← Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
The Most Disturbing Case I've Ever Covered: Ken & Barbie Killers Paul Bernardo & Karla Homolka
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We'Re going to talk about deep breathing, something we all need to do more of. Especially when you're getting ready to call your health plan and deal with one of those automated phone trees. You know how it feels to get into an endless phone loop when you just have a simple question that could take two minutes or less and then pretty soon you've lost your Zen. Shouldn't your health plan help you reduce stress? That's why you'll talk to a real person when you choose. Pacific Source Health plans. Tranquil. Hey everyone, I'm Ashleigh Banfield and this is drop dead serious. I am often asked how I ended up in the world of true crime. And the truth is it hit me like a brick right at the very beginning of my career. I remember in 1988, I had just graduated from Queen's University in Canada and I was just getting started in my TV news career when. When the case of a couple of missing schoolgirls near Toronto began heating up. Queen's was not far from Toronto and so the case stuck out for me, right? And I continued to follow every word of it in the papers. And yeah, it was the papers back then, like hard coffees and broadsheets and door to door delivery. Leslie Mahaffey and Kristin French were just 14 and 15 respectively, and they disappeared without a trace. Look, we may hear a lot of stories just like this today, but I'm going to tell you, back then, it seemed bewildering. It was mystifying. Even girls just didn't seem to vanish into thin air. Less so from affluent neighborhoods. But within the next few years, the pieces of the puzzle began coming together. And their disappearances were connected with a vexing serial rapist case. A rapist who'd been out there on the prowl for years. And the rolling thunder of revelations in this case shook Canada to its core. And it caught the attention of tens of millions of Americans below the border too. But Canadians were soon barred from hearing any details about arguably one of the most sensational murder cases in their country's. History. Americans, on the other hand, they had free rein to hear everything and publish anything they wanted to about the case. And so Canadian journalists like me soon turned our attention to friends below the border and fax machines in order to follow what Karla Homolka and her husband Paul Bernardo did to their victims. There are killers who act alone, and then there are killers who find each other. And when they do, it's a whole new level of evil. That's what makes the story of Carla Homolka and Paul Bernardo so haunting. Because this wasn't just murder. It was partnership. It was pleasure. It was power. Together, they became one of the most infamous killer couples in history. And not because of some wild Bonnie and Clyde like shooting, but because of their sadism. Behind closed doors as a married couple, they looked picture perfect. Young and attractive and successful. But in real life, they were the Ken and Barbie killers. A name that stuck because it was true. Behind their fake plastic facade, they were more twisted than the worst of the worst. Not only killing innocent young schoolgirls, but but targeting family too. What they were doing to these girls while smiling and licking their lips for the cameras is almost impossible to comprehend. I was young in the news business and I remember at the time thinking there had never been a case like this which could easily pass for naivety, right? I mean, I was like 21 and I'd been a reporter for a grand total of like a year. But here I am four decades later and I still say there had never been a case like this and there hasn't been one since. To understand how this nightmare began, you gotta rewind back to 1987. 17 year old Carla Homolka was there for a pet industry convention. She was a bright, confident girl from a normal middle class family. The kind of teenager that people described as bubbly and responsible and even sweet. And then she met him. Paul Bernardo. He was six years older, 23 at the time, blonde hair, perfect smile, college educated. On the surface, he seemed charming and successful, the kind of guy your parents would likely welcome into the family right away. But behind that charm was something else entirely. Paul Bernardo was already leading a double life. By the time he crossed paths with Carla, Paul had already begun hunting women. Across the Toronto area, police were chasing an unknown predator. And Carla had no idea the man she was falling in love with was the monster that police and the papers were were tracking. He was the so called Scarborough rapist, named after the Toronto suburb. A predator who attacked women as they stepped off buses late at night. He stalked them, he ambushed them. And he brutalized them. Many of them were tied to fences as they were attacked, raped and brutalized. Several had their pubic hair torn out. And somehow the Scarborough rapist kept getting away with it. But to Carla, it was just a story in the news, not the man in her bed. She was completely enthralled with Paul from the moment they met. She was obsessed with him. She told friends that he was the love of her life, the man she'd been waiting for. And in the beginning, Paul made her believe that. He showered her with affection and gifts and compliments, every move carefully calculated to pull her in deeper. But slowly, things began to change. Paul became possessive. He told her how to dress, what to say, who she could talk to, who she couldn't. He wanted to control everything. And the more controlling he became, the more Carla seemed to bend to it. Whatever he wanted, she wanted, too. Or at least that's what she told herself. Behind closed doors. Their relationship was built on domination and submission. And Paul's sexual fantasies began to turn darker, More violent, more depraved. And Carla didn't just accept it, she encouraged it. By then, they'd been together for three years, and Carla wanted to keep Paul happy. She wanted to be the woman who could fulfill his every fantasy, no matter how twisted. But there was one fantasy Paul couldn't let go of. A sick fantasy that plagued his thoughts. He told Carla he wanted a virgin. Somebody younger. Someone he could, quote, unquote, train. At first, it sounded like a disturbing compulsion. Something so perverse, so far outside the bounds of normal. Everything should have ended right there. Like right there and then. But it didn't. Carla didn't walk away. She stayed. Even when his fantasy turned diabolically specific. And in the most shocking, unthinkable act imaginable, she decided to give him exactly what he wanted. Even if it meant that his victim would come from inside her own home. Who were they going to target?
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Hey everyone, it's Ashley. I have got to be honest, getting ready for the holidays has always stressed me out. But a few months ago, I started using Jones Road beauty and it has been such a game changer. It feels like somebody finely designed makeup for people who don't have the time or patience for that whole 12 step routine. If you haven't tried Jones Road, it is a minimalist makeup line from Bobbi Brown. Everything is clean, it's simple, and it's actually good for your skin. My personal obsession is the Miracle Balm. It's the easiest product I've ever used. I swipe it on as blush, little glow here and there, sometimes use it on my lips, even on my eyes. It's actually a perfect queen. Quick fix before a holiday party or whenever you're just racing out the door. And Jones Road just dropped their new holiday collection. These little trio kits are so good. They're limited edition though, so once they're gone, they're gone. So this holiday season, simplify your routine with makeup that is clean and strategic and multifunctional. And from now until December 1st, Jones Road's doing their first ever Black Friday sale. So go to jonesroadbeauty.com to get 20% off site wide. That's jonesroadbeauty.com for up to 20% off your entire order after you make your purchase. Do me a solid, please. They'll ask you where you heard about them. And please support our show and let them know we sent you right here. Drop dead serious. It is hard to overstate how disturbing this next part of the story is. Not just because of what happened, but because of who it happened to. At the time that Paul's fantasies were spiraling out of control, Carla was working as a veterinary assistant. Someone who handled anesthetics and tranquilizers on a daily basis, she knew exactly how those drugs worked and exactly how much it took to put a large animal completely under. So when Paul started talking more and more about wanting a virgin, someone younger, someone he could train, Carla didn't just listen. Carla took action. Paul's fantasy involved Carla's own little sister, Tammy hamolka. Tammy was five years younger than Carla. She was just 15. So you'd think that Carla would protest, argue, and Fight Paul to the death over the suggestion that they drug and rape Tammy on video. But in one of the most chilling aspects to this story, Carla agreed. She even made it her Christmas present to her fiance. Tammy would be served up to Paul in a sinister plan they would execute on Christmas Eve. Tammy was a high school sophomore, outgoing, athletic, the kind of girl who adored her big sister and trusted her completely. To her, Carla and Paul were the cool couple. They were fun, they were exciting, and they were about to get married. There was nothing to foretell the despicable horror that Tammy Homolka, 15, was about to endure. On Christmas Eve of 1990, Carla's parents were having their usual celebration. On December 24, the family came over for movies and eggnog and laughter. Nothing out of the ordinary on this special family holiday the night before Christmas. But Paul and Carla drugged Tammy's eggnog with animal tranquilizers that Carla had stolen from her veterinary clinic where she worked. And when Tammy began to lose consciousness, they guided her down to the basement. Once away from the family upstairs, they laid her out on a bed, stripped her naked, and began rolling videotape. That's when Carla and Paul together alternately raped Tammy while she was unconscious. And all of it was recorded. But something began to go wrong with their plan, because something was happening with Tammy. In the middle of their assault on this 15 year old sister, Tammy started to get sick. At first it was subtle. A sound, a movement. And then it turned serious. Tammy began to vomit and suddenly everything spiraled out of control. Carla and Paul panicked and tried to revive her, but Tammy stopped breathing. She was choking on her own vomit. And then, right then, Instead of calling 91 1, they froze. Maybe it was fear, or maybe the harsh reality of what they were doing to Tammy finally dawned on them. Or maybe it was just what would this look like if anyone found out the truth? So instead of helping Tammy by calling 911 right away, they cleaned her up and they wiped everything down. They changed her clothes and they tried to make it look like nothing untowards had happened. But when paramedics finally did arrive, Carla and Paul already had their story straight. They told police that Tammy must have had too much of that eggnog and that she must have accidentally mixed alcohol with some medication and passed out. And the performance worked, partly because Carla cried. And Carla was good at that. Her parents believed her completely. They saw a devastated older sister who had just watched a terrible accident unfold right in front of her. But Tammy did not recover. Tammy died the next day in the Hospital. Carla killed her sister with the help of her future husband during a rape of her sister on video. Just let that sink in. Carla stayed by her parents side, helped them with the funeral arrangements, and played the part of the grieving sister perfectly. The coroner called it an accident, a deadly mix of alcohol and medication. The paperwork was filed, the case was closed, and Tammy Hamolka was buried. And that was that. Nobody questioned anything. Not the police, not the doctors, not even her parents, who were grateful the big sister, Carla, had been there to help in the emergency. Within days, life in the Homolka house shifted from shock to mourning. Flowers arrived at the door, casseroles arrived in the kitchen. Whispers of such a tragedy abounded. That underneath all that grief, something had shifted. For most people, what happened to Tammy would have registered beyond the pale. Something that horrific would have torpedoed a relationship, an engagement, a facade. But Tammy's death didn't tear Carla and Paul apart. It bound them together even tighter. They shared a secret no one else on earth would know. And instead of driving a wedge between them, it became the glue that made them inseparable. In a twisted way, it made them feel untouchable, as if they'd just gotten away with the unthinkable. Because they had. They'd gotten away with rape and murder. And from that moment on, Paul and Carla became even more reckless and even more lethal. By June of 1991, just six months after Tammy's death, they were married in a lavish ceremony with a horse drawn carriage and a princess bride dress. But remember, the man Carla had just married was no Prince Charming. He was the Scarborough Rapist, the same predator police had trying to catch. For years, police had been hunting him down after a string of vicious attacks on young women carried out near bus stops and city parks. He stalked his victims late at night as they walked on quiet sidewalks. And each assault followed the same pattern, even though there was a composite sketch cobbled together from the victims who were able to catch a glimpse of him. Still, no one could figure out who this person was for years. But Carla had clues sitting right across from her at the dinner table. Paul talked about those crimes more than most people would have. He'd brag about how stupid the police were, how close they'd come to catching that guy. He even shared details that sounded far too specific to be known by anyone but the attacker himself. At first, Carla didn't want to believe it. But later on, police finally released the sketch of the Scarborough Rapist, and it looked exactly like Paul. The Carla didn't say a word Instead, she convinced herself it wasn't him. Or maybe she just didn't want to face what she already knew. And after Tammy's death, something in Paul changed. He started taking things further. By May of 1991, Paul's violence had reached a new level. And Carla knew exactly what he was planning. He'd been talking for weeks about wanting to find another girl, and Carla didn't stop him. She knew what that meant by now. And on the night of May 14th, Paul found his next victim. She was 14 year old Leslie Mahaffey. Leslie was standing alone outside of her house in Burlington, Ontario, another suburb of Toronto. She had missed her curfew and she was locked out of her house. Paul was driving by and he offered Leslie a ride so that she could use his phone. And Leslie trusted him. But instead of taking Leslie home, Paul brought Leslie to his home. And Carla was right there, waiting. For the next two days, Leslie was held captive inside their home and raped and tortured repeatedly to the bewilderment of police. They'd later find out that everything that happened to Leslie was recorded on video tapes that would later become the most damning and evidence in this entire case. Paul continued filming all of their assaults, saying it was for them to remember their, quote, adventures. In reality, the tapes were his trophies. A way to relive the power and the control that he held over his victims. In Leslie's case, the videos showed Paul and Carla degrading and assaulting this 14 year old helpless girl while she beat, begged to go home and begged for her life. But two days later, they took her life. Exactly how they killed her is still up for debate, but prosecutors believe that Paul strangled her. Whether Carla helped him or simply stood by, that part's unknown. But what is clear is that Carla was there and helped cover up what what came next. They faced a pretty big problem. What to do with Leslie's dead body. So they concocted a plan. They used a circular saw to cut Leslie Mahaffy into 10 different pieces. And then Carla went out and bought bags of cement. Together, they encased the 10 severed body parts into eight different slabs of concrete blocks that they then dumped into Lake Gibson in St. Catherine's Ontario, about 30 miles south of Toronto. The couple then scrubbed the house from top to bottom in an effort to erase any sign that Leslie Mahaffey had ever been there and any sign of what they did to her there. While they went about their diabolical plan, Leslie's family was desperate. She'd vanished from their front porch, leaving behind her bike and her glasses. Police organized search parties, neighbors joined in, and missing person flyers blanketed the Toronto suburb of Burlington. For weeks, there were no answers, just a family begging for help in finding their daughter. And then six weeks later, came a horrifying discovery. As the lake levels receded in Lake Gibson, some of the concrete blocks began to appear near the water line. Some fishermen thought they saw something terrible concealed in one of the blocks and called police immediately. And on June 29, 1991, police divers found the heavy blocks near the shoreline of Lake Gibson. Encased within them were Leslie Mahaffey's remains. In an un believable and sickening twist of fate, just across town, on that very same day that the authorities were retrieving Leslie's body parts in that lake, Paul Bernardo and Carla Homolka were walking down the aisle. They were smiling for wedding photos and celebrating their picture perfect day. The biggest, very same day. Who knows if they were thinking about what they'd done to Leslie just six weeks prior? But less than a year after their fairy tale wedding, they would do it all over again with a brand new victim. Kristen French was 15 years old in April of 1992. She went to a private school in St. Catharines, the same city where Leslie's body parts were were dumped the year before. In broad daylight on a Friday afternoon before Easter, Kristen was walking home from school in her school uniform. This was a safe neighborhood. In fact, Kristen was taking her usual route home and walking through the Grace Lutheran Church parking lot. Suddenly, a beige Camaro pulled up beside her. Inside was a nice looking young couple, lost and asking for directions. They were looking at a map. But behind the devilish smiles, it was Paul and Carla on a mission to steal another teenage girl. Carla rolled down the window, holding that map and asking for Kristen's help. And Kristen stopped. Because of course, why wouldn't she? Kristen was polite and kind, the kind of teenage girl who wouldn't think twice about helping somebody who looked lost. And these people looked harmless. That was the trap. The moment Kristen leaned in to look at the map, Paul forced her into the car at knifepoint. And just like that, in broad daylight in a church parking lot, Kristen French vanished. But this time, there were witnesses. People who'd seen the beige Camaro and Paul Bernardo forcing Kristen into it. After the Camaro peeled out, Kristen's shoe was found in that parking lot as well as a lock of her hair. Those accounts and that evidence would become key in tracking down the killer couple. But not before they'd carry out their twisted plan with Kristen French. When Kristen didn't come home for dinner. Her parents called the police. And within hours, her face was on TV and in newspapers all across Ontario. Search teams combed the area desperate to find her. But back at Paul and Carla's house, Kristen's three day nightmare was just beginning. She was tied up in a bathroom in their basement. It was in that bathroom and in that basement for three whole days that Paul and Carla would carry out another series of sickening rapes and tortures. Only this time, they upped the ante into psychological torture. They showed Kristen videotapes of what they had done the year before to Leslie. The rapes, the torture, everything that Leslie had endured. And then they showed Kristen videos of her own father pleading on the news for her safe return. There is one sordid fact that has remained with me ever since Paul Bernardo's trial. With Kristen French bound and cowering in a bathtub, Bernardo turned up the music really loud. It was a song called Little Bones by one of Canada's most popular bands, the tragically hip. I actually went to college with the members of that band. And to that song he urinated on the naked and terrified teenage girl. Little Bones had been one of my favorite songs. But for the past 30 years, I have been unable to listen to that song without a pang of revolt. And just like in the crimes committed against Leslie Mahaffy, everything they did to Kristen French was recorded on video. More tapes that would later become critical evidence in court. At one point, Kristen tried to escape. She tried to escape her captivity, but Carla struck her with a rubber mallet. And when they'd eventually tired of having their way with Kristen, Carla and Paul killed her. They killed Kristen too. Only this time we know how because it was on video.
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Paul tied a noose made from electrical cord around Kristen's neck and then secured the other end to a hope chest, you know, like a trunk that you get when you're married. And Paul slowly strangled Kristen until she was dead. But it would take them 11 days to figure out how and where to get rid of Kristin's body. And in the end, they stripped her naked, they shaved her head, and then they dumped her in a ditch on the side of a Road about 40 minutes away from her house. It wasn't far from where Leslie's remains had been thrown in the lake. Encased in concrete blocks, Kristen's face and body were extremely battered. But police were able to identify her from a pre existing injury to her pinky finger. The discovery of Kristen's body sent shockwaves through the province of Ontario and right across Canada. Two teenage girls gone less than a year apart. Both of them kidnapped, raped and tortured and murdered. And both cases looking very, very similar. They were dubbed the school girl murders. And police suddenly realized they might be dealing with the same killer or killers. And that's when everything circled back to a case that had haunted detectives for years. For nearly a decade, police had been trying to find the man responsible. String of brutal sex assaults across the Toronto area, specifically the suburb of Scarborough. They had DNA samples from those attacks. But in the early 90s, testing technology was still very slow and very expensive. And these cops were even slower. They had samples from Paul Bernardo. In the fall of 1990, a tip had apparently come in that this was a guy who liked rough sex. And so they interviewed him, but they didn't test his samples for two and a half years. They didn't test his samples until 1993. Tammy Hamolka, Leslie Mahaffey and Kristen French, plus a fourth unnamed victim, were all attacked and or murdered during that time. What detectives would eventually discover was that the man they'd been chasing all those years, the faceless man predator known as the Scarborough Rapist, was Paul Bernardo, the school girl murderer. And they had his DNA before anyone was murdered. Behind closed doors, the so called perfect couple, they were unraveling. Paul's control over Carla had turned brutally violent. The abuse was constant, physical and emotional. It was relentless. In one particularly brutal assault on Carla, Paul beat her so badly with a flashlight, she ended up in the hospital. Take a look at the pictures. These were presented on the record to show the extent of her injuries. Two deep dark black eyes. It was at this point, January of 1993, Carla had apparently reached her breaking point. She told police that Paul had beaten her and he was arrested and charged with assault with a weapon. After this beating, Carla did Not return back to their marital home. You know, the place where she and her husband had sexually abused and murdered two schoolgirls. But this is the point when police finally began to connect the dots. Around the same time, police finally got DNA test results back and discovered that the Scarborough rapist's DNA was a match to Paul Bernardo. So Paul was arrested for this now, right? Not just what he'd done to his wife, but for the Scarborough rapes. This arrest was in February of 1993. The thing is, officers who were arresting him for the Scarborough rapes had no idea about the scope of his monstrous depravity. By May, however, they would. He was hit with two counts each of first degree murder, kidnapping, forcible confinement, and aggravated sexual assault for the rapes and murders of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffey. When they searched Paul and Carla's house, in a search that went on for weeks, police found restraints, notes, and signs of violence. But the most important evidence was still hidden. The videotapes. The videotapes of the rapes and the murders. Carla, however, knew where those tapes were and what exactly those tapes would show. She'd been there for all of it. She'd helped, and she was in those tapes. And so when police started asking Carla questions, she began to strategize. She realized that if she didn't act fast, she'd be facing the same charges as Paul and a lifetime in prison if convicted. Again, she knew she was on those tapes. So she told police that she was one of Paul's victims, that he'd beaten her relentlessly, controlled her and forced her. Forced her to take part in everything that he did. And without any tapes to prove otherwise, well, prosecutors believed her. They offered her a deal because, as you know, a spouse can't be compelled to testify against another spouse. And they didn't have tape, so they needed Carla's testimony. So the deal they offered her 12 years for the manslaughters of Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French in exchange for her testimony against her husband, Paul. In the press, this became known as a deal with the devil. But what about the death of her sister, Tammy? Carla wasn't charged with that murder. Investigators still had no idea what Paul and Carla had done to Tammy. And so the same month that they signed the deal with Carla, they made plans to exhume her sister's grave. And once they'd done that, police determined that Tammy had been raped and murdered, too, and Paul would be charged with that crime. By then, investigators had turned Paul and Carla's house upside down, scouring it for evidence. But they never found the videotapes because they never looked in the ceiling fixtures. So once their search warrant expired, Paul told his lawyer to do just that. Look in the ceiling fixtures. And in an upstairs bathroom, Six videotapes tumbled out of the light fixture. Videotapes that could tell police and prosecutors everything they needed to know about what Paul did and about what Carla did in those despicable crimes. Was Carla battered and beaten into submission? Beaten into helping her husband rape and murder these kids? Or did Carla enjoy every minute of the violence? Incredibly, Paul Bernardo's lawyer kept the existence of those murder tapes a secret for four long months. During that time, prosecutors signed their deal with Carla. She would get just 12 years for manslaughter, two charges of manslaughter, 12 years for each to run concurrently, not consecutively. And then a nuclear bomb hit the prosecutors right between the. The eyes. Paul's lawyer, the one who found the tapes and then held them for four months in secret, suddenly quit the case and passed those tapes onto Paul's new lawyer. And that new lawyer had scruples, and he promptly turned the tapes over to the police. And there it was, in living color. Videotaped evidence showing both Paul and Carla enjoying the rapes and the tortures and the murders. Carla wasn't a hostage. She wasn't coerced. She was more than willing. She was laughing and giving directions. But the deal was done. There was no going back. Carla would serve only 12 years, and the entire country was apoplectic. But there was still time to prosecute Paul. There was still time to get Paul Bernardo for everything he did. And those six tapes would most certainly seal his fate. And here's where things got crazy. The judge in Carla's case sealed every single record and banned all reporting on Carla's case. Canadians were not allowed to hear a single detail of what had happened in her crimes or in her deal. The judge was worried that it was so terrible what she and Paul had done that releasing any of that information meant Paul Bernardo could never get a fair trial. But that judge couldn't ban the details from being published in America. Americans aren't bound by Canadian law. And so Canadians, like me as a cub reporter, we had to rely on friends in the United States to either relay the facts over the phone or fax us newspaper articles to read. But we weren't allowed to report them. By 1995, Paul Bernardo was headed to trial. And in another twist, the judge made a ruling to protect the dignity of the victims of Paul Bernardo's and Carla Homolka's crimes. The judge decided that only certain people in the courtroom would be allowed to watch the videotaped evidence. The judge would be able to see it, the jury, the prosecutors, the defense attorneys, the victim's family members, and of course, the defendant himself, Paul Bernardo. I remember reading Christie Blatchford's columns in the Toronto sun every single day as she reported from that courtroom. And at one point, Christy said she could swear that Bernardo was enjoying watching his handiwork in those videos. The rest of the courtroom could only listen to those tapes without seeing them. They would only be privy to listen to the horrors of that those teenagers all endured. Listen to Paul and listen to Carla as they terrorized those girls. It was the first time in my career I'd heard that police and journalists who were working on this case or covering this trial were being offered counseling. This was the 90s, and stuff like that didn't happen. Nobody cared about your mental health. No one ever mentioned it, but in this case, they did. And I would not hear about concern for the mental health of reporters or police for another few decades. The evidence against Paul Bernardo was overwhelming, and the tapes sealed his fate. He was found guilty of the first degree murders of Tammy Hamoka, Carla's sister, Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffey. Because Canada doesn't have the death penalty, he was sentenced to the next most severe punishment available, life in prison with no chance for parole for 25 years. Of course, even that didn't sit well with Canadians. A monster like this eligible for parole at all. And so the judge went one step further, declaring Paul Bernardo a, quote, dangerous offender, end quote. And under the law, that classification makes any kind of parole ever more than unlikely. After the murder convictions, Paul Bernardo was never tried separately for those dozens of crimes that the Scarborough Rapist committed. The prosecutors at this point said there was no point, that he was already serving life in prison with little to no chance of ever being released, and that it would be too traumatizing to put his victims through the hell of that kind of a trial. The details were just that sick. When Paul was ushered to his new home at the Kingston Maximum Security Prison in southern Ontario, he took his place in one of the most bleak and dismal institutions in North America. Believe me when I tell you I have been in the Kingston Max. It was built in the 1830s, and if anything ever resembled a dungeon, this is it. It is dark, it is bleak, it is oppressive. And it earned its name, the toughest 10 acres in Canada, describing it as grim, oppressive, and Isolating is being generous. Paul Bernardo was exactly where he supposed to be. And incidentally, remember that I mentioned I went to Queen's University. It's in Kingston, Ontario, and my dorm was just a few blocks down the road from Kingston. Max. I used to go running right by that institution regularly and I would wonder what it would be like to be in there. It wasn't closed until 2013, decades after I graduated. But two years ago, I went back to Kingston and I took my kids on a college tour. But I made damn sure we took a tour of the prison because by now it was open for the public. As harrowing as this fortress was inside, the smell of dirt, the dark and dank 1830s limestone. I am not going to lie. It felt good that Paul Bernardo had to suffer in there. That is, until he was transferred to Ontario's millhaven Institution in 2013 and then more recently to the Makaza institution in Quebec. Carla served her entire 12 year sentence and walked out of prison in 2005. She was never charged with her sister's murder, Tammy's murder. The Attorney General saying later that while Carla was not charged in Tammy's death, her involvement in it was covered by the plea deal and would therefore amount to double jeopardy. When Carla was released, reporters chased the car to see where this monster would end up. But Carla would move to the province of Quebec. She had become bilingual in her 12 years in prison. She changed her name and she remarried, and she quietly built a new life in that province. She even had children. But she had to move frequently because reporters would always find out who she was and where she was living. She even spent time on the Caribbean island of Guadalupe to avoid being detected. Until yet again, somebody spotted her and somebody outed her. And once again, she moved back to the Canadian province of Quebec. Paul Bernardo's father, at a parole hearing in 2013, which was of course denied, told reporters that he believed Carla, quote, got away with it. At another parole hearing in 2024, denied again. Paul himself told officials that both of his parents died in 2022. So it is unclear if anyone visits him now. But across Canada and for many who follow this case in the us, they agree with Paul Bernardo's father that Carla got away with murder. It's easy to think of evil as something obvious, a monster lurking in the dark. But sometimes evil looks like a happy couple smiling in white tie and tails and a princess bride dress. It's hard to tell if that bride holding the champagne is really hiding the devil's darkest secret. Paul Bernardo and Carla Homolka destroyed lives, destroyed innocence, and destroyed families, their own included. And they did it together, hand in glove. That's what makes this story so unforgettable, especially for a cub reporter in the early 90s who, 35 years later would end up a true crime. Podcaster. I'm Ashley Banfield, and remember, the truth isn't just serious, it's dropped. Dead serious.
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