He didn't leave home

28:48 without it. By this time he had mostly moved in with the Homolka family and he loved filming them, especially Tammy. Okay, now we're going to talk about this Scarborough rapist for a second. The Scarborough rapists first known attack was on May fourth, nineteen eighty seven, when a young woman was getting off a bus just steps from her home. Her attacker grabbed her from behind and dragged her to some trees. She was able to escape and ran to her house. She banged on the door, her father opened it and he scared off the attacker. Ten days later, he struck again in the same neighborhood, grabbing a twenty two year old woman from the shadows after she had exited the bus, raping her on the ground hidden by trees. Neither victim had seen the man's face, but told police he talked a lot and called them names like slut and horror. Police increased their presence in the area and the attack stopped for about seven months until December sixteen, when a fifteen year old girl was attacked on a cold winter night, and on December twenty third, another woman was attacked, but she screamed and the rapist ran away again.

29:52 There was a long period of no attacks, but in April eighteenth, nineteen eighty eight, he struck again, raping a nineteen year old woman who had just gotten off the bus. So that was kind of his mode of operation. He would, you know, attack It kind of seemed to be in the same neighborhood and like to get the girls as they were coming off the bus. And usually the attacks happened outside, and they happened like the rapes were kind of long. They were sometimes like an hour or more. Yeah, it's horrible. In November, he attacked an eighteen year old woman. The police were able to piece together some patterns of the rapist. He liked the victims to tell him that they loved him, and he would look through their purses and take an idea or some other souvenir, and he would threaten to come back and find them if they called the police. Sounds like you also liked them fairly young. He did like them young. And I should also say like, there's a there's a lot. I didn't cover all of them, and I'm also trying to not go into great detail here, but also when there's times that there's breaks, I think it's possible if there were some rapes that were unreported. Yeah, female police officers rode the bus to lure the rapists to no avail. From victim swabs, police were able to discern that the rapist was a non secret meaning his sweat and saliva wouldn't reveal his blood type, which is a trait of only twenty percent of the population, resulting in the police taking lots of saliva samples from suspects. As

31:23 time went on, the rapists grew confident that he'd never be caught and became more aggressive, and he held knives to the women's throats and sometimes stab them. The rapists struck again in June, August, November, and twice in December, with police and residence becoming seemingly scared and frustrated. Fears increased that the rapists would become a serial killer, gaining confidence after evading capture for so long. Can you imagine living during that time and having like just these rapes just keep happening and happening, and there I think a minimum of fourteen pssibly as many as thirty. It's terrifying. And that's not a big city, right, I mean, I don't know how big Scarborough is, but it's definitely not like Toronto or you know somewhere like that. Yeah, it's on the outskirts of Toronto. Finally, in May twenty sixth, nineteen ninety, he attacked a woman who was able to get a good look at him.

32:15 She had described him as eighteen to twenty two, about six feet tall, tanned, clean shaven, sandy blonde hair, muscular with light eyes. A composite sketch was created, resulting in thousands of tips. Hundreds of men were brought into police stations, for saliva samples. The non secrets were subjected to further fingerprinting and DNA testing. This drastically increased the workload of the already overworked and understaffed Center of Forensic Sciences or the CFS. Are you following so far? Yeah? I think so. Do you think you could crack this case wide opened? Because you probably know who the Scarboard rapist is already. I think it might be one Paul Bernardo. That's just my theory. I think you're you're onto something there. Veil Smurtus, Paul's best friend, was shown the sketch by his father, and Van was gobsmacked. When he saw the picture, it looked just like Paul. He was shocked and uncertain what to do. He called another friend to tell him his suspicions, and the friend called Paul. A furious Paul called Van and denied knowing anything about the Scarborough rapist. Sometime later, Van's brother's wife called the police and told them Paul should be investigated. The Paul asked him to asked Paul to come in and provide a DNA sample, which he did. His sample was sent to the CFS, along with sixteen hundred other samples at that time there were only there was only one qualified technician who could analyze the samples, resulting in a huge backlog of untested specimens. The Scarborough rapists committed at least fourteen rapes over a

33:45 four year period, and there were probably several women that never reported their attack. Wow, oh, it's just oh, it's so frustrating because he could have been caught at this point. Do you think that would And then he said, like, because there was only you know, one or two people that could could analyze those specimens, couldn't you hire a couple more people, you would think, And maybe that was just you know, the DNA analysis was just kind of I think that's just a problem. There just wasn't enough people. Right. So on December twenty third, the mood and the okay this, I know we gave a content warning. This next section is I mean, the rest of the whole rest of what I'm gonna tell you was all from here on out. It's it's it's all bad. In December twenty third, nineteen ninety, the mood and the homocal house was jovial. Dorothy was busy making Christmas cookies while the rest of the family were having drinks and celebrating in front of the Christmas tree, and Paul was filming the festivities.

34:49 Tammy was just one week away from her sixteenth birthday and she was allowed to have a couple of drinks, but she drank much more after her parents went to bed. She had had a couple of strawberry Dakirie's, two glasses of champagne, spiked eggnog, and wine. Only two people were awake at one twenty am when emergency services arrived at the Humulka residence, with firefighters and police, awakening the rest of the confused family. Tammy was not breathing. She had choked on her own vomit, and blizzard like weather had caused the emergency response team to take a little longer than usual. It was too late by the time they arrived. Tammy died. Paul and Carlo said they'd fallen asleep on the couch watching a movie. Tammy was lying on the love seat when she started wheezing, and the noise woke Carla and Paul, and they called ninety one one after she became unresponsive. Police noted that Carla had put a comforter and blanket in the washing machine destroying eddy evidence. Paul and Carlo's story was suspicious. They alleged that they were woken when Tammy was throwing up on the couch, but she was found in Carla's bedroom on the floor when the paramedics arrived. There were some range and tense burns on Tammy's face, however that no one could explain. One mark went from her mouth to her left ear. There was another mark under her nose and one on her shoulder.

36:09 Paul said it could be yrogburn from when they dragged Tammy into Carlo's bedroom, but they dragged her on her face, the officers thought it looked more like she had been freebasing cocaine. Tammy wasn't wearing a bra or underwear, and there was a sanitary pad in her sweatpants. The autopsy found that Tammy died after she had aspirated on her own. Vomit fluid had entered her lungs and cut off her breathing and caused cardiac arrest. The tax screen revealed only trace amounts of alcohol and no drugs. It was determined that the burns around her mouth were caused by vomit, but not really. It would be discovered years later Carlo's trial that she had stolen healthy end pills, which are used to induce sleep, and hallow thane, a clear, odorless anesthetic liquid, the Animal clinic. She had spiked Tammy's eggnog with the helcyon, and after Tammy was unconscious, she ampalled it unspeakable sex acts to her while Carla held a rag soaked with hallo fane to her mouth a nose, which caused the burns.

37:15 Hallo Fane drastically depresses respiration and heart rate. It's no longer used in North America. And helcion is a benzodiazepin that inhibits the nervous system. And these two drugs, along with the alcohol, were probably enough to kill Tammy. And that's not something they tested for obviously, because probably not the hallothane, you know, I think it probably because it's a liquid, it probably evaporates. Well. That is horrific, and some people think that Carla should have known better. She worked at the animal clinic. She used these things all the time, and it's possible that she knew what she was doing. She was tired of Tammy. She was jealous of Tammy. You mean thinking that she wanted to kill Tammy, not just possibly. Here's Paul's official statement to police after Tammy's death. I'm twenty six years of age and reside at twenty one Sir Raymond Drive, West Hill, Scarborough, Ontario with my parents.

38:13 I've been dating Carla Homolka for the past three years and I'm currently engaged to her. On Saturday, the twenty third of December nineteen ninety, I was visiting the Homolka home. I visit there every weekend. Carla and I had been over at the river for about three to four hours on Sunday afternoon. We returned home at approximate least six thirty to seven pm and had supper. After supper was finished, we sat around and talked for a while. Mister and Missus Homolka went down to the reck room. Carlo, Lori, Tammy and I stayed up in the living room and watched TV. We watched a movie that we had rented. While we watched the movie, Carla, Tammy and I had some drinks. I had one or two Caesars, maybe a Rye and Coke and a Rusty Nail which is Scotch and drambooie. Carla and Tammy were drinking Colatta's and Strawberry Jackeris. Tammy had a couple of drinks of My Rusty, of Rusty, My Rusty Nail. She also opened a bottle of champagne. I don't know how much Carlo or Tammy drank of the champagne. I think I had half a glass. Around eleven PM, mister and missus Homolka came upstairs and went to bed. At this time we went downstairs to the wreck room and continued watching the movie. I was sitting on one couch with Carla and Tammy was on the other by herself. Sometime I fell asleep. I was awakened and Tammy was choking. She was lying on her back with her head towards the Christmas tree. She was choking and vomiting.

39:35 I tried to pick her up off the couch, but I was not too successful. I got her off the floor with this part later added by Paul in his own writing, after he had scratched out three and a half lines written by a police officer and administered mouth to mouth resuscitation two or three times. I tried to pick her up and I moved her into Carlo's bedroom On the floor and continued trying mouth to mouth. Carla called nine one one immediately, Paul wrote later, I continued administering mouth to mouth till the fire department arrived. I asked the fireman if he would continue mouth to mouth, and he said yes, So that is all lies. Tammy's death was ruled accidental, which caused some law enforcement to be uneasy, but the devastated family didn't pursue any further investigation. This ruling would come back to haunt law enforcement in the coming months and years to come, but the family was too heartbroken to consider Tammy's death anything but an accident and didn't push for further investigation.

40:32 It's weird too that you said that the talks screen didn't indicate a lot of alcohol in her system, right, Yeah. That surprised me too. Yeah, so that would have been a pretty big red flag to figure out what actually happened. Then I would think, but if you vomited, how you know, does that just still in your bloodstream? Though? I think I would think, Yeah, that I was surprised by that too. Paul had never forgiven Carla for not being a version when they met, so she told Paul that Tammy's virginity could be his Christmas present from her. Because Tammy's virginity was hers to give a Tammy's funeral and the twenty seventh of December, the Christmas gift she would have received were late in her casket, including a Sony walkman and a necklace from Paul. Carla and Paul included letters to Tammy in the casket. Paul's letter read, Dearest Tammy, my dearest little sister.

41:25 Words cannot express the deep sorrow and regret I now feel. You gave me your love and trusted me like your big brother. We shared a lot of good times, and you touched my heart in a way that no one else ever could. I love you, Tammy, I always have and will. I miss you so much and my life will never be the same now that you've gone. If I ever caused you any harm or pain, Tammy, please forgive me. I only wanted the best for you, just for you to be happy and to experience the joys of the world. Please forgive me, Tammy. I'll love you from now till eternity, and I'm looking forward to seeing you again once I die. Love your brother, Paul is Carla's letter, Dear Tammy, I have so much to say to you that words cannot express. I've talked to you every night, and you know how I feel about everything. I won't write everything I want to say. You know it already. I know the card shouldn't be used yet, but I want to give you the thoughts it holds to carry with you. I don't know what that means. I love you deeply and will hold you in my heart forever. All. I love your big sister, Carla XO XO plus ps.

42:22 I love and miss you with all my heart. I hope you're happy and loved and in God's hands. I love you so much, little sister, and can't wait to see you again. All my love, car Yeah. Are you sure how we have these letters? Yeah? I don't know. If she must have been exhumed, oh maybe, And I have not read that anywhere, But that just was what makes sense to me. While she lay in her casket, paul but her Ring, he had owned for years on her finger. He had spent hundreds of dollars on a large heart shaped flower arrangement that was next to her casket, and by all accounts, I mean Paula's disgusting and horrible and don't I'm not giving him any empathy or compassion, but he was. He was heartbroken over her death. In June nineteen ninety one, Leslie Mahaffee fourteen disappeared from Saint Catharine's, Ontario. Leslie was born on July fifth, nineteen seventy six, after her parents, Debbie and Dan, had struggled to conceive after Debby's battle with ovarian cancer. Her brother, Ryan was born seven years later. They adored each other. Even if she wasn't getting along with her parents, Leslie always made time for Bryan.

43:32 Leslie was a pretty girl with long blonde hair and a bright smile. She was smart and well light, with a strong will. Her mother was a teacher and her father was an oceanographer who traveled frequently, leaving Debby a little frazzled and overworked at times. As Leslie reached her teen years, she yearned for her independence and made a series of bad decisions. She was arrest of her shoplifting and then disappeared from her family home. After she was grounded for two weeks, she was found in a motel with an older boy. The police found her and returned her to appearance, only to have her runaway again for six days. The summer had been turbulent, but Debbie was hopeful that with therapy they would get through the rough patch. In June fourteenth, nineteen ninety one, two weeks before her fifteenth birthday, Leslie went to the wake of a classmate and friend, Chris Evans, who had died in a car accident, along with three other teenagers from Saint Catharine's. She promised her mother she would return by her curfew. After the wake, many of the high schoolers gathered in the woods to grieve, drink and smoke. Leslie missed her curfew again. So okay, I just want to stay here in defense of Leslie. I think she was a good kid. She just made some bad decisions. A lot of teenagers too. Those teen years are hard.

44:51 She finally wade it back to her house at about two am and found the doors locked in the house dark. Leslie walked to a nearby pay phone and call her friend Amandad to see if she could spend the night with her. They talked on the phone for about half an hour before Leslie decided that she would go home and face the music ring the doorbell and wake up her parents. The next morning, when Debbie Mahaffey woke Leslie was not home, she didn't worry until the afternoon. She called the police and filed a report. What do you think the police did nothing? Are told her to wait because she had ran away a couple of times. Police assumed she had run away again and didn't take her disappearance disappearance seriously. Leslie's body was found in Lake Gibson on June twenty ninth, nineteen ninety one, the same day as Carla and Paul's wedding. A couple was kayaking and on Lake Gibson near Saint Catharine's and one of their paddles struck a cement block and the shallow water, and they were horrified to find a cement block with partial human remains encased inside, and it was Leslie. Divers would later find nine other cement blocks of varying sizestaining the rest of her remains, the largest weighing over two hundred pounds.

46:06 A night of her disappearance, Paul found here near her home and lured her to his car by offering her a cigarette. He took her home to Carlo where they tortured and raped her vaginally and anally while videotaping the horrific act. It's possible she wouldn't have been killed if her blindfold hadn't slept. Once they knew she could identify them, they decided she needed to be killed. It's unclear how she died, but Carla claims Paul killed her by strangling her with an electric cord. So my heart is broken for poor Debbie Leslie's mom because obviously, had she known that, you know, yeah, she never would She never would have locked the door. So I can't imagine the grief and the regret and the guilt that that woman has suffered after Tammy's death. As the Homolkas went about the hard work of grieving Tammy, they asked Carla if Paul could move back into his parents' house to give them some more space.

47:05 Carla had assumed that she and Paul would continue to live with her parents until their wedding. Paul was so hurt and offended that he and Carla moved into a recently renovated pink Cape Cod house in a nice neighborhood and Port de Lucy, the landlord, would later say that they had been ideal tenants. The couple got a new dog, a rotwhiler they named Buddy. Friends were confused how the couple could continue living their extravagant lifestyle. Despite Paul not having a job, he always seemed to have money. Paul and Van had been smuggling cigarettes from the United States into Canada to make money by not paying the seven percent syntax the Canadian government added to alcohol and cigarettes and other goods. Sometimes things were as much as fifty percent cheaper in the US. One of their customers bought two hundred cartons a week from Paul and Van. They were making about a thousand dollars a week in profits. Paul had special secret panels installed in his car for undetected smuggling boy. Eventually their business doubled. Paul decided it would look better to have Carlo with him in the border crossings, and Carla would come with him and wear sexy outfits trying to distract the border guards.

48:17 So we are about an hour from the Canadian border and we've crossed the border many times, and whenever you crossed it, it's like, oh, do I have drugs in the car? And we don't ever obviously, but you know, you always just get super nervous and we've never had an issue, but they are kind of a bropton. Yeah I had an issue once, did you. Yeah, when I was younger, I crossed the border with a girl that I was dating at the time and two friends of hers and we got stopped and the one friend turned out he was like from another country and he had changed his name and all this stuff, and they were like, pull over over there, and they were not nice at all.

48:57 They searched the car, they were very like they're questioning, was very brusk, rude, and yeah, it wasn't a great experience. No, No, they let us go eventually, but it was uncomfortable. One Again, I'm procrastinating because I don't want to get back to this horrible case. But where we like, there's two ways to get there's the tunnel on the bridge, and you prefer one. You prefer the tunnel tunnel. It's like right downtown, and it's yeah, that's the way most people go. I think. I think one time we were crossing and I had some fruit and they made me throw the fruit away. Oh I don't remember that. I think that was the case. Everything is a blur all right back to the back to the story. Prior to the wedding, friends recall seeing bruises on Carla, and they didn't like the way Paul ordered her around. He'd say things like bitch, get them a drink when they were entertaining friends. Carla wasn't the same happy, go look lucky girl she had once been. She often looked haggard, and her smile wasn't as frequent or bright, and she was shockingly thin at this time. The night of the dress rehearsal was stressful with the homolkas and the Nardo's meeting. Carla and Paul had everyone back to their house for dinner, but strangely, they hadn't prepared enough food, so their friends had to rush out to the store and get more food. The bridal party divided after the dinner. The girls stayed at Paul and Carlo's house and the boys went to a hotel. They went to the bar and as usual, met a group of girls. Paul started making out with one of them and then decided the spur of the moment to take the party back to his house. It was after two am at this point on the day of his

50:30 wedding to Carla and Paul brought the girls back to his house and I think he had sex with one of the girls when a guy. The bridal party was tired and hungover, but the wedding went on as planned. Everyone was on their best behavior. Surprisingly, it was a grand affair. No expense was spared. Under the direction of Paul. He even picked out Carlo's dress and hairstyle. The newly weds rode off into the sunset on a horse driven carriage. The next day they left on a two week honeymoon to Hawaii, where they visited three of the islands. So this is like six months after Tammy's death and then there's this big family wedding and the Homokas weren't super excited about it, but Paul and Carla kind of insisted, no, the wedding must go on. Yeah, it seems a little a little quick for a big, big celebration of it. Yeah it was, and it was a big celebration. It was very expensive, and Carla's parents had just paid for a funeral, and the funerals expensive and they were a little cash strapped, and they did it anyway. In April sixteenth, nineteen ninety two, on a rainy afternoon a few days before Easter, fifteen year old Kristen Dawn French left Holy Cross High School and began the one point two mile walk home from school in Saint Catherine's, Ontario, when someone stopped to ask her four directions.

51:47 Kristen, a pretty girl with bouncy brown hair and big blue, big brown eyes, was an excellent student athlete and all around nice girl. She was an ice skater and on the rowing team. She was like and admired by her peers and adored by her family. Doug French had married his second wife, Donna, after the breakup of his first marriage. He had four children with his first wife and two with Donna, Kristen and Darren, who was two years older and away at college. Doug was a salesman and he came home early because of the coming holiday weekend, and he was Doug was really excited because his other kids were coming and it was going to be a big family Easter. He expected Kristen to be home when he got there, but she was unusually late. Donna arrived home from her secretarial job at around five, and she too became alarmed that Kristen was late. It wasn't like Kristen not to let her parents know her plans. The worried parents called everyone they could think of, but no one knew where Kristen was. At six pm, the Frenches called the police. A shoe, a bass penny loafer, was found in a church parking lot near the French's home, along with a tattered, wet map of Scarborough and a lock of hair appeared to be Kristen's. A woman named Barbara Packham drove by and noticed two people scuffling outside of a white car, but she assumed it was just a couple having an argument. She had dismissed the incident until the next evening when she saw Kristen featured on the news. She was horrified that she could have intervened and immediately

53:20 called the police. But Barbara witnessed was Kristen trying to escape, but Paul had thrown her in the back of a car. The community was devastated. Thousands of people, along with a police joined in the search for Kristen. The town was covered in green ribbons, the color of Kristen's school, symbolizing hope that she would be found. She was found two weeks later by the side of the road in the woods. Her body was intact, but badly beaten and bruised. There were ligature marks around her neck, and her dark hair had been cut short. There was also evidence of sexual assault. Her cause of death was asphyxiation. The police for sure the deaths of Leslie Mahaffey and Kristen French were connected. Residents of Saint Catharine's were on edge. They knew a serial killer was on the loose. Police and FBI thought they were looking for two killers, though the FBI profile speculated that one was the aggressor and the other was more submissive. There weren't many clues in either case for the police to work with. They turned to the public and they fielded over forty four thousand tips, but none of them panned out and the case went cold. You said they found a map of Scarborough with at the location where she was abducted from. You would think they might have started putting two to two and two together with that and the rapist in Scarborough hindsights. Yeah, yeah, I mean they're in ninety minutes away, and I think I think the police thought that the Scarborough rapist was just very isolated in that community and

54:52 hadn't you know, gone any further and the Scarborough at that time though that the rapes had pretty much stopped Scarborough. So it just seems like already there there are a lot of places where this could have been stopped before it got too far. You know. There's just been a lot of a lot of things that were just like, oh, if only this had happened, if only they had looked at the DNA at the time, it breaks sure, it breaks my heart. I mean these, yeah, three girls could could have been saved. Yeah. Yeah, So anyway, I think that's where we're gonna stop. Sorry that was a little ap dropped, but I wasn't sure exactly where we're gonna stop. But I think good time to take a break. Yeah, how you doing hanging in there? It's a horrible story, for sure, but I knew it was going to be, so I braced myself. But yeah, yeah, I know it's I hate I hate it, and I was in too deep. But it couldn't turn around.

55:47 It was like the book I read it was six hundred pages, so like when it started turning horrible, I was like, well and I had we had to finish it. Yeah, I have been. Like I said at the beginning, I'm a little worried about your grasp on sanity over the last few days, but looks like hopefully we're gonna make it through. So you know that one clip of Casey Casum where he like goes off because he has to, like he's talking about someone's dead dog, and then he has do you know what I'm talking about? I do? Yeah. I wondering where this is going. It's quite a transition. Go ahead, well, this is like the transition that I have to make here. It's like, you know, if anyone doesn't know, Casey Kasum used to have a weekly radio show, American Top forty American Top forty. And when I was a kid and I used to listen to everyone did really did everyone listen to it?

56:35 He had the radio voice. You're a pretty good radio voice. I can't do okay, well, and Nursin actually told us the other day that radio voices are out like that old kind of let's just do a radio voice. You're good at voices. I can't do it on demand. The pressure I can't do. I can't deal with that pressure. Okay, Well, you know the old time you kind of radio like the deep kind of you could do it better thing. I come on, just do Welcome to America's Top forty. There you go. That was perfect like that. It wasn't like Casey Kyson yet. But anyway, my point, like this is this famous clip of him, like he starts swearing and saying lots of bad. Yeah, she's just irate because he's talking about like someone dedicated, like people would dedicate a song. Someone dedicated to a song to their dead dog. And then he had to go to an upbeat song and he was like, how you can't expect me? And this is how like I feel today because I'm telling you this horrible story about Paul and Carla, like murdering these beautiful young girls. And now I was just going to tell you about the Barbe movie.

57:37 I would probably give it an you know, it wasn't as it wasn't as fun as I thought it was going to be. It was good. We might have gone in with higher expectations maybe like that sometimes your expectation if it doesn't map to you know, reality. Well, part of my question was like who was the movie for because it definitely wasn't for little girls and it felt like it was a little Well, there was a lesson, you know, kind of like Barbie you can, but that's always been the lesson that Barbie can do everything, So it just felt maybe a little preachy to me. But I love the outfits and set design was really cool, So I recommend it, but I was slightly disappointed. I would probably give it a seven out of ten maybe, but I kind of want to see it again. I would see it again, so then I might have a different impression. So what do you see it with me? I'm asking you on a date. I probably would. I'm not super excited about it. I'm sure it's for seeing. Yeah, I would go. Margot Robbie was I thought she was. She was pretty fabulous. He like Margot Robbie. So you said that with kind of like a creepy, lurrying total of voice.

58:45 She's a good actress, that's what I Oh my god, he is never You're really not a lectuous kind of guy at all. But that's sounded lecherous. That's okay, you're allowed to have questions allowed. Well, I love Ryank Hustling, but this was not his best. He was kind of annoying in the movie. Just my opinion. If anyone wants to let me know your opinion, let me know. See when you come out of those up tempo goddamn numbers. Man, it's impossible to make those transitions, and then you got to go into somebody dying. You know, they do this to me all the time. I don't know what the hell they do it for, but god damn it, if we can't come out of a slow record, I don't understand it is down on the phone. Okay. I want a goddamn concerted effort to come out of a record that isn't a fucking up tempo record. Every time I do a goddamn deaf dedication, now make it.

59:37 And I also want to know what happened to the pictures I was supposed to see this week. This is a god last goddamn time. I want somebody to use his fucking brain to not come out of a goddamn record that is that's up tempo. And I gotta talk about a fucking dog dying. What is this fucking ponderous man, ponderous, fucking ponderous. So that's that's that's all I have right now. I'm trying to, you know, like I have, we have to do the second half of the case, and they're probably going to do this, So she talks a little bit and then come back home. Well, I don't know if I want to detox or if we should just anyway, no one cares. Conversation we should have, but uh, rest in peace Tammy and Leslie and Kristen Source and all the other victims. Yeah, that creepy, creepy, creepy guy. Yeah, horrible evil guy. Well an evil an evil girl too. They're both.

1:00:34 They're both. I think Canadians hate them. I'd be curious, do you hate them both equally? Well, I definitely feel a little more sympathy for Carla because it seems like she was controlled a little bit by Paul. But why I met Canadians not not you? Oh? I really strong. Yeah, I don't really know if I haven't interviewed many Canadians, but I would be curious let us know. Yeah, Yeah, Well, thank you all for listening. We're so grateful for every single one of you. Yeah, and follow us on Instagram or Facebook at love Mary Kill or on Twitter at elm K pod, and feel free to send us case suggestions or feedback or snack suggestions. Email us at Love Mary kill at gmail dot com or via the feedback form on our link tree. And if you like our podcast, give us a rating, a review, or subscribe. You really appreciate that as well. I'm really sorry for putting you all through this episode. She'll really bad. I mean, they're all horrible, but this one just weighs on my heart so heavy. But anyway, anyway, until next time, don't kill your husband and don't kill your wife. It would be discovered.

1:02:22 La la la la la. Well you had that