Transcript
Speaker: Hello, it's me, Jeff. So look, this is the Jeff and Sam show. um True crime, history, comedy, all that stuff. You can email us at jeffandsamshow at gmail.com. But what I want to say is Alan has abandoned us this week. He's living his best life in the Caribbean.
Speaker: But also, Sam and i we need just a little mental health break, so we're going to take a couple of weeks off, you know? Everybody needs the mental health break, and that's what we're doing. We'll be back next week, though, with a new show.
Speaker: We've got some good stories coming your way. Sam's got this one that's a novel that she's yet to read to me, and I'm dying to know what it is. I've got a baseball story coming at you. You know I love baseball and all those three-point shots.
Speaker: um I also have the story about a massacre coming your way. So, yeah, we've got some good stuff coming to you soon. But until then, if you guys have any suggestions, please email jeffandsamshow at gmail.com.
Speaker: Tell us. Give us suggestions. um But we will see you next week with an all-new show. And today, you sit back, relax, and enjoy the story that Sam did about the Ken and Barbie killer. It is very messed up. But hey, you listen to us, so there's a chance you probably will like it.
Speaker: And we will see you next week. Bye.
Speaker: Hi, Sam. Hi, Jeff. This is your your true crime comedy history podcast. We like to start with a bang like we just did Actually, i hit record, then you started telling that story, and I thought we were going to like to start the show, so we can cut that out. It's fine. Listen. It doesn't matter. Unashamed. Yeah, we are who we are. We are who we are. Fuck it.
Speaker: Yeah, and we got Dolly in front of us. She would never judge us. No, not in a million years. um How are you? I'm good, how are you? I'm so like, I don't know, a little bit tired.
Speaker: I think I can feel ya. Yeah. If it wasn't obvious from the the sleepy stroke eye face talk, she said. I do have a little ah caffeine pouch in my gum here. Is it working?
Speaker: You know, maybe I needed another one. which Okay, you do that. I'm going to record you when you start vibrating. That's okay. I need to vibrate a little bit because, like I took a nap before you came because you were supposed to be here at two, but then it was like three, and I said, you know what?
Speaker: I am going to take a nap. I'll lay down in that bed. i'm telling you, if napping was a sport. I would win. World-class athlete here. World-fucking-class. can do it everywhere. Yep.
Speaker: You really can. it's it is the most impressive thing traveling around the world with you. We will be like sitting in, you know, i don't know, anywhere in the world because we've been so many places together now. And I will look across and you will just, head will be tilted down, eyes will be closed, you will be gone. Dead asleep. It's impressive. And it's like restorative too. That's the best part is my naps are not like the kind that you wake up from and go, oh man. I wake up and I'm like yeah, I'm ready to
Speaker: Really, it's true. Like in Norway, we were at the cabin and you fell asleep and I am like watching Netflix or something, remember? And when you fell asleep, I turned it down. I was like, I'm not fucking with her. She's sleeping. She's, in you know, out.
Speaker: You woke up five minutes later, you picked up your Kindle, and you and I'm sitting here watching Netflix, and then you picked up your Kindle, and you started reading. But not only did you start reading, you started pacing back and forth behind the couch, back and forth, back and forth. I was like, wow, that was he's a fucking good nap. It was a really intense moment. I would occasionally look up from my iPad and watch you go back and forth, back and forth.
Speaker: It was restorative sleep. It was a very intense part of the book. And that was the one where I was crying. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. No. i This girl can nap. And she loves it. It's impressive.
Speaker: Uh-huh. Yeah, well, I just took a good one, too Took a good nap. I laid down, and I was out. Out! See, i was i knew that if I had laid down, because we moved from 2 to 2.30, and I knew that that was my downfall, because i was like, I had everything set. I had my boxes that I was going unpack and all that kind of thing. like I was all set for leaving it.
Speaker: The right time to get here at 2. then when you said 2.30, I was like, oh, okay. Like, that's fine. And then I kind of just slumped. Sat down on the floor, turned my show up.
Speaker: Next thing you know, the boxes that I had set aside, not unpacked, really. Yeah, I probably should have kept it at 2 because technically I was ready. oh You know? It's fine. Like, i came home and after I ran on the treadmill today with Mindy. You just needed a minute. It's fine. Yeah.
Speaker: That's fine. We're here now. We're here. We're We're queer. Are you? little bit. Did you not know that about me? a little bit. a little bit. We're here. We're queer.
Speaker: um And we're going to tell you a story. Scarborough and St. Catharines near Toronto were nice places to live and raise your kids. They were quiet towns on Lake Ontario.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: Some people say it was the moment that Canada lost its innocence and destroyed justice. Ooh. Ooh. or At the age of 15, Carla Homolka knew she wanted to be a veterinarian.
Speaker: You know? Is it that? to Can I say what I think? I might be wrong. No. The school thing? I don't think no so Okay. Okay. ah She began working at an animal hospital where she met Jennifer Black.
Speaker: Jennifer described her as effervescent, bright, and a pretty girl. She was young and idealistic and slightly impressionable, but she was wonderful. She had a way with people and she was great with the animals. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: In 1986, a couple years after starting her job with Jennifer, Carla, who's now 17, and another teenage coworker went to a work convention. They were young and lively, and they told their two older coworkers that they wanted to share one of the two reserved rooms between themselves.
Speaker: Unbeknownst to Jennifer and her adult colleague, the girls went down to the bar to have some drinks. That is where they met Paul. He was handsome and captivating.
Speaker: He had Carla immediately swept off her feet. They hit it off and it was in like an electric thing between them. Love bomb. So she's 17 and he's early 20s.
Speaker: Carla went back to Paul's room that night. From then, fairy tale story, I guess. A friend of Mark's who ended up dating Carla's younger sister described him as a person of influence who commanded attention.
Speaker: He was just one of those people. yeah The two became inseparable. 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.
Speaker: Paul was a successful accountant. 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. They were happy.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: His victims never got a good look at him, but they described him as charming and almost the boy next door. 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.
Speaker: They all said it. By August 1989, he had seven victims. Although they had interviewed over a thousand suspects, the task force was no closer to identifying him.
Speaker: So this is all going on. 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.
Speaker: 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?
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: The two became friends. What's that phase? I don't know. i've got I've got theories. I've got suspicions. Doesn't he suspicious? I am. I'm a little suspicious.
Speaker: 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. Okay. She did a great job.
Speaker: 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. They started a door-to-door. They released the composite sketch to the public, but nothing panned out still.
Speaker: In October of 1990, Paul decided to move to St. Catharines, moved in with Carla and her family. Her parents loved him. He treated their oldest daughter like a princess, and she was happy and glowing.
Speaker: Around this time, 16-year-old Leigh Ann Plato began working at the animal hospital with the now 20-year-old Carla. She was always going on about her relationship with Paul and how it was wonderful.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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. 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?
Speaker: 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. go ahead and try it. She gives her one drink. She gives her another drink.
Speaker: By 2.30 in the morning, Tammy was dead. It was considered an accident. She had passed out and choked on her vomit. Paul and Carla only said that they didn't realize that she had passed out.
Speaker: According to Jennifer, Carla was destroyed and inconsolable about Tammy's death. 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.
Speaker: A month later, Paul and Carla decided to move out of the family home. Paul recently got a video camera as a gift, and he just was intent on videotaping basically every they asked every aspect of their whole lives.
Speaker: The couple got Rottweiler named Buddy because Carla wanted it and it made Paul look good. Most people didn't really pay much attention, but they some of them realized 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 of his time. Buddy didn't like Paul.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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? it's It's time to move on. We have to move past this and stop living in that.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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 and And what he saw was a human foot.
Speaker: oh Quickly climbs out of his canoe, calls the police. They come ah over and they find the full remains of a disemboed dismembered body encased in different blocks of cement.
Speaker: 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. Because if they were, they would have known that the water level this time a year drops like five feet.
Speaker: So if they had known, they would have thrown it farther out or whatever. Police identified the body as Leslie Mahaffey. They considered her a victim of opportunity and said that the killer must live close by.
Speaker: 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. um He started asking Leanne personal questions and then inviting her to come over to their new house and hang out with the couple.
Speaker: She was still just a teenager. Like, she started getting weirded out. Carlo's young 20s, Paul was mid to late twenty s She's not about it. So she made plenty of excuses. She ended up not joining them.
Speaker: 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. Things were about to get even worse.
Speaker: April 16th, 15-year-old Kristen French was abducted from the church parking lot in her school-like compound. It was broad daylight.
Speaker: Witnesses saw a 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: So. little while later, ah Mark's visiting Paul and Carla and Paul offers him a drink. He says, yes. He goes, OK, Carla, get him a drink. She went to hand Mark the glass.
Speaker: But then suddenly Paul backhands her. 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 to have guests in the house, you need to do better.
Speaker: She comes back out few minutes later. She's wiped your 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, ah but he was just, he just turned 20.
Speaker: Paul was his idol. He'd never experienced something like this. And it was so out of character for them that he didn't know how to react. Um, Carla's friend, Jennifer, and her coworker, 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.
Speaker: 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. She's terrified.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: Her fairy tale is now over, right? Everything that had been going great since 1986 is just done. She spent hours detailing all of the domestic violence.
Speaker: But the most shocking thing about her discussion with the police was that she told them that Paul had killed both Leslie and Kristen.
Speaker: Boom. 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. That's all he wanted.
Speaker: 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. And apparently she did.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: Carla said that just before her parents arrived, 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: you know what I mean? It's not her fault. She was scared to fucking death. Mm-hmm. So she told the cops that their relationship had become more volatile after the marriage, which was the day that Leslie was found.
Speaker: 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, that he would kill her. She also told police that after the murder of Leslie, Paul demanded that she join him when he hunted for new victims.
Speaker: So she did. She accompanied him and played a key role when he abducted Kristen French. He now had the perfect accomplice. She said that her presence allowed him to hunt more openly and expand his targets.
Speaker: He no longer had to sneak around at night, hide in bushes, like she like shock people. 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.
Speaker: So Kristen was kept for almost the whole two weeks that she was missing. 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.
Speaker: On February 17th, 1993, police arrested 28-year-old Paul Bernardo. The neighbors were stunned. He was harmless.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: He never would have suspected that there was a girl being helicoptered down there. 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.
Speaker: So after years of terrorizing Scarborough, he just moved an hour and a half away and took his violence to a new level. So two of the worst and most violent crimes in the history of Toronto were now attributed to just this one man.
Speaker: After the connection was made, fingers were pointed back to the Toronto police. They were blamed for not catching him before he killed. When the eighth victim was attacked, she provided the police with that perfect description of the attacker. And it looked like Paul.
Speaker: When it was released to the public, Paul's friends and acquaintances even reached out to the police. he He looked like the guy. He lived in that spot.
Speaker: And then sometimes they watched him like interact with women. And so they thought maybe they, maybe you guys should talk to them. So they went to his house, but he wasn't there. They left a car and said, Hey, give us a call. and He calls them back and says, yeah, I can come on in on my way down to my girlfriend's house.
Speaker: 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. 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.
Speaker: He volunteered his DNA and that was it. ah 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 to him.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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 carpets. The stairs were being ripped up. They vacuumed every inch of the house.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: So they had no case. It boiled down to the testimony of only the battered and abused wife, Carla Homolka. 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. 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.
Speaker: said that she had been beaten down and broken by this man, manipulated and coerced, and she couldn't resist him. Okay. After the police warrants had expired, Paul's defense attorney and his aide, Kim Doyle, went into his home to search for themselves.
Speaker: 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. He followed the instructions into the bathroom. He climbed up onto a ledge, removed the light fixture.
Speaker: He reached all the way up into the ceiling to the point where his head was hitting the ceiling. And he started pulling down videotapes. He handed them to Kim.
Speaker: 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...
Speaker: that carla was the farthest thing from innocence Oh, fuck. the willingly engaging in the sexual assault and torture of not only christian kris french and leslie mahaffey but of her own sister tammy as well as many un girls She showed no signs of reluctance or passive involvement. She didn't present as meek or intimidated.
Speaker: There was no sign of the battered wife she was now portraying. God damn. There were even times that she was orchestrating the torture.
Speaker: All of the sudden, Carla Homolka was transformed from the broken, sad victim into a callous and calcating calculating perpetrator. However, The police didn't have the tapes.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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's prosecution's case. However, ken Murray made an abso-fucking-unbelievable decision to withhold the tapes.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: just to discredit her right on the stand. 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.
Speaker: So during further investigation, Carla continued to ask if they had found the tapes repeatedly. 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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, 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. God, that's insane.
Speaker: It had been ruled an accident. They had no reason to look at it. 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.
Speaker: 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. 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 and it made her lose consciousness. And then she said she stood back as Paul raped her vaginally and anally.
Speaker: The tape, however, shows that she is holding the rag directly onto Tammy's face and smothering her with it. And then the absolute worst fucking thing that I can possibly say, she performed oral sex on her own 15-year-old sister. Oh God, what the fuck? Yeah.
Speaker: Again, police don't have any of this. They just have what she's saying. So they knew... that something horrible had happened, but they thought that the tapes were gone for good.
Speaker: 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 she wanted them. she,
Speaker: 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, with statements she would make little bombs that she would drop and she would say them in a very callous and like removed way.
Speaker: um and they started to realize that she wasn't this broken wife. Um, 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.
Speaker: So Kristen's in the basement. 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.
Speaker: She had a life to live and she didn't want have to 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. She wanted her dead. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: 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. So they knew that she was horrible, but she was their only hope if they wanted the murder charges to stick.
Speaker: 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. She told more revealing details about some of the shit that she had done and they just kept brushing it under the rug.
Speaker: In mid-May, they took Carla back to her home to go through the place. And help the police maybe find evidence. And you can watch the videos. Of her walking through.
Speaker: um She had dressed herself. Like a school girl. Like braiding her hair on the other sides. And like looking innocent. But then as they're walking through. She's got that.
Speaker: 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 to be repaired? Are you guys going to cover the costs? And she's asking those kinds of questions. And then she's like, Oh, I want to take this. Can I take this? Like the fuck it's, it's just bad.
Speaker: So again, nothing gentle, nothing sweet, nothing delicate about her anymore. Because Ken Murray still had yet to reveal the tapes, the police moved forward.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: She would be eligible for parole after only four years. All this in return for her testifying against Paul. 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.
Speaker: Paul's lawyer began making kind of vague statements about Carla's involvement, but again, did not release the tapes. Come on, man. I'm getting nervous here. I need to release them.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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, He fucked the entire thing because it allowed the police um to make a a deal with Carla.
Speaker: John Rosen took over as Paul's defense attorney. 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.
Speaker: It was a punch to the gut. 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.
Speaker: 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 a, torture um video of just Carla.
Speaker: 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. 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.
Speaker: And she looks just emotionless. You know, in my mind, I've got Eileen Wuornos. She was interviewed a day before she was put to death. And she gives this crazy, wild-eyed interview. You can just see the crazy all over her face. It's coming out. You can see it.
Speaker: That's in my mind. That's, yeah. Ugh. So the trial for Paul is rapidly approaching and the prosecution's spiraling. 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.
Speaker: They had already struck and ah struck a plea deal with her, so they didn't know how to move on. 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.
Speaker: And the only way they could do that was with Carla. 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: Okay. 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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 preserv preserve whatever small shard of dignity for the victims and their families.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: But the media insisted that they and the public had a right to know the details. 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.
Speaker: 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?
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: There was nothing you could do about it. She argued, some argued that it would have been better for everyone to 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: i She begged Miss Mahaffey. She begged the family, please don't let her in there. She didn't want her to see her daughter that way. yeah Ultimately, she stayed and she saw every moment.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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. She was always glowing and never saw any bruises.
Speaker: Dr. Bradford notes that there was no evidence of extensive or repeated abuse by Paul. So... Carla had access to her own accounts and was independently employed.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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...
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: Carla dressed up in her sister's clothing, done her hair like her sister. Yeah. And then as the couple were having sex, Carla even pretended to talk like Tammy.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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?
Speaker: 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?
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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. When he returned, Kristen was dead.
Speaker: Carla told him that she had asked for the cord around her neck to be loosened 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.
Speaker: 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. Okay. Carla took the stand.
Speaker: 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. She looked like a totally different person than who they had seen on the videotapes.
Speaker: John Rosen presented her with a picture of Tammy alive. and then a picture of Tammy in her coffin. And he said, this is what you did to her. You and him right over there, you did this.
Speaker: And she said, yes. He did the same with photos of Leslie and Kristen. The courtroom was completely silent during her testimony. For two weeks, Rosen demolished the persona of the battered wife and the victim.
Speaker: You watched the transformation. She went from quiet, distant and bland to haughty and dismissive, and she was a powerhouse. 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.
Speaker: It made it obvious that she was nobody that could be pushed around and that nobody would be able to bully or belittle her. And it further added to the case to argue against her being a victim.
Speaker: 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. On August 31st, 1995, the jury was sent out for deliberation.
Speaker: 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. Paul was found guilty on all nine counts, including the first to remurder charges.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: Doug French, Christian'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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: Our final words to our daughter when the trial is over. Christy, you can't be hurt anymore. We love you. With the conclusion of the murder trial, Paul Bernardo then went on stand for the trial ah manslaughter for the death of ta Tammy Homolka and then the multiple sexual assaults dating back all the way 1986.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: She was fully aware of her actions. She knew right from wrong and had plenty of opportunities to remove herself from a situation, but she chose to stay. Even 30 years later, Kim Doyle is still brought to tears discussing what she witnessed on those tapes.
Speaker: 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. The public and the families and even the jury knew and felt that justice had not been served.
Speaker: Alan Young, a law professor, was outraged as well. He wrote to the attorney general and said, quote, you know the 12 years for Carla is inadequate. 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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 ne if they reneged on the deal. He even claimed that during his review of the Jane Doe case,
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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. God damn. She was released, and the nation was fucked up.
Speaker: They were so pissed. She was returned to unimpeded freedom with a psychology degree that she had earned while in jail. What the fuck? That the taxpayers had paid for.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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. No way. Like...
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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. That fucking lawyer. Right? What?
Speaker: 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. 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.
Speaker: And they would have seen her for what she was. ye And that would have been a game changer. So that's, that's insane. That's horrific. The videotapes.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: Like I listened to a million podcasts and watched all of the documentaries you have out there. But I think the one that I, ah the one on Hulu was really good. And it's just awful because people tried to commit suicide after this.
Speaker: 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 tap what happened and then they couldn't do anything about it. And then like Kim Doyle, she does a lot of talking in it and she's just, she just breaks down in tears like multiple times talking about it.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: Right. Do you, do they prepare you at all? Like, do they offer counseling now? I know they not, didn't, you know, back in the day. I wonder if it's a thing now, especially in Canada.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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. You hear the audio.
Speaker: 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. and know. it's So when you were talking about it I was like, okay, yeah. this I mean, it's fucked.
Speaker: That was horrible. Yeah. Sorry, you're funny. Good job, though. Okay, so I had a second story prepared, and I was going to sling us with a slingshot far out into left field.
Speaker: However, i think that we're going to end. On that horrible note. On that note. We're going to end on that note, because that was a story that was worth telling.
Speaker: It is. um Sam, have fun on your journey. It's going to be blast. Oh, I can't wait. Stalking 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
