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61 - The Ken and Barbie Killers
0 Playsin 15 minutes
Sam delves into the twisted and horrifying case of Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo, infamously known as the “Ken and Barbie Killers.” Between 1990 and 1992, this outwardly glamorous couple abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered young girls—including Karla’s own sister—shattering communities and making headlines across Canada.
Visit us on Linktree for the collection of links, Instagram, or email us at jeffandsamshow@gmail.com.
Sam’s sources:
- Killer Queens Podcast – Episode 203: Ken and Barbie Killers: Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo killerqueenspodcast.com
- Ken & Barbie Killers: The Lost Murder Tapes – HBO Max / Hulu The StreamableHBO Max
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Transcript
00:00:00
Jeff Rogers
Hello, Sam. Hi, Jeffrey.
00:00:25
Jeff Rogers
Hello. Welcome to the Jeff and Sam show. I'm Jeff. And I'm Sam. Hey, Sam. Hi, Jeff. How art thou? I'm well. How art thou?
00:00:35
Jeff Rogers
Thou arteth. Fantastic. Especially with that shimmy. i don't know what that's about. I do that sometimes. You do. You know, just random shimmy. Just a random shimmy. Sometimes you gotta shimmy and shake.
00:00:47
Jeff Rogers
You know, sometimes you do. What's new? What's going on? i Today, when we are recording this, I am three days away from hopping on a plane.
00:01:00
Jeff Rogers
Can I be dramatic? You can. She's leaving me. Get it out. She's leaving me. Keep it going. She's leaving me. a little bit more. Sam, you are going to have so much fun. I know. I'll miss you.
00:01:12
Jeff Rogers
So much. I'll miss you. But you know, like we do, I'm going to be stalking your location. Perfect. I need that. I will be. and particularly the moment... like You got to tell me when your plane lands in Switzerland so that I know about an hour from that moment of landing, hour and a half, you're going to have that experience that I've told you about. i know. I'm so excited. If anybody's ever landed in Switzerland.
00:01:34
Jeff Rogers
Zurich. In Zurich, specifically in Zurich, you are greeted on the train. by this beautiful welcome to Zurich. And I've told Sam about it and she's gonna experience that. It's gonna be great.
00:01:49
Jeff Rogers
Honestly, i've heard about it so many times. Sorry. But, like, that's the hype. There's so much hype about this. Yeah, well. I really hope it's there still. You know you're gonna be tired because you've flown all night.
00:02:00
Jeff Rogers
And that will be just one thing that just, like... man Yeah. Peps you up. Guys, you can find us on Instagram and Gmail. It's all listed in the show notes. ah You can recommend us on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, iHeartRadio, wherever everywhere you are.
00:02:14
Jeff Rogers
Okay? And you can listen to us, share us with your friends, write a review, and rate us. Give us five stars. Five stars. Please. How many?
00:02:25
Jeff Rogers
Five. If there's six, you can give us six. I don't think there's six. But if there's six, you can give us six. If there's five, give us five. Yeah, right. We'll take three. we're We're bargaining. Okay, right now we're bargaining. Let's not sell ourselves, though. yeah That's prostitution.
00:02:41
Jeff Rogers
Yes, it is. And I only get paid the big stars, okay? Yeah, so five. Yeah. Five people. um and went walking in the park the other day, this beautiful park beside me. Okay. What day? Like two days ago, right? Okay.
00:02:59
Jeff Rogers
And I'm walking through the park, and it's beautiful, and I get on this one stretch where there's like about a mile to walk, but it's bicycle path and everything, and there was this squirrel.
00:03:11
Jeff Rogers
Oh my God. I didn't know where this was going. Staring at me. And I'm like, what the fuck is this thing looking at? And it's like staring at me. Making eye contact? Making eye contact.
00:03:22
Jeff Rogers
And I'm like, I freeze. And then it walks to me a little bit. It walks closer to me. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to have a moment right now. So I like look around to see how many people are going to watch me have this moment because it's not going to be pretty.
00:03:37
Jeff Rogers
you know what I mean? I can see it unfolding. Picture cam, modern family, screaming. Okay, I was like, squirrel, what are you doing? The squirrel was like, I'm a fuck with you right now.
00:03:49
Jeff Rogers
And I'm like, I can see your whole body. I can see this. This is amazing. Yeah. Keep going. No, that was it. Well, no. So I walked around the squirrel.
00:04:01
Jeff Rogers
The squirrel just watched me walk around it. Were you staring at it the whole time? Yes. yeah Fuck yeah. I was staring at it the whole time. And I'm also trying to like gather how many people are watching me. Cause I'm like, I'm going to do some crazy shit right now. If this thing attacks me, I just think rabies, you know what I mean?
00:04:18
Jeff Rogers
And so but i they get so used to people feeding it. It was like, where's my food, bitch. And yeah. So I walked around the squirrel the whole time. The squirrel.
00:04:30
Jeff Rogers
deadlocked in my eyes and I'm like okay I'm go leave you alone hey and so then when I walked past it i kind of gathered myself I'm like oh I don't think many people survived it you survived but then I kind of wondered about the person behind me because like what about that poor woman you didn't hear anyone screaming did you okay that would have only been me I did not, though. I didn't scream, but I was like, you know, I'm about to act out.
00:04:56
Jeff Rogers
um Okay? um so proud of you. ah I'm so proud of you. You faced that danger. and Faced it head on Survived. And it just stared at me. That was the craziest thing.
00:05:07
Jeff Rogers
Like, I'm watching you. I'm going to torture you. You're going to turn into a flaming queen right now. Not a flaming queen. I almost did. um So that's me. What's new?
00:05:19
Jeff Rogers
um Well, I need to hear your thoughts. Jeff watched We Were Liars. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, We Were Liars on Prime. Sam, I thought for a second you secretly hated me.
00:05:32
Jeff Rogers
Okay, because I thought, this what she knows me. You know me. We do this together. Like, you know so much about me. I'm crazy. And then you had me watching a show that seemed like Young and the Restless meets...
00:05:46
Jeff Rogers
um dawson's dawson's creek i'm like what the fuck is this one of the people actually the characters young people they actually said something to the effect of you think i'm entitled because i own an island uh did you hear you honestly the number of times that you texted me or said something to me like what the fuck did you do why would you why would you make me watch this I don't think I could begin to count.
00:06:15
Jeff Rogers
So i know it was hard. I was devastated. But then, okay. So episode seven and eight, and I'm not going to spoil anything for anybody. But episode seven is where these, it is like watching the Kennedys and Hyannis port grow up.
00:06:31
Jeff Rogers
That's what this is like. Super rich family, rich kids, entitled. like you hate them. Mega rich. But like around episode six or seven, they start to get real messy. Yeah.
00:06:42
Jeff Rogers
And that is good. You know what I mean? It's like there's something satisfying about seeing them fall apart. Crumble. Crumble. And then in eight, I literally cried. i did too. I did. i thought, oh my god.
00:07:00
Jeff Rogers
Yeah, that was it was um triggering. It was hard to get to that point. But then everything just fucking cascaded. And you were like,
00:07:12
Jeff Rogers
And it's an hour long episode. And, you know, you think you know. and then you don't know. Exactly. good job.
00:07:23
Jeff Rogers
ah But here's my criticism of that. It was eight episodes long. And I think they could have done all of that in five episodes. Probably. Sufficiently.
00:07:34
Jeff Rogers
I don't doubt that. You almost spend too much time at the beginning hating these characters that it prevents me. It almost prevented me from watching the whole show. But maybe they did that so you would be so caught off guard. Because you do. You spend a lot of the time just being like, ugh. These are horrible humans.
00:07:53
Jeff Rogers
Yeah. And so when the the thing comes to a close, you you really are just thrown for a loop. So would I did recommend it to Kim?
00:08:07
Jeff Rogers
OK. Yeah, because, you know, she's afraid of my recommendations, which is fair. That is fair. I don't watch stuff like normal stuff. I do horror. I do, you know, psychological thrillers.
00:08:20
Jeff Rogers
So I'm like, Kim, this is like pretty normal. I think you would like it. that last episode, though, i was like, it was so triggering and emotional.
00:08:31
Jeff Rogers
It was rough. So it was worth it. It could have been in five episodes. I thought it was drawn out, but maybe you're right. Maybe that's the point, right? Just to make you so invested in them. And so like...
00:08:44
Jeff Rogers
Into the story. Yeah. Because they throw so many like detracting things. Yeah. Huh. Because it starts with that kind of mystery and then all that goes away and you're like, wait, why am I just watching their day to day life?
00:09:00
Jeff Rogers
I want to know what this thing is. And then you kind of forget about that intermittently. Yeah. And then sometimes it comes back, but not super seriously because you're so caught up in their interpersonal drama and relations and shit. Oh, so watch it. We were liars.
00:09:18
Jeff Rogers
Don't say I didn't tell you you were going hate them. Hate, hate, hate. Love. Kim, when you watch it, please let me know what you think. But just remember, it's going to take a while to get to it.
00:09:28
Jeff Rogers
You know? Yeah. Yeah. But it will be worth it in the end. Anything else? I don't think so. Should we flip the coin? Yeah, tell me what you're drinking.
00:09:39
Jeff Rogers
I am drinking a root beer. And I am drinking... Oh, Poppy. Sorry. Poppy! This is Poppy. I looked everywhere for the logo. I'm drinking Poppy orange soda.
00:09:52
Jeff Rogers
not how you feel about that one. I like orange. Okay. I love root beer. I forgot to bring the but other drinks.
00:10:02
Jeff Rogers
from the party that is like the perfect color of the root beer candy yes i love those things um cheers cheers cheers is this table getting longer no i'm just getting more far away all all right we got a new coin it's from ghana it is juliet gave it to us thank you juliet that's very pretty um
00:10:33
Jeff Rogers
There's one side that's got some birds with the star and stuff. And then there's one side that is the scales of justice. Do you want to be? Do you know the song I'll fly away old glory? Yeah.
00:10:49
Jeff Rogers
I caught that, bitches. You fucking did. That rocked. I didn't even have time to be scared. It just happened. I did. I did. Okay. It was the scales.
00:11:01
Jeff Rogers
Okay. And I think that is actually very fitting for this story that I'm going to tell today. It is... um
00:11:07
Jeff Rogers
There's some trigger warnings. um ah Rape, sexual assaults, murder... some really fucked up things. um But although it is about the crimes, it's also about what happened afterwards.
00:11:24
Jeff Rogers
Okay. Okay. So just for people, we kind of did this intentionally. I don't know your story, but I'm going to balance it out. I'm going to try to balance this episode out with something light, light and fun and fluffy. Yeah.
00:11:42
Jeff Rogers
So stick around. All right. Scarborough and St. Catharines near Toronto were nice places to live and raise your kids. They were quiet towns on Lake Ontario.
00:11:54
Jeff Rogers
In the late 1980s, everything changed. With a case that rocked the entire country, incited chaos, and has been described as nothing short of pure evil.
00:12:06
Jeff Rogers
Some people say it was the moment that Canada lost its innocence and destroyed justice.
00:12:14
Jeff Rogers
At the age of 15, Carla Homolka knew she wanted to be a veterinarian. You know? Is it the... Can I say what I think? I might be wrong.
00:12:26
Jeff Rogers
No. The school... you anything it The school thing? No. thanks sam Okay. Okay. ah she began working at an animal hospital where she met jennifer black jennifer described her as effervescent bright and a pretty girl she was young and idealistic and slightly impressionable but she was wonderful she had away with people and she was great with the animals In 1986, a couple years after starting her job with Jennifer, Carla, who is now 17, and another teenage co-worker went to a work convention.
00:12:59
Jeff Rogers
They were young and lively, and they told their two older co-workers that they wanted to share one of the two reserved rooms between themselves. Unbeknownst to Jennifer and her adult colleague, the girls went down to the bar to have some drinks.
00:13:12
Jeff Rogers
That is where they met Paul. He was handsome and captivating. He had Carla immediately swept off her feet. They hit it off and it was in like an electric thing between them. Love bomb.
00:13:27
Jeff Rogers
So she's 17 and he's early 20s. Carla went back to Paul's room that night. From then, fairy tale story, guess.
00:13:39
Jeff Rogers
Hmm. A friend of Mark's who ended up dating Carla's younger sister described him as a person of influence who commanded attention. He was just one of those people. yeah The two became inseparable.
00:13:52
Jeff Rogers
They lived just an hour and a half away on the other side of the lake from each other and spent as much time as they could together. Again, a fairy tale that Carla had always dreamed of. Paul was a successful accountant.
00:14:03
Jeff Rogers
He was always well-dressed and he had an appealing swagger to him that made him irresistible to those around him. He showered Carla with presents and gifts. He wrote her love letters and called her frequently when they weren't together.
00:14:15
Jeff Rogers
They were happy. While they were enjoying their emerging romance and growing closer, Scarborough was rapidly becoming a town of nightmares and fear. By early 1987, the Scarborough rapist was running rampant through the small town.
00:14:32
Jeff Rogers
He was attacking young women and teens as they got off the public bus. He would quietly sneak up behind them and start a brief conversation until they were alone, and then he would subdue them, brutally beat them, and sexually assault them.
00:14:46
Jeff Rogers
He would use his own genitals, twigs, weapons and knives, or other objects to penetrate them vaginally, anally, and orally, all while telling them that they needed to say he loved that they loved him.
00:15:04
Jeff Rogers
oh After he was done, he would push them into the dirt or smear mud all over them to degrade them. He would rip out their hair from top and bottom and then take it with him.
00:15:16
Jeff Rogers
He stole their IDs and threatened to come back and kill them if they said anything. This sexual assault squad was formed in response to his attacks. They had very, very little to go on. His victims never got a good look at him, but they described him as charming and almost the boy next door.
00:15:32
Jeff Rogers
The one chilling thing that they all shared was that when they looked into his eyes, it was like, quote, looking into the eyes of death. They all said it.
00:15:45
Jeff Rogers
By August 1989, he had seven victims. Although they had interviewed over a thousand suspects, the task force was no closer to identifying him. So this is all going on.
00:15:57
Jeff Rogers
It's been a couple years, and during this time, Carla and Paul's relationship was progressing. Carla was still living with her parents and two younger sisters, Lori and Tammy, in St. Catharines.
00:16:09
Jeff Rogers
Paul was welcomed into the family and they adored him. They respected him and after only a few short months of dating, they had started allowing him to stay in Carla's room with her. So how far away is this town from the other town?
00:16:22
Jeff Rogers
About two hours. Okay. It was during these times that Mark, who was dating Carla's younger sister, Lori, began to look up to Paul. He was the cool older guy that was always around when he was at the Homolka home.
00:16:35
Jeff Rogers
The two became friends. What's that face? I don't know. I've got i've got theories. I've got suspicions. Don't be suspicious. I am I'm a little suspicious.
00:16:47
Jeff Rogers
In May 1990, the Scarborough Rapist claimed another victim. This one got a good look at the rapist's face. She worked with a police sketch artist and created a great image. There was nothing missing from the description on him.
00:17:02
Jeff Rogers
Okay. She did a great job. The task force redoubled their efforts. They began collecting and testing DNA, but it's 1990. So this is all still new. Okay. Small town.
00:17:14
Jeff Rogers
They started a door to door They released the composite sketch to the public, but nothing panned out still. In October of 1990, Paul decided to move to St. Catharines, moved in with Carla and her family.
00:17:28
Jeff Rogers
Her parents loved him. He treated their oldest daughter like a princess, and she was happy and glowing. Around this time, 16-year-old Leigh Ann Plato began working at the animal hospital with the now 20-year-old Carla.
00:17:43
Jeff Rogers
She was always going on about her relationship with Paul and how it was wonderful. Sometimes there would be a weirdish statement, though, about how Carla wasn't allowed to drive anymore and Paul would always drop her off and pick her up and she had to be on time.
00:18:00
Jeff Rogers
Leanne thought it was odd, but it didn't seem to but bother Carla, so whatever. On Christmas Day, 1990, the whole Homolka family was having fun, drinking festive drinks.
00:18:13
Jeff Rogers
The parents even told 15-year-old Tammy that she was allowed to have a couple of drinks. They were staying at home. Why not? So at one point, Paul, Carla, and Tammy were alone in the rec room. Carla was like, hey, you've never tried this drink before.
00:18:25
Jeff Rogers
Go ahead and try it. She gives her one drink. She gives her another drink. By 2.30 in the morning, Tammy was dead. It was considered an accident. She had passed out and choked on her vomit.
00:18:38
Jeff Rogers
Paul and Carla only said that they didn't realize that she had passed out. According to Jennifer, Carla was destroyed and inconsolable about Tammy's death.
00:18:49
Jeff Rogers
At the funeral, Mark remembered thinking that Paul looked like he was really anxious, but he knew that they had given her alcohol, so he thought it was just because they kind of felt guilty. A month later, Paul and Carla decided to move out of the family home.
00:19:03
Jeff Rogers
Paul recently got a video camera as a gift, and he just was intent on videotaping basically a yeah every aspect of their whole lives. The couple got a Rottweiler named Buddy because Carla wanted it and it made Paul look good.
00:19:17
Jeff Rogers
Most people didn't really pay much attention, but they, some of them realized that Paul clearly didn't like the dog. Okay. He would lock Buddy in the, in the basement. He had a crate down there and that's where Buddy spent pretty much all his time. Buddy didn't like Paul.
00:19:34
Jeff Rogers
Even with the death of Tammy, their lives still seemed happy. They kept moving. They thrived. They became absolutely enamored with each other. In June 1991, 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffey left a friend's house in St. Catharines very late at night.
00:19:51
Jeff Rogers
She was considered troubled and, quote, hard to handle by her parents, They were struggling with some of like the behaviors. She was acting out a bit. So when she arrived home, many hours after the curfew that her parents had enforced, the door was locked.
00:20:06
Jeff Rogers
They told her it would be. She walked down the street, used a pay phone to call a friend and see if she could stay the night, but they said no, it couldn't happen that night. So she said, all right, I guess I'll go back home, sit on the porch, and wait until somebody wakes up.
00:20:20
Jeff Rogers
She was never seen again. Her disappearance was downplayed by most in the community, including the police, because again, she was just a troubled kid, so maybe she ran away. Nothing ever happened in St. Catharines. It was a sleepy town, it was sweet, everyone was nice.
00:20:36
Jeff Rogers
At the end of June 1991, Paul and Carla got married. People kind of questioned how quickly after Tammy's death this happened, but they both were like, it's been six months, what do you want us to do keep mourning?
00:20:50
Jeff Rogers
it's It's time to move on. We have to move past this and stop living in that. The wedding was extravagant. He looked like an absolute rock star and she looked like a princess. On the day of the wedding, 18 miles away, a man named Bill Grekel decided that it was a beautiful day and he wanted to spend it on his canoe.
00:21:07
Jeff Rogers
So he was about to launch and then he noticed concrete blocks kind of just off the shore. One was cracked open and eat he saw some discoloration in it. So he poked at it with his paddle.
00:21:19
Jeff Rogers
And what he saw was a human foot. Quickly climbs out of his canoe, calls the police, they come ah over and they find the full remains of a disemmbboed dismembered body encased in different blocks of cement.
00:21:34
Jeff Rogers
The wedding guests remembered watching the news story as it kind of unfolded at the bar. um And they were... Talking back and forth about like whoever this was, they're not from around here.
00:21:46
Jeff Rogers
Because if they were, they would have known that the water level this time a year drops like five feet. So if they had known, they would have thrown it farther out or whatever. Police identified the body as Leslie Mahaffey.
00:22:01
Jeff Rogers
They considered her a victim of opportunity and said that the killer must live close by. Leanne, who still worked with Carlo, realized that Paul was kind of becoming more open and friendly, spending more time at the animal shelter with him.
00:22:14
Jeff Rogers
um He started asking Leanne personal questions and then inviting her to come over to their new house and hang out with the couple. She was still just a teenager.
00:22:25
Jeff Rogers
Like, she started getting weirded out. Carlo's young 20s. Paul was mid to late She's not about it. So she made plenty of excuses. She ended up not joining them. But in April 1992, the police still had no idea who the Scarborough Rapist was, and now they had the unsolved death of Leslie Mahaffey.
00:22:45
Jeff Rogers
Things were about to get even worse. April 16th, 15-year-old Kristen French was abducted from the church parking lot in her school-like compound.
00:22:57
Jeff Rogers
It was broad daylight. Witnesses saw car drive up. looked like two people were inside. She had leaned in and then started slowly backing away, but she couldn't get away before she was yanked into the car.
00:23:12
Jeff Rogers
The police organized a search of more than 2,200 people to look for Kristen. The town was devastated and terrified. She was a sweet girl, straight A student. She was an athlete. And now Leslie Mahaffey's gone and Kristen's gone. Everything's kind of changing for them.
00:23:27
Jeff Rogers
So Leanne was the same age as Kristen and said that Carla was just destroyed about it, always really sad, said it was a terrible tragedy. Two weeks after her disappearance, her body was found, naked, laying in the fetal position in the woods.
00:23:42
Jeff Rogers
Her hair had been chopped off in like a really just shitty way, and her Mickey Mouse wash was missing. The investigation began to point to the same killer for both girls.
00:23:54
Jeff Rogers
The once quiet town was changed. St. Catherine's was no longer safe and quaint. Now people were living in constant fear. And it's also such a small town.
00:24:04
Jeff Rogers
Nothing bad happens. The chance that you have in one, like more than one person doing this. i mean, you know, what are the odds of that? Astronomical. Right.
00:24:16
Jeff Rogers
So little while later, ah Mark's visiting Paul and Carla and Paul offers him a drink. He says, yes. He goes, okay, Carla, get him a drink. She went to hand Mark the glass, but then suddenly Paul backhands her.
00:24:32
Jeff Rogers
She's basically thrown off her feet. He grabs her, takes her into the kitchen, starts screaming about how that's not the right way to serve guests. If we're going guests in the house, you need to do better. She comes back out.
00:24:43
Jeff Rogers
few minutes later, she's wiped her tears. She's got a smile on her face again. she's got a drink literally on a silver platter for Mark. Other people see this happen? Mark watched it. Oh.
00:24:54
Jeff Rogers
But he was just, had just turned 20. Paul was his idol. He had never experienced something like this and it was so out of character for them that he didn't know how to react. Um,
00:25:05
Jeff Rogers
Carla's friend Jennifer and her co-worker Leanne started noticing that some of her clothing was getting like bulkier and she was always wearing long sleeves. ah Sometimes there would be bruises that they would see, um but she always explained them away.
00:25:20
Jeff Rogers
Her friends thought that maybe Paul was abusing her, but again, it didn't fit his personality. Such a great guy. Yeah. Charismatic. Yeah. And Carla never complained. She said she was fine. She stayed.
00:25:31
Jeff Rogers
She's terrified. Yeah. In February 1993, Carla finally gave up. She went to the police. She was so battered that she was just covered in brutal-looking breezes bruises.
00:25:45
Jeff Rogers
I highly suggest that you look at the photographs from that day because it's she's got raccoon eyes, she and it's brutal.
00:25:57
Jeff Rogers
Her fairy tale is now over, right? Everything that had been going great since 1986 just done. She spent hours detailing all of the domestic violence.
00:26:08
Jeff Rogers
But the most shocking thing about her discussion with the police was that she told them that Paul had killed both Leslie and Kristen. Boom.
00:26:19
Jeff Rogers
She also revealed that he had these crimes on tape. He had recorded them on his fancy recorder that he liked. According to Carla, Paul frequently left at night to drive around looking for young girls to make into his sex slaves.
00:26:36
Jeff Rogers
That's all he wanted. The night Leslie Mahaffey disappeared, Carla claimed that Paul came in, woke her up, and said, Hey, don't worry, honey. There's a girl in the basement, but just go back to sleep.
00:26:47
Jeff Rogers
And apparently she did. So Paul apparently kept Leslie in the home for multiple days and repeatedly abused and sexually assaulted her. More information kind of came out as they talked longer and longer, and they realized that during this period of time, it had been Father's Day weekend, and Carla's family had come to visit that weekend.
00:27:08
Jeff Rogers
Carla said that just before her parents arrived,
00:27:13
Jeff Rogers
he had finally strangled her to death and left her body in the basement. He didn't dismember her until after they left. Lovely. But that's when he took a chainsaw to her body and then threw her in the cement and then left her in Lake Gibson.
00:27:29
Jeff Rogers
The interviews with Carla then lasted multiple days. Again, detailing his crimes and the abuse that she endured. I just also want to say that when he said go back to sleep, she was she did what she was told out of fear. You know what I mean?
00:27:46
Jeff Rogers
It's not her fault. She was scared to fucking death.
00:27:49
Jeff Rogers
So she told the cops that their relationship had become more volatile after the marriage, which was the day that Leslie was found. ah She said that anytime they would go to visit her family, he would threaten her beforehand and say that if she did or said anything to make them realize that she was unhappy, and that he would kill her.
00:28:08
Jeff Rogers
She also told police that after the murder of Leslie, Paul demanded that she join him when he hunted for new victims. So she did. She accompanied him and played a key role when he abducted Kristen French.
00:28:19
Jeff Rogers
He now had the perfect accomplice. She said that her presence allowed him to hunt more openly and expand his targets. He no longer had to sneak around at night, hide in bushes, like like shock people.
00:28:32
Jeff Rogers
Carla was just young and innocent, so she would distract them while he would sneak up on them and then throw them in the car. So Kristen was kept for almost the whole two weeks that she was missing.
00:28:44
Jeff Rogers
Carla said, i i i felt sorry for her. You know, we did makeup together and I bonded with her, but there was nothing that she could do because she was so afraid for herself and her family.
00:28:58
Jeff Rogers
On February 17th, 1993, police arrested 28-year-old Paul Bernardo. The neighbors were stunned. He was harmless.
00:29:08
Jeff Rogers
He was kind. He was pleasant. He was just the guy next door. the psychopath next door. As much as her friends might have thought Paul had been abusing Carla, they never expected him to have any responsibility in murder. So they were confused and kind of in shock as well.
00:29:27
Jeff Rogers
After his arrest, Mark came forward and was interviewed by police for eight hours. He realized that he had been in the house during times when both Kristen and Leslie had been there. He didn't recall anything out of the ordinary, and he always said that any sounds that he heard coming from the basement, he thought were buddy.
00:29:44
Jeff Rogers
He never would have suspected that there was a girl being helicoptered down there.
00:29:48
Jeff Rogers
Then Carla drops another bomb. She says that on the first day of their honeymoon, Paul admitted to her that he was also the Scarborough Rapist. So after years of terrorizing Scarborough, he just moved an hour and a half away and took his violence to a new level.
00:30:07
Jeff Rogers
So two of the worst and most violent crimes in the history of Toronto were now attributed to just this one man. After the connection was made, fingers were pointed back to the Toronto police. They were blamed for not catching him before he killed.
00:30:22
Jeff Rogers
When the eighth victim was attacked, she provided the police with that perfect description of the attacker. And it looked like Paul. When it was released to the public, Paul's friends and acquaintances even reached out to the police.
00:30:36
Jeff Rogers
he He looked like the guy. He lived in that spot. And then sometimes they watched him like interact with women. And so they thought maybe they maybe you guys should talk to them.
00:30:47
Jeff Rogers
So they went to his house, but he wasn't there. They left a car and said, hey, give us a call. He calls him back and says, yeah, I can come on in on my way down to my girlfriend's house. He arrives at the police station. He's respectful. He's polite. He's well appearing. He's super well-dressed, again, he's got that swagger to him.
00:31:04
Jeff Rogers
ah Maybe there was a little bit of nerve, but they just expected anyone who's coming in for interviews with the police should be normal like nervous, that's normal. He volunteered his DNA, and that was it.
00:31:16
Jeff Rogers
He disarmed them with his charm and cooperation, so they never suspected anything. Two full years after he was interviewed, the DNA was finally matched between many of the Scarborough assaults.
00:31:30
Jeff Rogers
to him. Years later, the detectives involved in the case do admit that the system had failed. He was one of five prime suspects and he was a really good fit, but there was only one person at the time who was certified to run DNA, again because it was the early stages, and so the delay was two years.
00:31:49
Jeff Rogers
Nine days after Carla accused him, he was charged with 16 counts related to the sexual assaults, but he was not charged for the murders yet. He was adamantly denying any involvement in the deaths of those two.
00:32:01
Jeff Rogers
Carla had claimed that there were videotapes documenting the crimes, so the police had to find them. She couldn't say specifically where they were because she had fled home, so he had time to move them, so she didn't even give him any idea where they were.
00:32:15
Jeff Rogers
So they're running out of time on their warrant. Then they got multiple extensions, which led to a 10-week search of their home. 10 full weeks. And they were ripping up concrete, pulling out drainage systems and carpet.
00:32:28
Jeff Rogers
The stairs were being ripped up. They vacuumed every inch of the house. They used UV and infrared lights looking for any shred of evidence. But after 71 days, not only had they not found the videotapes, they didn't have any physical evidence linking the girls to the home.
00:32:45
Jeff Rogers
So they had no case. It boiled down to the testimony of only the battered and abused wife, Carla Homolka.
00:32:53
Jeff Rogers
They couldn't really proceed with prosecuting him until they investigated Carla a little bit more in depth because, you know, they needed more information make sure that she would. withstand the scrutiny on on trial.
00:33:04
Jeff Rogers
So they sent her to a psychiatric facility and underwent interviews and evaluations. um ah There were a handful of the assessments that said that she was suffering from PTSD and the repeated violence and abuse that she had endured led her to just kind of giving up.
00:33:20
Jeff Rogers
Said that she had been beaten down and broken by this man, manipulated and coerced, and she couldn't resist him. Okay? Okay.
00:33:29
Jeff Rogers
After the police warrants had expired, Paul's defense attorney and his aide, Kim Doyle, went into his home to search for themselves. Upon arriving at the house, Ken Murray, the attorney, had a piece of paper that had a hand-drawn map and instructions that Paul had given him.
00:33:48
Jeff Rogers
He followed the instructions into the bathroom. He climbed up onto a ledge, removed the light fixture. He reached all the way up into the ceiling to the point where his head was hitting the ceiling.
00:34:00
Jeff Rogers
And he started pulling down videotapes.
00:34:05
Jeff Rogers
He handed them to Kim. She took them and she went back to the office to review them. And what she saw was beyond words. she very, very, very quickly realized that Carla was the farthest thing from innocence. Oh, fuck.
00:34:23
Jeff Rogers
She was seen on the tapes willingly engaging in the sexual assault and torture of not only Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffey, but of her own sister, Tammy, as well as many unnamed girls. my God.
00:34:41
Jeff Rogers
She showed no signs of reluctance or passive involvement. She didn't present as meek or intimidated. There was no sign of the battered wife she was now portraying.
00:34:52
Jeff Rogers
Goddamn.
00:34:54
Jeff Rogers
There were even times that she was orchestrating the torture. All of the sudden, Carla Homolka was transformed from the broken, sad victim into a callous and cal calculating perpetrator.
00:35:09
Jeff Rogers
However, the police didn't have the tapes. This is the defense team. They have them, they've seen this, they know Carla. The police are still building their case using only Carla and those few little doctors that said, oh yeah, well, she's so battered and broken.
00:35:27
Jeff Rogers
um So they were working tirelessly to prove that she was credible and that they could make this case stick with her only. The defense had everything they needed to discredit Carla and therefore destroyed the prosecution prosecution's case.
00:35:44
Jeff Rogers
However, Ken Murray made an abso-fucking-unbelievable decision to withhold the tapes. He had this grand scheme that he was going to let the prosecution prosecution just keep on keeping on, and then he was going to drop this bomb in the middle of the courtroom just to discredit her right on the stand.
00:36:08
Jeff Rogers
On the day Paul was supposed to appear in court for the charges, the Niagara police decided to defer the charges because they needed to make sure the case was holding up. So during further investigation, Carla continued to ask if they had found the tapes repeatedly.
00:36:26
Jeff Rogers
At this point, we, the listeners here, now know that she needed to stay ahead of them. If they did find the tapes, which she doubted, um she needed to have explanations for what they saw on it.
00:36:39
Jeff Rogers
Okay. So she persisted. She kept building up that battered woman story. Right. And then she explained kind of subtle, like things that she was dropping in that, okay, maybe you might see me on the tapes. Maybe I was involved to quote some degree ah because she had been forced to participate.
00:37:03
Jeff Rogers
She laid it on thick and they were eating it up, okay? And she was giving every excuse for what they might see. So she played up how sad it was and again, how she had been friends with Kristen.
00:37:15
Jeff Rogers
um and she said that she never should have gotten close with her because it only made it hurt worse, okay? She created a story about what happened to her sister. At the time, again,
00:37:27
Jeff Rogers
They didn't even consider the case of can't Tammy because she hadn't brought it up to this point. This is weeks later. She hadn't even mentioned her sister. yeah um It had been ruled an accident. They had no reason to look at it.
00:37:42
Jeff Rogers
so She said that Paul had told her repeatedly that he wanted to have sex with Tammy. So she said, you know what? He was so insistent that I figured just let him do it and then he'll stop harassing me about it.
00:37:55
Jeff Rogers
So that Christmas, she let it happen. She invited Tammy into that room and said that Paul forced her to use sedatives that she had stolen from the veterinary clinic to drug Tammy into unconsciousness.
00:38:08
Jeff Rogers
She said that she held a rag with the, I think it was halothane, like a foot away from her face, and it just so happened to, because Tammy was drinking, it made her lose consciousness.
00:38:21
Jeff Rogers
And then she said she stood back as Paul raped her vaginally and anally. The tape, however, shows that she is holding the rag directly onto Tammy's face and smothering her with it.
00:38:35
Jeff Rogers
And then the absolute worst fucking thing that I can possibly say, she performed oral sex on her own 15 year old sister. God, what the fuck?
00:38:47
Jeff Rogers
Yeah. Again, police don't have any of this. They just have what she's saying. So they knew did something horrible had happened, but they thought that the tapes were gone for good.
00:39:02
Jeff Rogers
ah she was pitching herself perfectly. The stand, the jury, everyone was going to eat her up, okay? They were going to love this. Then she started to get kind of relaxed and comfortable in this position, and she was so confident that she had them right where the she wanted them.
00:39:18
Jeff Rogers
So she started subtly changing, and like her true colors started coming out. See, that's the thing right there. Psychopath. Her demeanor, again, it was this it was this slow turn, you know, statements she would make, little bombs that she would drop, and she would say them in a very callous and, like, removed way.
00:39:41
Jeff Rogers
um and they started to realize that she wasn't this broken wife. Yeah.
00:39:50
Jeff Rogers
As it turns out, she had demanded that Paul kill Kristen, and she admits this to the police because she wanted to go to her parents' home for Easter. Okay? So Kristen's in the basement.
00:40:03
Jeff Rogers
She's like, we got to go. We got dinner plans. We got to get the fuck out of here. So get rid of your little toy and be done with it. So she it's just it's becoming chilling as they're talking to her now. She said that she wanted Kristen dead because she had things to do.
00:40:16
Jeff Rogers
She had a life to live and she didn't want have to have worry about this girl in her basement that could possibly escape. That was it. She didn't, that was it. So this girl that she had said she was becoming close with and oh me, it was so sad and so hard. She just wanted her dead.
00:40:31
Jeff Rogers
She wanted her dead. yeah So even after this horrible confession and this new persona that she's taken on, they needed to continue to cast her in this sad light.
00:40:42
Jeff Rogers
So they knew that she was horrible, but she was their only hope if they wanted the murder charges to stick. She continued manipulating them, and she knew that they needed her in order to get Paul off the streets, so she started to just give no fucks.
00:41:00
Jeff Rogers
She told more revealing details about some of the shit that she had done, and they just kept brushing it under the rug. In mid-May, they took Carla back to her home to go through the place and help the police maybe find evidence.
00:41:18
Jeff Rogers
And you can watch the videos of her walking through. um she had dressed herself like a schoolgirl, like braiding her hair on the other sides and like looking innocent.
00:41:30
Jeff Rogers
But then as they're walking through, she's got that... that crazy face on where she's just detached and she doesn't give two shits about the fact that she's taking them to this place because this is where girls were tortured, tortured and murdered. Right. She's just like, well, did you guys break anything when you were looking like, is this furniture go to be repaired? Are you guys going to cover the cost? And she's asking those kinds of questions. And then she's like, Oh, I want to take this. Can I take this? Like fuck it's, it's just bad.
00:42:02
Jeff Rogers
So again, nothing gentle, nothing sweet, nothing delicate about her anymore. Because Ken Marie still had yet to reveal the tapes, the police moved forward.
00:42:15
Jeff Rogers
In what became known as a real deal with the devil and easily one of the most controversial plea bargains in Canadian history, the prosecution made a deal with her.
00:42:28
Jeff Rogers
If she pled guilty to two counts of manslaughter, she would be shown leniency. Five years for the death of Kristen French, five years for the death of Leslie Mahaffey, and just two years for the death of her own sister Tammy.
00:42:44
Jeff Rogers
She would be eligible for parole after only four years. All this in return for her testifying against Paul.
00:42:53
Jeff Rogers
At the last moment before the trial, there was a public ban, media blackout, so they were allowed to know her sentence, but they didn't know why, and people were furious about it. Paul's lawyer began making kind of vague statements about Carla's involvement, but again, did not release come on man the tapes.
00:43:12
Jeff Rogers
Come on, man. I'm getting nervous here. I need to release them. On May 8th, 1993, Paul Bernardo was officially charged with two counts of first-degree murder. two counts of unlawful confinement, two counts of kidnapping, two counts of aggravated sexual assault, and one count of causing an indignity to a human body for the dismemberment of Leslie.
00:43:32
Jeff Rogers
In September of 1993, after secretly holding the tapes for more than a year, Ken Murray was removed from the case in what he thought was going to be this masterful, masterful move to withhold the tapes and then surprise everybody.
00:43:47
Jeff Rogers
He fucked the entire thing because it allowed the police to make a ah deal with Carla. John Rosen took over as Paul's defense attorney.
00:44:00
Jeff Rogers
He was given the tapes and he was devastated. He says that he cried for hours and then he went straight to Paul and said that he was turning the tapes over to the police. It was a punch to the gut.
00:44:12
Jeff Rogers
They were just a few months before Paul's trial was set to begin. And now they didn't just have a feeling that Carla was crazy. They had evidence that showed that she was a fucking horrible person.
00:44:26
Jeff Rogers
They saw all the lies that she had told. And then again, really disgusting here. One of the most damaging pieces of evidence against her was ah torture um video of just Carla.
00:44:43
Jeff Rogers
You watch her drug her into unconsciousness again with stolen drugs from the clinic and then she tortures and assaults her. The girl wasn't Tammy though. It was somebody else. So Now she has withheld something completely. She didn't even mention this to the police, okay?
00:45:01
Jeff Rogers
This girl, still called Jane Doe, had been Carla's friend. And Carla had engineered the whole thing. She invited her over while Paul wasn't home, drugged her, and then in the tape, you see Carla staring up into the camera, like almost looking at the people watching this.
00:45:20
Jeff Rogers
And she looks just emotionless. You know, in my mind, I've got um Eileen Wuornos. She was interviewed a day before she was put to death.
00:45:31
Jeff Rogers
And she gives this crazy, wild-eyed interview. You can just see the crazy all over her It's coming You can see it. That's in my mind. That's, yeah. Ugh. ah So the trial for Paul is rapidly approaching and the prosecution's spiraling.
00:45:47
Jeff Rogers
The woman that they hung their entire case on was in fact just as monstrous as the man that they're now prosecuting. But if they charged her, it would undermine their only witness and the only link they had. They had already struck and ah struck a plea deal with her, so they didn't know how to move on.
00:46:01
Jeff Rogers
There was no actual footage of the murders of Kristen or Leslie. So again, it was just her word against his. They wanted to charge him with first degree. And the only way they could do that was with Carla.
00:46:12
Jeff Rogers
So again, they sweep all of us under the rug. They've seen the videos. They know all this shit, but they just say, fuck it. The prosecution made the highly controversial decision decision to proceed with her as their witness, but now they were faced with the challenge of explaining her behavior and involvement on those tapes.
00:46:34
Jeff Rogers
So they call Dr. Hatcher, a psychiatrist from California and an expert on battered women syndrome, to further bolster her image as a battered woman. It was brought up in her defense that her trauma led to dissociative amnesia.
00:46:49
Jeff Rogers
They claimed that she couldn't recall all of the details because her trauma was so bad, and this means that she technically never lied to the police. She just couldn't remember it.
00:47:01
Jeff Rogers
Then Dr. John Bradford, an expert on sexual sexually deviant behavior and sexually motivated homicide, was contacted by the defense team. He was provided with the videotapes for evaluation, and his interpretation of the tape was that this couple was dangerous, together and separately.
00:47:19
Jeff Rogers
There was no clinical evidence of Carla suffering from dissociative amnesia. He believed and saw that she was fully in control of her actions and decisions, and that she had knowingly withheld pertinent information to disguise her actions and appear less culpable.
00:47:34
Jeff Rogers
On the day of the trial, people were flocking from all over, attempting to get a seat in the courtroom, but it filled up quickly, and... They had to close it down. People were outside sleeping overnight on the street.
00:47:45
Jeff Rogers
It was crazy. Tour buses were coming by the courthouse and telling the visitors about the case and all this kind of crap. Because of their good looks, they became known as the Ken and Barbie killers.
00:47:59
Jeff Rogers
On May 18th, 1995, the publication ban was lifted. It was a media circus. And what came down to a he said, she said, the jury had to decide who was less of an asshole. Right.
00:48:12
Jeff Rogers
Okay. Yeah. Paul's attorneys, John Rosen and Tony Bryant, knew they couldn't fight any of the charges, really, except for the murder charges, because that was the only thing that wasn't on tape.
00:48:25
Jeff Rogers
They decided to cast doubt on who was ultimately responsible for the deaths. So there's a recording of Carla administering the halothane to her sister. They leaned on the fact that Paul was always just kind of this easy peasy, I can get away with anything because I'm a good looking man.
00:48:40
Jeff Rogers
But that Carla was the ringleader who always prepared to leave things neat and tidy. They claimed that she was aware that the girls couldn't be allowed to live after what had done what had been done to them.
00:48:53
Jeff Rogers
Tim Danson, a family lawyer, wanted to to bar the public from viewing the tapes or hearing quotes from people who had viewed them. He wanted to protect the privacy and preserve preserve whatever small shard of dignity for the victims and their families.
00:49:10
Jeff Rogers
So because it's known that you show pictures, you show videos of sexual assault, then it's causing the re-victimization and it perpetuates that abuse. So that's what he was trying to do. He's, so he's working on his own case, trying to get this whole thing kind of quashed, but the media insisted that they and the public had a right to know the details.
00:49:29
Jeff Rogers
So it became another complicated aspect of the case. Eventually, Justice Lesage decided that the jury would see the tapes, and he ruled that the public and media present in the courtroom could hear the tapes, but they wouldn't see the images.
00:49:42
Jeff Rogers
Tina Danzer was a self-proclaimed crime junkie and a stay-at-home mom who got called up for jury duty for this case. She's kind of excited. She had no idea what to expect, but she was like, I get to live my own true crime, right?
00:49:55
Jeff Rogers
She was told that there would be video evidence, but there was nothing to prepare her for what she saw. She said it was horrific and overwhelming. Tearfully, she said, quote, you felt like you wanted to save them, but you couldn't.
00:50:09
Jeff Rogers
There was nothing you could do about it. She argued, some argued that it would have been better for everyone just to view the tapes because as they're listening to the audio, their minds are just reeling. So everyone's coming up with their own ideas anyway. And it's just as horrific, if not more horrific than what's actually happening on the tapes.
00:50:28
Jeff Rogers
So Mrs. Mahaffey, Leslie's mom, demanded to be present while the tapes were played. Kim Doyle, the defense attorney's aide, was like, ah please don't be there. She begged the courtroom staff to bar her from the courtroom.
00:50:43
Jeff Rogers
i She begged Ms. Mahaffey, she begged the family, please don't let her in there. She didn't want her to see her daughter that way. Ultimately, she stayed, and she saw every moment.
00:50:56
Jeff Rogers
She had to be physically assisted out of the courtroom that day because her legs buckled. Reports claim that she was contorted in agony and she looked like a ghost when she came out. The people watching her leave, like the all of those spectators that had come to watch this case, started crying just looking at her.
00:51:15
Jeff Rogers
Dorothy Homolka took the stand. During her testimony, she didn't admit to seeing or noticing and any evidence that her daughter had been abused by Paul. She said that her daughter was quite the opposite.
00:51:27
Jeff Rogers
She was always glowing and never saw any bruises. Dr. Bradford notes that there was no evidence of extensive or repeated abuse by Paul. So...
00:51:40
Jeff Rogers
Carla had access to her own accounts and was independently employed. She took solo trips and friends like and trips with friends. And this was in direct contrast to a woman who is under the control of a manipulative and intimidating partner.
00:51:55
Jeff Rogers
ah Statistics also ah show that battered women tend, if they do retaliate, it's against the abuser. They don't lash out towards others. So her using that as an excuse, like her violence was...
00:52:09
Jeff Rogers
just kind of being perpetuated that's not scientifically normal during the trial carla's true color showed the fireside chat tape as it's called was damning it was in 1991 just a few weeks after the death of tammy carla dressed up in her sister's clothing done her hair like her sister And then as the couple were having sex, Carla even pretended to talk like Tammy.
00:52:40
Jeff Rogers
She was heard saying things like, you're just so wonderful. You took the virginity of those girls. And I'm just so very proud of you. oh Paul Bernardo ended up on the stand.
00:52:51
Jeff Rogers
He was articulate and presented himself as a likable guy. His defense attorney, again, decided just to focus on the murder charges. There was no way he was going to save him from the other shit. So he said, did you kill Leslie Mahaffey?
00:53:04
Jeff Rogers
No, I didn't. Who actually killed her? Carla. Did you kill Creston French? No, I didn't. Who killed her? Carla did. Did you want to kill these girls?
00:53:16
Jeff Rogers
He said, no, we had Leslie blindfolded and I wanted to let her go. But Carla said no. And what about Kristen? Nope, I was going to do the same thing with her. She had no idea where we were, but Carla wanted her dead.
00:53:30
Jeff Rogers
He admitted to being a sexual sadist and a serial rapist, but he said, i am no murderer. Paul told the courtroom that after assaulting Kristen, he left to get food and movies to rent.
00:53:42
Jeff Rogers
When he returned, Kristen was dead. Carla told him that she had asked for the cord around her neck to be loosened she so she could breathe easier. And then when Carla loosened it a little bit, she said that Kristen tried to take off and then started strangling herself with the cord.
00:54:01
Jeff Rogers
Carla freaked out and said that she took the rubber mallet because she needed to subdue her so that she wouldn't strangle herself and just kept pummeling her head.
00:54:11
Jeff Rogers
Carla took the stand. She tried to present herself again, unthreatening and like purely victimized. She washed out her makeup, kind of subdued her hair and her clothes. And it was impressive.
00:54:22
Jeff Rogers
She looked like a totally different person than who they had seen on the videotapes. John Rosen presented her with a picture of Tammy alive and then a picture of Tammy in her coffin.
00:54:33
Jeff Rogers
And he said, this is what you did to her. You and him right over there, you did this. And she said, yes. He did the same with photos of Leslie and Kristen. The courtroom was completely silent during her testimony.
00:54:46
Jeff Rogers
For two weeks, Rosen demolished the persona of the battered wife and the victim. You watched the transformation. She went from quiet, distant, and bland to haughty and dismissive, and she was a powerhouse.
00:55:02
Jeff Rogers
If the circumstances had been different, if it if they hadn't had the deal with her, then this would have been fatal for her case. It made it obvious that she was nobody that could be pushed around and that nobody would be able to bully or belittle her.
00:55:20
Jeff Rogers
And it further added to the case to argue against her being a victim. The jury saw this. They witnessed her intelligence and her conniving, and they saw that she was very likely the mastermind behind this whole thing.
00:55:32
Jeff Rogers
On August 31st, 1995, the jury was sent out for deliberation. They hated both of them, but Carla wasn't on trial. They had already struck deal. So they deliberated overnight, and the public was out for blood.
00:55:46
Jeff Rogers
Paul was found guilty on all nine counts, including the first to remurder charges. Dan Mahaffey, Leslie's father, made a statement when they left the courtroom after the verdict. He said, the intensity of the overwhelming pain and strong emotions have once again swept us up, rendering us impossible for us to adequately talk about the death of Leslie and what this moment really means to us.
00:56:09
Jeff Rogers
We, me, Deb, and Ryan have been through hell during these past four years and know there are many more months and years ahead of us. Only the trial is over. Leslie is still not coming home.
00:56:22
Jeff Rogers
Doug French, Kristen's father, also made a statement. He said, it has been over three years since our daughter was taken from us. A difficult and painful time.
00:56:33
Jeff Rogers
Finally today, with the guilty verdict for the first degree murder, there is some sort of closure. While it can't return our daughter to us, we have the satisfaction of seeing this perpetrator punished. Our final words to our daughter when the trial is over, Christy, you can't be hurt anymore.
00:56:49
Jeff Rogers
We love you.
00:56:51
Jeff Rogers
With the conclusion of the murder trial, Paul Bernardo then went on stand for the trial ah manslaughter for the death of tammi Tammy Homolka and then the multiple sexual assaults dating back all the way 1986.
00:57:04
Jeff Rogers
He was designated as dangerous, and it greatly impacted the likelihood that he would ever be released from prison. Carla's friend Jennifer knew what Carla had done, and it was unforgivable.
00:57:16
Jeff Rogers
She was fully aware of her actions. She knew right from wrong and had plenty of opportunities to remove herself from the situation, but she chose to stay.
00:57:24
Jeff Rogers
Even 30 years later, Kim Doyle is still brought to tears discussing what she witnessed on those tapes. She always felt that Carla should have been sitting right beside Paul being tried. It was called a travesty of justice for Carla to have been given the plea deal. 300,000 people petitioned to prevent this type of thing from ever occurring again.
00:57:43
Jeff Rogers
The public and the families and even the jury knew and felt that justice had not been served. Alan Young, a law professor, was outraged as well. He wrote to the attorney general and said, quote, you know that 12 years for Carla is inadequate.
00:57:56
Jeff Rogers
You just know it. He pointed out that she was not truthful and forthright, which was a prerequisite for the deal, which gave them the right to tear it up. So the moment they saw those tapes, they could have torn up her deal and been done with it.
00:58:10
Jeff Rogers
But they didn't. A few weeks later, it was announced that a judge would be appointed to look into the deal and the case. In May 1996, Judge Galligan reported, quote, It would not be in the public interest to prosecute Carla Homolka.
00:58:25
Jeff Rogers
Much to the disappointment of everyone, he said that it would be damaging to future witnesses and the reputation of the justice system if the re if they reneged on the deal. He even claimed that during his review of the Jane Doe case...
00:58:38
Jeff Rogers
The victim had been ambivalent about whether or not she even wanted to bring charges. But she didn't know this stuff. You know what I mean? Like you you made a deal based on not all the facts.
00:58:49
Jeff Rogers
That has to come into account, right? So he said because that person never wanted to press charges, like there's nothing we could do. However, in May 2005, an article was published in the Toronto Sun with statements from Jane Doe claiming that she had never even been spoken to about charges and that Judge Galligan passed down this statement saying that she didn't want to press charges, et cetera, et cetera, but that was all a lie.
00:59:18
Jeff Rogers
She was never consulted and she never said she wanted to waive charges. In July 2005, Carla's sentence was done. She had served part-time.
00:59:29
Jeff Rogers
She was released, and the nation was fucked up. They were so pissed. She was returned to unimpeded freedom with a psychology degree that she had earned while in jail right the that the taxpayers had paid for.
00:59:45
Jeff Rogers
As a result of her plea deal, she was never charged with sex crimes and thus lives not having to register as an offender. By 2016, she was settled in Quebec, married, and had three children with the brother of her defense attorney. Jesus, Lord.
00:59:59
Jeff Rogers
She changed her name, and then she became a volunteer at her children's school. The media found out where she was living and just lit her up. And the families were mortified. They were like, fuck this lady. you No way. Like...
01:00:16
Jeff Rogers
The ripple effect from this case was endless. The victims, their families, the jury, the lawyers and their aides, the specialists and doctors who testified, the public and even the country as a whole suffered immeasurable damage from the case and the tapes themselves.
01:00:31
Jeff Rogers
The emotional and psychological trauma that these people experienced ended careers, relationships, and lives. For years, the families fought to have the tapes and the related material destroyed.
01:00:42
Jeff Rogers
Finally, with the help and hard work from Tim Danson, all the known copies of the tapes and any related documents were incinerated. The house that belonged to Paul and Carla was demolished.
01:00:53
Jeff Rogers
Carla Homolka continues to live a free and unimpeded life with her family. As of November 2024, Paul Bernardo was denied parole for the third time. Canadians still reel over the mishandling of the entire case and the tragedies that were allowed to occur.
01:01:09
Jeff Rogers
Oh, just that judge saying, no, we're not going to prevent future you know thoughts and feelings or whatever. Like, let's not their feelings. You have the information when they made that deal with her.
01:01:23
Jeff Rogers
That fucking lawyer. fucking defense attorney, right? What? What? And like, i what is he doing now? So he was a young guy. he was new to like murder and all that kind of stuff. So he had this grand idea that he was just going to blow the whole thing wide open. I get it.
01:01:41
Jeff Rogers
But fuck's sake, man, he ruined everything because if he had just turned them over that day, then they would have, sure. Maybe they wouldn't have gotten them for murder charges, but they would have gotten something for both of them. Yeah.
01:01:57
Jeff Rogers
And they would have seen her for what she was. Yep. And that would have been a game changer. So that's, that's insane. That's horrific. The videotapes.
01:02:11
Jeff Rogers
She's evil. So that is very much the good job telling that horrific story. And again, like the crimes were bad, but like it was all the shit that unfolded. And when you if you get a chance to watch the documentary. Yeah.
01:02:28
Jeff Rogers
Like I listened to a million podcasts and watched all of the documentaries you have out there. But I think the one that I – uh the one on hulu was really good and it's just awful because people tried to commit suicide after this um a lot of those doctors that were called ah to testify they were like i couldn't practice anymore they ended their careers because they saw the date what happened and then they couldn't do anything about it and then like kim doyle she does a lot of
01:03:01
Jeff Rogers
talking in it and she's just she just breaks down in tears like multiple times talking about it and then the the lady that got called up for jury duty she's like i have never been the same i always think about jurors who have you know they're random people from random you know jobs daily lives that have nothing to do with anything horrible or violence and then suddenly they're in a courtroom doing their civic duty and they see this right do you do they prepare you at all like do they offer counseling now i know they not didn't know you know back in the day ah wonder if it's a thing now it's especially in canada so this there are so many similarities the whole time you were telling that story the similarities between that story and that movie red rooms
01:03:57
Jeff Rogers
What? yeah And now I'm- That's why when you were talking about that movie, I was like- Because you don't see the tapes, right? It doesn't show the tapes in the movie. You don't need to see that shit.
01:04:10
Jeff Rogers
You hear the audio. And the parents of the victims are in the courtroom and one passes out. And it's almost identical to the story you just told.
01:04:23
Jeff Rogers
and know. it's So when you were talking it, I was like, okay, yeah. this I mean, it's fucked. That was horrible. Yeah. Sorry, Bunny. Good job, though.
01:04:33
Jeff Rogers
Okay, so I had a second story prepared, and I was going to sling us with a slingshot far out into left field. However, i think that we're going to end.
01:04:47
Jeff Rogers
On that horrible note. On that note. We're going to end on that note, because that was a story that was worth telling. It is. um Sam, have fun on your journey.
01:04:58
Jeff Rogers
It's going to be blast. I can't wait. It's talking you. It's going be great. um alan our overqualified underpaid master publisher extraordinaire ashley the ultimate epically unmatched hype queen editor kelsey kelsey kelsey our incomparable swag and merch creator and daniel our friendly neighborhood supporter from the beginning together you all are our first and forever fans bye everybody