The Misery Machine - The Ken & Barbie Killers | Paul Bernardo & Karla Homolka | The Scarborough Rapist

Episode Date: November 9, 2020

This week, Drewby and Yergy discuss Paul Bernardo and his wife Karla Homolka, a seemingly unlikely pair of Canadian killers. Known as the “Ken and Barbie Killers” for their good looks, the young couple induced fear throughout southern Ontario in the 1990s with a string of sex attacks and killed at least three minors between 1990 and 1992 before they were arrested.  Bernardo is known for initially committing a series of rapes in Scarborough, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto, between 1987 and 1990. While he was at large, he was dubbed "The Scarborough Rapist" and these went unsolved for over five years until his capture. Homolka attracted worldwide media attention when she was convicted of manslaughter following a plea bargain to serve only 12 years in the rape-murders of two Ontario teenage girls, Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French, as well as the rape and killing of her sister Tammy. Homolka and Bernardo were arrested in 1993. Bernardo was convicted of what became known as the Schoolgirl Murders and received life imprisonment. Homolka stated to investigators that Bernardo had abused her and that she had been an unwilling accomplice to the murders. As a result, she struck a deal with prosecutors for a reduced prison sentence of twelve years in exchange for a guilty plea to the charge of manslaughter. However, videotapes of the crimes surfaced after the plea bargain and demonstrated that Homolka was a more active participant than she had claimed. Public outrage about Homolka's plea deal continued until her high-profile release from prison in 2005. Following her release from prison, Homolka settled in the province of Quebec, where she married Thierry Bordelais, the brother of her lawyer Sylvia Bordelais. She briefly lived in the Antilles and Guadeloupe but by 2014 had returned to Quebec. This episode is brought to you by Scary Time, help support us by clicking the link to check out Scary Time here: http://www.dummies.fan/mmachine Join Our Facebook Group to Request a Topic: https://t.co/DeSZIIMgXs?amp=1 Support Our Patreon For More Unreleased Content: https://www.patreon.com/themiserymachine PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/themiserymachine Instagram: miserymachinepodcast Twitter: misery_podcast Discord: https://discord.gg/kCCzjZM #podcast #documentary #truecrime  Source Material: https://listverse.com/2017/06/22/10-little-known-facts-about-the-ken-and-barbie-killers/ https://allthatsinteresting.com/paul-bernardo-karla-homolka-ken-and-barbie-killers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karla_Homolka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bernardo https://criminalminds.fandom.com/wiki/Paul_Bernardo_and_Karla_Homolka

The Misery Machine. I'm Yergy. And I'm Drewby. And this week we're doing a case that's been requested basically ever since the start of this podcast. Absolutely. And that is the Ken and Barbie Killers. Yes. This was a case that happened about 30 years ago in Ontario, Canada. Now, I do have to warn you, it is very graphic. So viewer discretion advised on that one. So if you're listening on YouTube, please hit like and subscribe and hit the bell notification. Yes, and share this video. Share it. Yes. If you know anyone that would like it, please share this video. It will go a long way to helping us. So without further ado, the Ken and Barbie killers.

So before we start this, I just want to say that, contrary to popular belief, very few videos of ours are monetized. And while we do our best to withhold some graphic details to appease YouTube to allow for monetization, they still don't monetize us. So for this episode, we're not holding back on those details. So this is about Paul Bernardo and Carla Homoka. They were a seemingly unlikely pair of Canadian killers. They were dubbed in the media as the Barbie and Ken killers for their good looks.

And if you look at a picture of these two, you could theorize that these two are or were models. Yeah, they're very 90s, late 80s, pretty. Yes, very much so. You think you would see them on like saved by the bell or something like that. Yeah, I agree. So the young couple induced fear throughout Southern Ontario in the 1990s with a string of sex attacks and the killings before they were arrested. Before Bernardo was put behind bars for multiple murders, tortures, and rape. which we will get into. He was a salesman for Amway and later a junior accountant that lured his victims using pickup lines and pitches that he learned in his day job. He studied how to entice women like he studied how to do well in business. So he was a creepy MLM guy. Yes, he was at first. There's a lot of different accounts on what he did for work and what type of person he was. But the one thing that seems to be clear across the board is that he had these delusions of grandeur. And I think somebody that committed the

acts that he did, it really does reflect that personality. So furthermore to cement this, his favorite book was American Psycho. Of course. He considered it like his Bible. And if you're familiar with Brett Easton Ellis's American Psycho, this is a very, very graphic book. So he really thinks he's Patrick Bateman. Yes. And if anyone's seen the movie, I will assure you, the book is 10 times more disgusting. It's bad. It's really bad. And this dude love this book. So just keep that in mind this fictitious character whom Paul Bernardo is modeling himself afterwards. Keep that in mind. I will say Patrick Bateman did have a really great morning routine though. He did. So Paul Bernardo was born in August 27th of 1964 in Ontario, Canada to Kenneth and Marilyn Bernardo. The Bernardoes were a

financially well off, according to friends, stable and middle class family. But as with everything else in the story of Paul Bernardo, this deceptively normal exterior masked a dark truth. So in 1975, Kenneth Bernardo, who was his father, was charged with child molestation. And there were rumors that he even molested his own daughter. But not Paul himself. But not Paul. So Paul did not seem to be unduly infected by this dark turn of events in his childhood. Observers recall him being always happy, a young boy who smiled a lot. Almost as if he was just oblivious to the whole thing. Yeah.

But it wasn't until he was 16 where he became affected, but it's not for anything his father necessarily did. His mother revealed to him that his being was the result of an extramarital affair. Bernardo's father was not actually his father. When this was revealed to him, his behavior completely changed. He began to refer to his own mother as a slut and a whore, and when he went off to study at the University of Toronto, he became a very adept pickup artist.

And he would pick these women up at bars only to later humiliate them and physically assault them. Now, he was good looking and charming, which is an unfortunate combination for somebody like this. But before long, the impulses would get far, far, darker. Starting in May of 1987, the suburb of Scarborough in Ontario was plagued

with a series of horrific crimes. Scarborough seems pretty popular with true crime stuff. Wasn't Luca, who we're going to talk about later, also have ties to Scarborough? I believe he might have been there originally and then moved to Montreal. So what I know about Scarborough,

it's a poor working class neighborhood. I've wrote accounts that some people consider it very crime-ridden, but I don't know that personally. I don't know anything about that area, unfortunately. I know Toronto rappers really like to rep Scarborough if they're acting like they're hard or something like that. Again, this is just what I've digested. I have no physical experience.

I've been to Canada, just not to Ontario. So Ontario folks, let us know in the comments. Let us know in the comments. Learn us on Ontario and Scarborough, please. Because once they open up that border, I would love to come visit. Yes, absolutely. But I'm going to Montreal for. So in the early hours of the morning of May 4th of 1987, a young woman was getting off the bus and was grabbed and brutally raped near her parents' home.

Over the next few weeks, there would be two more similar assaults. All of these women were between the ages of 15 to 21, and the attacks all included beatings, intense verbal abuse, dire threats to discourage the victims from going to the police, humiliation. Basically, everything that was going on led the police to realize that this was a serial rapist. And they then dubbed him the Scarborough rapist. From what I understand, the women that were targeted, it was women between the heights of 5-1 and 5-6. They were all very much younger, as Eurgis said, 15 to 21. And they were all very petite of stature. Yet it still took them a long time to even figure out that this was all the same person, much longer than it should have.

So this was a near five-year rampage under the Scarborough. Barbar rapist moniker. In total, he had raped or attempted to rape at least 19 young women. And this is the only official account. If you're familiar with how often sexual assault goes unreported, you can only imagine just how many women and young girls did not tell anybody. And we'll never know. Quite often, these were grabbed around bus stops and not far from where Bernardo lived either, from my understanding. Right. Though at least one 15-year-old

was actually attacked in her own bedroom. As attacks grew increasingly violent, a police task force was established as a priority, as definitely well it should be. Should have been, yeah. So plain-closed detectives began to stake out the bus stations, and in May of 1988, an officer spotted a suspect matching the attacker's description,

just hanging out under a tree. And the suspect escaped on foot, but was later identified as, As a one, Paul Bernardo. There's this police sketch of the Scarborough rapist that I found. And oh my God, does it look like Bernardo? Yeah, it does. And I couldn't really find out, like, who exactly this came from,

or if it came from multiple sources, not so sure. But the sketch looks so much like Bernardo. So despite this close call and almost being caught, Bernardo seemed incapable of slowing down or controlling his impulses. So by 1990, police had received three separate tips, leading directly to him. The first came from an ex-girlfriend who had shared her experience of Bernardo's violent sexual behavior with the friends in law enforcement.

The second came from a bank teller who recognized Bernardo after seeing a composite sketch of the rapist, which looks just like him, as Drewby said. And then the final tip came from Tina. Let me see if I can say this right. Smyrness. I think I said Smyrness. Could be Smearness, but. Close enough.

Sorry, Tina. Smyrness also saw likeness in the composite and had been, witness to Bernardo's expressions of sexual deviance. So from what I understand Bernardo was friends, close friends with her three brothers. And he would get really inappropriate around Tina. Now, I didn't read anything about him assaulting her, but he would talk to her in detail about his love for anal sex and anal angus and just overwhelmingly make her uncomfortable. So she went to the police. However, detectives claimed that he, quote, was far more credible than Smyrness, who, with her awkward, strange way of speaking,

might just be trying to collect the reward, end quote. And that's just, it's just disgusting. Just disgusting. This was on, right. They said that on record. Apparently, she came in, she was all timid and she was scared to share this information, and rightfully so, because, I mean, what if she's not believed and found out? And they just didn't believe her.

And if you're like a shy and timid person anyway, of course you're going to feel weird going into a police station and talking to strangers about anal. Yeah, absolutely. And remember, this is like the 80s, you know. We're not, we're not exactly in a time period where it's a lot more easier to talk about. And even now, it's not that easy to talk about it, especially in this situation I'd imagine. You might ask, well, why would they think Bernardo is more credible? Well, they interviewed him. In November that year, detectives interviewed him for a total of 35 minutes. They found him to be credible. He provided samples for forensic testing and joked about his resemblance to the composite sketch. They found him likable and just joked with him. It was weird. He was released.

And the Scarborough police claimed that there was delays in the forensic testing investigation. I think they just shelved it, like they do with everything else. Yeah, I think that they just didn't feel like that was their guy. So they just were like, no, we're not pushing this through. I don't know what the red tape was on forensics back then or if this was just a lot of paperwork they didn't want to deal with but it did not go through until very much later. Grossly later to the point where you'll soon see people died. This alone could have saved lives. This could have saved lives and saved so many people from being destroyed by this evil person.

And just keep this in mind when we go to this next part. Oh, my God, like, this could have saved so many people. So Paul Bernardo had met Carla Hamoka in 1987 when he was 23 and she was 17. Homoca was born to Dorothy and Carol Homocha in Ontario in 1970 and was the eldest of three siblings. She was described as well-adjusted, pretty smart and popular with a fondness for animals that led her to start working in a veterinary clinic after high school. She also worked in a pet store. store, I believe. Yeah, they met. She went to some sort of, from when I read, she, It was a trade conference. It was some sort of trade conference for pet stores. Her and Bernardo

stayed at the same hotel, and they met at the hotel restaurant and hit it off immediately. That's, that's what I've read. But again, accounts differ with this. So like Bernardo, there was nothing in Hamoka's outward appearance that hinted just at her depravity lurking beneath the surface. You would think there was just a normal person, but they had. an immediate attraction, one that only intensify when Bernardo discovered that, unlike the other girls he dated, Hamoka shared almost all the same sick fantasies that he had. So they quickly began a satemasochistic relationship in which Bernardo acted as an abusive master and Hamoka as a willing slave. And, you know, this is fine in all if, you know, you're two consensual adults.

don't think I'm speaking poorly about BDSM relationships. However, the entire time they're dating, Paul Bernardo was still brutally raping girls in Scarborough with Hamoka's knowledge and approval. Her approval. Her approval. So Bernardo and Halmoka eventually became engaged. Hamoka described to a friend how Paul and I are happier than ever. He's being so great, so romantic, but that's typical of my honey. My honey. My honey.

But the truth was that three years in their relationship, Paul was getting bored. He complained to Hamoka that she was not a virgin when they met. And soon. Either are you, Paul. He turned himself towards Hamoka's 15-year-old sister Tammy. I mean, this isn't uncommon for somebody that is just a depraved misogynist that has such deep resentment towards women. Like, this can, this can manifest itself this way. So am I?

surprised to read this? No. Is it really unfortunate? Absolutely. It's really unfortunate. So far from being outraged at Bernardo's desires to rape her blood sister, she encouraged them. So she told

Bernardo that she wanted him to have her little sister's virginity as a Christmas present. So before this was even happening, he was staking out outside of their house, watching her sister Tammy change and just mass

masturbating. And Homoka knew this, knew all this, and was totally fine with this. And it gets worse. So on December 23rd, 1990, while at a Christmas party at the Homoka family home, Homoka spiked spiked her own sister's drinks with a

sedative triazolam, which you may know under the brand name, Halcyon. That night, while the rest of the family was asleep, and Tammy was unconscious, homoka held a halithane soaked cloth over her sister's mouth and took terms raping her with her fiance, raped her own sister, and videotaped it. Now, Halothane, you might wonder, what is this? Well, it's banned in the U.S. So I couldn't find a ton of

info on it, but from what I understand, it is used in Canada primarily for veterinarian anesthesia. That's all I can really tell you about it, but it's banned here because you can pretty easily poison and kill somebody with it. So when Tammy began choking up vomit, the couple panicked and tried to hide the evidence before calling for an ambulance. The teenager never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead at the hospital. And she had a mysterious chemical burn on her face. They claimed when questioned by police at first was a rug burn from when they were trying to resuscitate her. Yeah, it was from the halithane soaked cloth over her face.

Yeah, they just pressing that again, there's so much on the cloth. You press against her face. I guess halothane is pretty caustic. So having that direct exposure to your skin, it can cause chemical burns. Sick of the boring ghost stories from big-name creators. Well, you're in luck. It's scary time.

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you can follow them for more great content. What do you listen to between episodes of the misery machine? How about a scary episode from another indie creator? With Scary Time, it's spooky season all year round. Check out Scary Time via the link in our show notes. If you dare. So despite all of this, the drugs in her system were not detected

and her death was ruled an accident as a result of choking on her own vomit. So they just assumed it was alcohol poisoning. It's kind of crazy they couldn't find a sedative like halcyon inner system, but I don't know what toxicology was at that point. Now it would probably show up pretty easily, but I don't know how things were in the 80s or at this point, the early 90s. So I don't know why there wasn't more of a big to do about this.

Now we have a 15-year-old who, even though accidentally is choking on her own vomit from drinking alcohol, why wasn't there some sort of inquiry into this because of underage drinking? At home. That would be a huge to do here. Well, back then, it may not have been a huge to do there. I mean, I knew growing up kids, you know, young as elementary school were allowed to drink at home. You know, I think the culture has certainly changed. And I don't know what it's like in Canada. I mean, this is true.

I mean, you look at some places in Europe and it's more common to let people drink. But alcohol poisoning, that's, of course, that's kind of crazy. I think in these places we're drinking as more of a family culture, it's not to excess, but I'm only speculating at this point. What I'm more surprised about is that on a routine autopsy, you should be able to tell sexual assault. Isn't that just something just routinely, you just kind of. Yeah. You have a checklist of everything you look over, and that should have showed up, especially with the ways in which Bernardo liked to rape women. Yeah, they would definitely see something to that effect.

Yeah, because he was not... He tend to sodomize people. Yes, he did. I'm not trying to be just too grotesque here for the sake of being shocking, but this was not somebody that was raping a woman for his own pleasure. He was raping them for their suffering. Does that make it pretty clear? I hope it does.

So because of this, I feel like that would have been... easily noticed by somebody performing an autopsy. Yeah, I agree. So it has been largely accepted that Tammy's death was an accident. Or accepted at the time. At the time, Bernardo and Hamulka had only intended to drug and rape her the victim. However, numerous medical experts believed that Carla knew precisely what she was doing. Given that she had stolen the bottle of halithine, which is a liquid form of anesthetic from a veterinary clinic that she had worked at,

and as an animal health technician, Hamulka had working knowledge of her own. halifane. She was aware that the anesthetic should be administered through a vaporizer and that the animals under the drug should be breathing through a breathing tube. So if she knows all of that information, she should have known that it could cause the death of her sister. Right. So that's why some people theorize that this wasn't simply just a motive to rape. It was a motive to murder her sister. It's either that or Carla's just really stupid. I could find our arguments throughout this that she's just really stupid. But I digress.

Stupid or not, she is definitely very depraved. And when we get into her sentencing later, I have some issues of this one. Of course. So during testimony, she admitted she had done her research before drugging Tammy. And she ultimately chose to use halcyon because when she was studying it, she discovered that death was not listed as an outcome in the case of halcyon overdose. However, my research says this is not true. I have read, and again, it's been 30 years since this has happened,

so maybe some things have changed. But what I've read is that it is possible to die from an overdose of halcyon, especially when mixed with alcohol. However, she didn't really give much testimony about the use of halifane, nor her studies of it from what I found anyway. The initial autopsy of Tammy Hamolka concluded that she had died of natural causes, is alcohol poisoning a natural cause? I don't consider.

I don't consider that. I don't consider it. It's poisoning. What a weird thing to label that as. What an offensive thing to label that as? So the burn across her cheek, it was identified as a chemical burn after the autopsy because no facial hair had been singed. I guess that's something that happens if your chemical burned, your facial hair

doesn't singed. I didn't know this. Well, okay, if we're talking about a burn in general, like a burn burn, your facial hair or hairs are going to be singed. If you have like a burn that's causing blistering or irritation and there are no facial hair singed, then yes, that would indicate a chemical burn. Okay, I didn't know if it would ruin the hair. I think that's what they mean.

I just didn't know if it'd ruin the hair follicle. That was my initial assumption. This is not my area of expertise. So I'm just saying what. Yeah, I think they're just talking about the actual like singed char of hair when you, when you already get a fire burn. I see what you mean. Yeah.

So they concluded it was a result of gastric juices due to vomiting. which, again, this is not something I hear of when people die of alcohol poisoning. So shortly after Bernardo and Holmulka were arrested, Tammy's body was exhumed. A second autopsy concluded that this was not the case, this natural cause claim. It also found that smothering could not be ruled out as a cause of death. A videotape taken during the rape shows that Carla had Tammy's nose and mouth covered with a halithing cloth, which led many to speculate that Tammy's death was not as accidental, and Homoca probably smothered her. Shortly after Tammy's funeral, the Homoca's left town, and Carla's surviving sister, Lori,

visited her grandparents in Mississauga, which is also in Ontario, and left the family home completely empty. During the weekend of January 12, 1991, Bernardo abducted a girl, took her to the house, raped her while Homoca watched, and dropped her off on a deserted road near Lake Gives. Ibson. Bernardo and Homoka called her January girl. At about 5.30 a.m. on April 6th of 1991, Bernardo abducted a 14-year-old girl who was warming up as a coxswain for a local rowing team. The girl was distracted by a blonde woman who had waved at her from her car, enabling Bernardo to drag her into the shrubbery near the rowing club. I'm assuming blonde woman, Carla. He sexually assaulted her and forced to remove her clothes

and wait five minutes during which time he decided. disappeared. Is a coxswain one of those people that shouts at the rowers? I don't know. McManus could tell us. She's one of those, I believe. Okay. She has like a, I think a coxswain shirt. Oh, really? Yeah, I've heard that term, but I've never, I don't understand rowing. I've never rode. Me neither. She does. She doesn't write on Lake Auburn. Oh, really? Still? Oh, wow. I didn't know that we had any rowing around here. Oh, yeah. So despite their upcoming marriage, Bernardo and Homolka had begun to drift apart. On a trip to Florida, Bernardo had fallen for a nurse by the name of Allison Worthington, a self-proclaimed lover of anal sex by Bernardo's admission. She appealed to Bernardo's sexual sadism in ways that Carla could not. I couldn't really find out exactly what that meant.

I don't know. Like, she appealed to Bernardo's sexual sadism in ways Carla could not. Maybe, I don't think, and given what happened to Carla later, I don't think she was letting, or giving consent for Bernardo to absolutely physically thrash her. I think he wanted to be very physically violent in bed and she was not down for that. That's what I feel it would be. But again, we're both speculating at this point. When Worthington called their home, Bernardo had Homoka pretend to be his sister. So Homoka knew she had to act quickly to save their relationship.

She befriended a teenager only identified as Jane. Doe. In June of 91, Hamulka invited Jane on a girl's night out. The pair went shopping together before returning to Hamulka and Bernardo's house. It was there that Jane was offered alcohol lace with sedatives.

Shortly after Jane lost consciousness, Hamulca called Bernardo home with a promise of a surprise wedding present. Delighted with the surprise, Bernardo filmed the pair raping the unconscious teenager. Jane Doe remained unaware of the assault. She became a close friend of the

couple, even accompanying them on a trip to Toronto. On one occasion, Jane was invited back to Homoka and Bernardo's place. She was once more drugged. And surprise, surprised, Halcyon and Halifane were used in this as well. In a chilling echo of Tammy's death, Jane began to choke. Hamoka dialed 911 as Bernardo successfully revived Jane. The ambulance was canceled, and the call was never followed up on. I did not know that as a thing. was a thing. Not only that Homoca met Jain Do when she was working with her at the pet store. So this is like someone she saw properly day to day. Hamoka's twisted gift rekindled the relationship.

Paul cut ties with Worthington and married Carla later in 1991. When I look at their wedding picture, I often forget that all these rapes happened before that because they just look so squeaky clean in their wedding picture, which I'm sure will include up here. Oh, yeah. Jane Doe was reportedly a guest at the ceremony. So on Sunday, June 16th, 1991, Bernardo and Holmoka hosted a Father's Day meal in their home. Dorothy and Carol Homoka, along with her surviving daughter Lori, spent the evening celebrating with a couple. Carla is reported to have spent the night making an effort to keep the family upstairs. There was good reason for that. Yes, the body of 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffee. I hope I

said that correct, was lying just meters below in the basement, having been moved from the bedroom shortly before the Homoka family arrived. Later that night, Bernardo dismembered the body of the teenager with a circular saw. So what happened here? Well, early in the morning on June 15th, 1991, Bernardo detoured through Burlington to steal license plates. He was doing this as he was making money smuggling cigarettes across the border. From what I understand, he did not have a job at this time he lost his job as a junior accountant. So he's making a lot of money smuggling cigarettes.

He would do so with fake license plates. So while he was doing this, he found Leslie. Unfortunately, this 14-year-old girl had missed her curfew after attending a friend's wake. And so her parents locked her out of her house. Parents, Elisa, when I grew up,

said this stuff to their kids. It's so abusive and screwed up. If you're not home, you can't come home. You can't come home. If you, if you don't come home at the right time, you ain't allowed back in, you know, that stuff. That crap. I'm sure her parents, if they have any shred of humanity, feel bad for this. But parents, please don't do this to your kids.

Please don't do this to your kids. So Bernardo approached Leslie saying that he wanted to break into a neighbor's house, and she was completely unfazed and asked if he had any cigarettes. So Bernardo led her to his car. He then blindfolded her, forced her into the car, and drove her back to the house and informed Hamulka that they had a victim. They then videotaped themselves torturing and sexually abusing her while listening to Bob Marley and David Bowie. At one point, Bernardo said, you're doing a good job, Leslie, a damned good job, adding, quote, the next two hours are going to determine what I do to you. Right now, you're scoring perfect, end quote.

On another segment of the tape played at Bernardo's trial, the assault escalated. Mahaffy cried out in pain and begged Bernardo to stop. He was sodomizing her while her hands were bound with twine. Mahaffy later told Bernardo that her blindfold seemed to be slipping, which signaled the possibility that she could identify her attackers if she lived. So the following day, Bernardo claimed that Hamoka fed her a lethal dose of halcyon. However, Hamoka said that Bernardo strangled her with, an electrical cord.

So Leslie's body was discovered encased in concrete on June 29th of 1991 by a horrified couple who were canoeing in Lake Gibson. This was the same day that Bernardo and Helmoka married. As his grisly discovery was made,

the killers enjoyed an elaborate wedding ceremony which included their entrance in a white horse-drawn carriage. During the after-school hours of April 16th, 1992, this has been going on for years at this point. Hamoka's sister was killed December of 1990. Think about that for a second.

Bernardo and Hamulka drove through St. Catherine's Ontario to look for potential victims. Although students were still going home, the streets were generally empty. As they passed Holy Cross Secondary School, a Catholic high school in the city's north end, they spotted 15-year-old

Kristen French walking briskly to her nearby home. They pulled into the parking lot of the nearby Grace Lutheran Church and Homoka got out of the car, a map in hand pretending to need assistance. When French looked at the map, Bernardo attacked from behind,

brandishing a knife and forcing her into the front seat of their car. From the backseat, Hamoka subdued French by pulling her hair. French took the same route home every day, taking about 15 minutes to get home and care for her dog. Soon after, she should have arrived, her parents became convinced that she met with foul play and notified police. Good on them. Good on them. Within 24 hours, the Niagara Regional Police Service assembled a team,

searched French's route and found several witnesses who had seen the abduction from different locations. I'm so confused why nobody called the cops. Immediately? Yeah. After witnessing that, at least one of them, at least one. French's shoe recovered from the parking lot underscore the seriousness of this abduction. So over the Easter weekend, Bernardo and Hamoka videotaped themselves torturing, raping, and sodomizing French, forcing her to drink large amounts of alcohol against her will.

and submit to Bernardo. At his trial, prosecutors alleged that Bernardo always intended to kill French because she was never blindfolded and could identify both of her captors. The following day, Bernardo and Hamulka murdered French before going to the Hamokas for Easter dinner. Carla testified at her trial that Bernardo strangled French for seven minutes while she watched. Bernardo said that Hamoka beat French with a rubber mallet because she tried to escape, and French was strangled with a noose around her neck. which was secured to a hope chest. Holmoka then went to fix her hair.

I've read that it was again with an electrical wire, but again, these two are unreliable narrators, as you'll find out later as well. French's nude body was found on April 30th, 1992, in a ditch in Burlington, which is roughly 45 minutes from St. Catharines and a short distance from the cemetery where Mahaffey is buried. This is in Canada, this is not Burlington, Vermont.

She had been washed and her hair was cut off, Although it was thought that French's hair was removed as a trophy, Carla testified that it was cut to impede identification. Now, this is actually a common tactic. For people who are kidnapped, especially women, they will cut her hair off. This is not uncommon. No, and a lot of time it's done to dehumanize you. Yes. Bernardo harbored a surprising passion for music.

He was particularly fond of rap and many former friends described as quoting artist Vanilla I. There's a video of him rapping. It is absolutely just laughably bad. Can we like include that in the video? Maybe I think we can. I think we can include that and be okay. Okay. And not get a copyright strike.

Because I believe it is public, released on the news and stuff like that. He didn't have no record deal or anything copyrighted. So Bernardo didn't just consider himself a fan. He had aspirations of pursuing a music career, going as far as to purchase recording a with the money he made smuggling cigarettes from the U.S. border. Bernardo indulged in grandiose fantasies, often assuring his friends that famous artists were interested in his sponsorship deals. Was he like hanging out with frigging snow on the mean streets of Toronto?

What the hell? I don't know. This was just so weird. And I'm just going to like say right now, this is really stupid and I'm going to make fun of Bernardo. I don't care if people think it's not nice. to make a joke. You guys are making jokes.

No, let's make fun of perpetrators. Okay, make fun of perpetrators. It's okay. Because he's just ridiculous and a monster. His lyrics were a disturbing insight into his crime, spurned on by Hamoka. She often bragged to friends about Bernardo's upcoming albums. So he's basically necro. I mean, I don't think he was rapping any sort of horror core.

His lyrics were a disturbing insight into his crimes. It says that. but the rapping that I found his lyrics were just something like, I was never caught, I was never caught, like stuff like that. I mean, we'll play it for the listeners, but after we're done recording this, I'll look a little bit deeper, but I could only find one recording,

and it wasn't any disturbing lyrics that I could see. It was just kind of pathetic, really. Did you ever get caught? No, never. Why, they say, I'm a deadly innocent guy. You ever get caught? Did you ever get caught? get caught? No, never, never. Why? I'm a deadly innocent guy. So keep on front, man. You're

running, you're tough, man. You ain't been where I've been, man. You ain't seen when I've seen. You ain't at where I'm at, man. He took French to the music room to show his latest tracks, though Homoka testified that French just didn't care. So police soon realized that the two murders were connected and dubbed them the schoolgirl murders. After the release of a composite sketch that resembled Paul Bernardo, tips were called in, some from co-workers and friends who reported Bernardo's disturbing penchant for violence. Early in January of 1993, Bernardo attacked Hamulka with a flashlight during an argument. The beating was severe, leaving Holmoka admitted to the hospital with black eyes, broken ribs. She looked a mess. Yeah, I think we can include the...

Yeah, I have pictures of that already saved, but she looks like a raccoon and she's like very, very badly bruised around the eyes. Yeah. And, oh, you're making for you. phone of somebody who got beat. Well, I wish somebody else had beat them both, but it is what it is. So it was this incident that hadn't encouraged her finally to leave Bernardo for good. I think it was probably more than that. I think she knew the mounting suspicion against Bernardo and knew that if he went down, she was going to go down to. No, definitely. But I'm sure this helped expedite things for her. So around this time, Toronto Police reached out to Hamoka. Forensic experts working on the Scarborough rapes finally ran the tests on the samples. This

was almost three years later. This was almost three years later. He was identified as the Scarborough rapist and detectives suspected a connection to the murders of Mahaffi and French. Homoca agreed to an interview with police, assuming they wanted to discuss the assault with the flashlight. However, detectants from the Green Ribbon Task Force established to investigate the schoolgirl murders, they were present at the interview. Homoca ultimately panicked and confessed everything to her family. She was quick to seek out an attorney and cut a deal with investigators to give them the information on the murders. Homoca sold out Bernardo in exchange for a lesser sentence. She claimed Bernardo had told her he'd raped at least 30 women. So her lawyer was trying to seek

total immunity. And while they were kind of keeping her on the hook, think she was going to get that for a while, they then dropped the ball on her after she disclosed everything that there was no way she could get full legal immunity. So normally I'd be happy about this, but she didn't get the sentence, I hope she would. So after Bernardo's arrest, police began an extensive search at 57 Bayview Drive, which is the home they shared.

The investigation hung on the word of Hamoka. She insisted that her statements could be confirmed if detectives found a series of videotapes documenting the rape, torture, and murder of Tammy Hamoka, Leslie Mahaffi, and Kristen French. Investigators searched the home for 71 days. Now, from what I understand,

there was not a proper warrant issued. It was very weird. They were only allowed to watch videotapes within the home, and they could not search the walls for tapes. They could only take certain things out in the open. Given the severity of the crimes, I'm surprised that type of warrant was issued. However, there was over 100 tapes discovered,

including those documenting the rapes of Jane Doe. The school girl tapes, however, were not found. Once the police search concluded Bernardo's defense team entered the property. They claimed that they were clearing out personal items on behalf of Bernardo. So here's where it gets

a little bit more squirrelly and this is how Homoka got away with a lot more than she should have. Yep. So on May 6, 1993 Ken Murray, who was Bernardo's lawyer, said he found a letter in his briefcase from Bernardo.

The letter instructed Murray to open it only when he was inside the home. The letter contained directions to a potlight leading to a small attic space. It was here that Murray claimed to discover the tapes documenting the rape and torture of the schoolgirl victims. Upon watching the tapes,

Murray found that Carla was more involved than her testimony suggested. He withheld the tapes from the prosecution in order to discredit their star witness. Despite his efforts, Hamoka's plea deal protected her. The tapes could not be used against Carla, and Marie was tried for obstructing justice.

He was acquitted in 2000. And I believe he was reviewed to basically have Canada's version of being disbarred, but I don't believe that he was, though he did face review after he was acquitted from what I understand. Okay, in June of 1990, Elizabeth Bain disappeared. Three days later, her car was discovered with a significant bloodstain across the back seat. Her body was missing and has never been found. After a lengthy investigation, Robert Baltovich, who was Bain's boyfriend, was arrested and charged with her murder based on nothing more than circumstantial evidence.

Baltovich maintained his innocence throughout the trial. His defense team even suggested the possibility that the Scarborough rapist might be responsible. Despite this, he was convicted of second-degree murder in March of 1992. This is incredibly sad, considering there wasn't evidence. And after a drawn-out appeals process, he was released on bail in 2000. took four years for his appeal to go through, with the lawyer citing circumstantial evidence linking Bernardo to the murder. He was finally acquitted. Finally, in 2008. So 16 years of this crap. Yeah, this is ridiculous. He wasn't the only man to take the fall for Bernardo. Anthony Hanna Meyer,

Hannah Meyer was convicted of assaulting a 15-year-old Scarborough girl in 1987. Despite maintaining his innocence, he pleaded guilty on the advice of his lawyer, basically, to hopefully receive a lesser sentence. Some people do this when basically it's regarding a crime that they can't really disprove and you know you're just going to get the book thrown at you anyways. However, 2006, nearly 20 years later, it emerged that Bernardo had made a confession in relation to the case and he was finally exonerated in 2007. This is so sad. This is so sad. So this is definitely what we were talking about in the beginning. Had the police done their job, it would have saved the lives of so many people. Yeah. Not just innocent people who took the fall for all these horrible acts that Paul Bernardo

and Carla Homo did. So after serving 12 years in prison, Homoca was released in 2005. She went off the radar until 2007 when a journalist traced her to a small apartment in Guadalupe. So if you don't know where that is, it's a series of islands forming an overseas region of France in the Caribbean. It consists of a bunch of different islands. There's six that are actually inhabited. There's many that are not inhabited. And it's south of Antigua and Barbuda and Montserrat and north of Dominica. So it's kind of in that region there. So she was living with her husband and three children under the name Leanne Bordelae. Carla Homoca remained in the shadows until 2014.

Her remaining sister, Lori, now going by the name Logan Valentini, was called in as a witness in the murder trial of Luca Rocco Magna. Magnata was a Canadian murderer who had become obsessed with Homo, going so far as to male Lori body parts. During the trial, Lori confirmed that Homoca was now living in Quebec, having married Terry Bordelae. I think you say it, Terry. who is the brother of her former lawyer. Hamoka was quick to distance herself from Magnata and was later found to have no connection to the murderer.

So we definitely at one point covered the Luca Rocco Magnata case. We're going to be redoing it in the future just because the quality wasn't just so great. And it was one of the very first episodes that we had done. Yeah, one of the very first true crime episodes. So I think we can do a much better job now that we have our pacing and we know how to edit now. So you'll hear more about Magnata later. Paul Bernardo was found guilty of all charges against him and was sentenced to life in prison for the rape, murder, and kidnap of two teenage girls. So it was believed he killed a couple more.

His rape victim's number, somewhere in the double digits, presumably around 13. I personally believe it's more. I do too. Bernardo's application for parole in 2018 after 25 years in prison was denied after only a 30-minute deliberation. A lawyer on behalf of the victim's families reported, quote, there's never been an apology by Bernardo. there's never been any indication whatsoever of remorse, end quote. Indeed, Bernardo admitted to the court that he hadn't felt anything for his victims at the time of his sadistic crimes.

And from what I understand to this day, he is still applying for full parole as well as day parole. Day parole is something, I've only really heard of it in Canada as it happened to Vince Lee, where they basically allow you to go out during the day, supervised, sometimes unsupervised, to just basically go to different places like the B. Or did they let Epstein do something like that? Yeah. Epstein is one of the few people I've heard of in America to have that type of allowance.

Though he was at a minimum security prison. Yeah. This is a case we've wanted to do for a while. I'm glad that we did it. I'm glad we waited to do it. Yeah. Instead of doing it last year because I just feel like, and this feels like we're doing an old episode, like it just has that feel of it.

Because I wanted to do this episode around the time that we originally did, Luca. And I'm glad we did. But yeah, so I guess that's it. So if you made it this far, hey, I really appreciate that. This is kind of one of our more longer episodes. If you haven't already, please hit like and subscribe. Keep yourself updated with all of our new videos. We're not stopping anytime soon.

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