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Speaker 8: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 8: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 8: written about them. Geesy Bundy, Stahmer, The Nightstalker DTK Every
Speaker 8: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
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Speaker 2: Good evening, Carla picks up where William's first book on
Speaker 2: the case, Invisible Darkness, left her painting her nails in
Speaker 2: her cell in solitary confinement in the Gothic tower of
Speaker 2: Kingston's Prison for Women after testifying against her ex husband
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety five. Carla's life in prison was soon
Speaker 2: going to take a very different dramatic turn with a
Speaker 2: thriller's pace, Carla, A Pact with the Devil, charts the
Speaker 2: inner life of the world's most notorious female prisoner. In Carla,
Speaker 2: Williams lets Carla and the other key players speak for
Speaker 2: themselves and what they have to say will surprise, horrify,
Speaker 2: and enlighten. The book that we're featuring this evening is
Speaker 2: Carla A Pact with the Devil, with my special guest
Speaker 2: journalist and author Steven Williams. Welcome to the program and
Speaker 2: thank you for agreeing to this interview. Steven Williams.
Speaker 6: Nice to hear from you.
Speaker 2: Dan, Thank you very much for coming on. It's it's
Speaker 2: going to be a big thrill for myself personally, and
Speaker 2: I know the audience is going to enjoy every minute
Speaker 2: of this. So let's very much like your book, Carla,
Speaker 2: Let's start with just the very very profound beginning where
Speaker 2: you ask the question about the future of Carla, And
Speaker 2: so we won't go into if anybody hasn't heard this tale,
Speaker 2: Well that's despite the point. We're going to have to
Speaker 2: just dive right into this as people have to be
Speaker 2: fairly familiar with this case. You talk about the very
Speaker 2: beginning of your book of the future of Carla. Why
Speaker 2: did you think it absurd or interesting or incredible that
Speaker 2: Carla would have a future as you've summarized in your book.
Speaker 2: Tell us why that was so amazing to you.
Speaker 6: Well, the first thing that people need to understand is
Speaker 6: the reason this case isn't better known is frankly because
Speaker 6: of its timing. The trial where all of the salient
Speaker 6: information came out was held in the summer of nineteen
Speaker 6: ninety five at the same time that the OJ Simpson
Speaker 6: trial was occurring, right so that, as most people know,
Speaker 6: over one hundred and fifty million people watched the OJ
Speaker 6: Simpson trial daily around the world, and it was televised,
Speaker 6: and of course the Bernardo trial that occurred exactly at
Speaker 6: the same time was not televised. In fact, the attendance
Speaker 6: even by the media and the public was restricted to
Speaker 6: a very small number of people. So there's no way
Speaker 6: of fully understanding why Carla is signed unless someone is
Speaker 6: absolutely familiar with the lead up in the crimes and
Speaker 6: how it evolved. But as the introduction to Carla the
Speaker 6: book discusses, I mean, here is a woman that murdered
Speaker 6: her sister, participated and arguably murdered two teenage girls at
Speaker 6: the behest of her husband and in participation with her husband,
Speaker 6: and ultimately only served twelve years in prison for those crimes.
Speaker 6: And she was very young in their early twenties when
Speaker 6: she committed the crimes, and she was thirty five and
Speaker 6: very young when she was released, free and clear in
Speaker 6: two thousand and five. So on its face, it's a
Speaker 6: remarkable story. There's actually nothing quite like it in criminal history. So,
Speaker 6: you know, women normally do not get involved in crimes
Speaker 6: of this magnitude, let alone become the managing partner, and
Speaker 6: if they do, they very very rarely or get out
Speaker 6: of prison and want to live a normal life at
Speaker 6: the age of thirty five.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, let's talk about one thing just for ourn American
Speaker 2: audience and international audience, which is very, very significant. And
Speaker 2: I have spoken probably very many times about the differences,
Speaker 2: you know, the major differences in Canadian law American law.
Speaker 2: Tell us just a little bit more about this publication
Speaker 2: ban and how unusual or untypical this publication ban, and
Speaker 2: what exactly did they do to try to ensure that
Speaker 2: this ban was enforced.
Speaker 6: Publication bans aren't unusual in Canada or in Britain for
Speaker 6: that matter, where a great majority of Canadian law and
Speaker 6: procedure is derived. They typically will ban preliminary trials. They
Speaker 6: will also ban issues of publication matters that they don't
Speaker 6: think the public should see or be inundated with. So
Speaker 6: Carlo has tried separately from her husband. She was dealt
Speaker 6: with in nineteen ninety three in a one day trial
Speaker 6: where all the fix was in. So the authorities and
Speaker 6: her lawyers and the Ministry of the Attorney General, the
Speaker 6: Prosecution office had made the decision that for her part
Speaker 6: in these very strange and bizarre crimes, that she would
Speaker 6: receive twelve years and that would be the extent. And
Speaker 6: in Canada, of course, twelve years doesn't mean twelve years.
Speaker 6: It means that potentially she could have been released at
Speaker 6: one third of her sentence, so it could have been
Speaker 6: a very very short amount of time, and the authorities
Speaker 6: didn't want the details of any of the any of
Speaker 6: the details of the crimes known publicly. They didn't want
Speaker 6: any preamble established at priory, and their argument was because
Speaker 6: they didn't want to prejudice his trial. Of course, there
Speaker 6: was no reason to try her set other than political reasons,
Speaker 6: so their argument was that if we released information or
Speaker 6: allowed information to be published to do with her crimes
Speaker 6: in her trial, they would prejudice his right to a
Speaker 6: free trial. This is an amazing I don't even have
Speaker 6: words to describe how disingenuous this is on the part
Speaker 6: of the government and the legal system. But they had
Speaker 6: made decisions to do with her for absolutely self serving
Speaker 6: reasons and enforced them. It's very simple. They simply banned
Speaker 6: all foreign media from the courthouse while she was being
Speaker 6: tried for the one day where information would have been
Speaker 6: released obviously onto the record, and they put in a
Speaker 6: publication ban that severely restricted even the Canadian media who
Speaker 6: they had to allow to sit and observe, restricted them
Speaker 6: to very very limited disclosure in a public form. So, really,
Speaker 6: in nineteen ninety three when she was tried, there was
Speaker 6: only supposition, nothing concrete, nothing determined in what was reported.
Speaker 6: There's lots of rumors. The Internet was, frankly compared to
Speaker 6: what it is today and what it was then in
Speaker 6: a very nascient early period, so there's lots of rumors
Speaker 6: and whatnot, but nothing substantive. Nobody really knew anything at
Speaker 6: that point, and the few American media that were paying attention,
Speaker 6: like the Washington Post or the Buffalo News, because this
Speaker 6: happened twelve miles from the Niagara border the Buffalo and
Speaker 6: Niagara Falls, New York, were outraged, but there was nothing
Speaker 6: they could do because they weren't allowing the court room.
Speaker 2: Now, let's go back because we really have to explain
Speaker 2: the incredible circumstances that led Carla to be able to
Speaker 2: get this deal before we get into how all the
Speaker 2: characters are involved in facilitating this and enabling this. But
Speaker 2: it really comes down to Carla and her character and
Speaker 2: realizing thing. So let's go back to the circumstances whereas
Speaker 2: Carla meets George Walker or contacts George Worker, pardon me
Speaker 2: tell us about the circumstances leading up to seems like
Speaker 2: Carla realizes what's going on and, being very intelligent, make
Speaker 2: some moves of her own, so tell us those circumstances.
Speaker 6: That's hard to discuss because, in fact, over the years
Speaker 6: that I corresponded with her and knew her while she
Speaker 6: was in her last years in prison, she and I
Speaker 6: both agreed that she had virtually nothing to do with
Speaker 6: the deals that were made the Attorney General, the head prosecutor,
Speaker 6: and her lawyer made agreements that the best course of
Speaker 6: action to take in her case was to portray her
Speaker 6: as a battered woman, a battered spouse suffering from post
Speaker 6: traumatic stress disorder, and that this would be the defense
Speaker 6: that they would use to explain the deal that they
Speaker 6: ultimately made with her. And the fact of the matter
Speaker 6: is the case so complicated and so arcane that's very
Speaker 6: hard to deal with it in straightforward terms. The fact is,
Speaker 6: this idea of backing a plea with this kind of
Speaker 6: psychiatry came from the Attorney General's office, not from Carla's
Speaker 6: lawyer or from Carla herself, so that all the material
Speaker 6: that backed this up, all of the legal experts that
Speaker 6: they called, were hired at the Crowns at the sorry
Speaker 6: of the Crown. It's a Canadian term or a British
Speaker 6: term for prosecutor chief prosecutor, prosecuting attorney all came out
Speaker 6: of the prosecutor's office. So their position was conveyed to
Speaker 6: Carla's lawyer, and of course he adopted it because it
Speaker 6: was irresistible. I mean, here is a woman who was
Speaker 6: deeply involved in very extreme crimes against teenage women, including
Speaker 6: her own sister, and they were going to get pass
Speaker 6: based on ideas of her being a victim like her sister,
Speaker 6: like the two murdered victims of her husband. So who
Speaker 6: wouldn't take this opportunity and play it? I mean, I'm
Speaker 6: not exaggerating. The trouble is that the two books I've
Speaker 6: written on the case, one of six hundred and forty
Speaker 6: pages long, the other is what three or four hundred pages,
Speaker 6: there's certainly four hundreds, I'm odd, impossibly detailed and the
Speaker 6: things that no one ever wanted known. And the other
Speaker 6: thing is this is a very unusual couple. In fact,
Speaker 6: I don't think there's any ever been a couple like
Speaker 6: these two to be charged with a crime. They were very,
Speaker 6: very good looking kids in their twenties. She's younger than
Speaker 6: him by five or six years, but no less, you know,
Speaker 6: he's twenty four, she's eighteen when they mate. They are
Speaker 6: middle class or even upper middle class, depends on your definition,
Speaker 6: and that in and of itself makes them unusual. I mean,
Speaker 6: his father was a six figure earning registered accountant. They
Speaker 6: lived in a very middle class neighborhood and an upscale
Speaker 6: middle class neighborhood. Her parents weren't quite as accomplished, but
Speaker 6: they had middle class aspirations. They're both educated, and to
Speaker 6: the point where he had a degree in economics from
Speaker 6: a university and had held a job for three years.
Speaker 6: So it's a very unusual couple. Attractive, middle class, aspiring
Speaker 6: a better life than their parents, and all this sort
Speaker 6: of stuff that it works around that kind of lifestyle.
Speaker 6: And yet the two of them went deeply into an
Speaker 6: incredibly dark, murderous relationship that ended up with not only
Speaker 6: your sister being murdered and a plethora of sexual assault,
Speaker 6: but also two strangers who were school girls, teenage schoolgirls. Now,
Speaker 6: the problem that people have had with this case and
Speaker 6: understanding it is that it is so dense and so
Speaker 6: inexplicable that it's almost beyond understanding. Certainly, their behavior is
Speaker 6: beyond understanding, but in the wake of their behavior, the
Speaker 6: way in which the judicial authorities and policing dealt with
Speaker 6: it is beyond bizarre.
Speaker 2: Well, it really does usher in a new I don't
Speaker 2: know if it's era, but some of the Canadian crimes
Speaker 2: after this seem to be like and I have always
Speaker 2: contended that serial killers seem to influence each other and
Speaker 2: like the role models. And so this is almost an
Speaker 2: ushering and a new era. But also from the fine
Speaker 2: journalism that you've done, and from the narcissistic tendencies of
Speaker 2: these people videotaping and recording and diaries and the situation
Speaker 2: where Karla is actually testifying and has to by law
Speaker 2: technically tell the truth and disclose, and with the videotapes
Speaker 2: and with your journalism, this stuff is incredible. How slow
Speaker 2: you have to read this stuff because it's it just
Speaker 2: sinks in and affects you when you're reading the details
Speaker 2: of what this couple did. What I wanted to say
Speaker 2: was that.
Speaker 6: Either way, I tute that as a compliment.
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely, this is the kind of there's no way
Speaker 2: you can do this kind of book, And you've written
Speaker 2: two books about the same trial, and but it is
Speaker 2: that comprehensive, and also it's that complicated because the case
Speaker 2: still goes on.
Speaker 6: I've always contended that there are very few crimes that
Speaker 6: deserve a book written about them, and that warrant deserve
Speaker 6: is the wrong word, warrant the attention. And that's because
Speaker 6: if he were the only offender. First of all, he
Speaker 6: would never have expanded his portfolio to the extent that
Speaker 6: it became without Carla. He wasn't. He was really what
Speaker 6: I've always thought is a serial rapists are unusual in
Speaker 6: the criminal landscape, But he was a really feckless example
Speaker 6: of a serial rapist because he sort of grew into
Speaker 6: it after he met her. He was toying with things,
Speaker 6: but he never actually raped anyone until after he had
Speaker 6: met her, and there was something about their chemistry that
Speaker 6: empowered him to go on rampage of serial raping and
Speaker 6: all the time wooing her and having a relationship with her.
Speaker 6: But the instructive thing in that is that he never
Speaker 6: killed any of his victims until after he moved in
Speaker 6: with her and started living with her. His first murder
Speaker 6: victim was her sister, whom she provided the drugs and
Speaker 6: the circumstances and the ambiance to set up the murder.
Speaker 6: So you say to yourself, what is it that it is,
Speaker 6: Keskus said set Grand Richard, it's nuts and frankly, in
Speaker 6: the end, that's all. No matter how you look at
Speaker 6: this situation, it's absolutely unique and bizarre and at least
Speaker 6: worthy of serious analysis because the crimes are inexplicable, because many,
Speaker 6: many crimes are inexplicable. I mean, there's a great book
Speaker 6: about Hitler called Explaining Hitler by Ron Rosenbaum, a great
Speaker 6: New York writer. He spent ten years looking at the
Speaker 6: academic industry that has grown around trying to find or
Speaker 6: evolve explanations for Hitler. Why Hitler? How did Hitler happen?
Speaker 6: How do we explain that capacity for evil? And ultimately,
Speaker 6: Rosenbaum concluded that there is no viable explanation, even in
Speaker 6: spite of the fact that some of the greatest minds
Speaker 6: in history have spent their lives trying to figure out
Speaker 6: why Hitler. So these two present not anyone near that
Speaker 6: kind of impetus or query, but they present an equally
Speaker 6: complex and inexplicable situation. So the real issue then becomes,
Speaker 6: what the hell were the authorities thinking? What did they do?
Speaker 6: Why did they let her off virtually scot free? Twelve
Speaker 6: years in prison? Is scot free, but it it is
Speaker 6: in no way commiserate with the dimensions of her crime.
Speaker 6: So how do they let her off and put it
Speaker 6: on him? Those are the questions that preoccupy me. I
Speaker 6: can't I can't explain evil of this dimension anymore than
Speaker 6: people have succeeded in explaining evil, the evil of Hitler
Speaker 6: in the Holocaust. So what can I tell you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, she definitely completed him, you know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, no, there was a It's a very strange thing.
Speaker 6: When people see pictures of them and get some kind
Speaker 6: of sense of of what actually went on, they're usually gobsmack.
Speaker 6: They can't. You know. The books keep selling year after year.
Speaker 6: Most books have a season or two seasons of currency,
Speaker 6: and then they are remaindered invisible darkness.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: It's called the Bizarre. The subtitle is Bizarre or the
Speaker 6: Strange Story of Paul Bernardo and Carla Hamalka are the
Speaker 6: strange case rather and Carla a pact with the devil.
Speaker 6: They sell year after year about the same rate as
Speaker 6: they have done from the date of their publication, and
Speaker 6: it simply seems to indicate that new generations are discovering
Speaker 6: the story and becoming fascinated by it because it's virtually inexplicable.
Speaker 6: It's unlike anything else. It's absolutely unique, which is why
Speaker 6: it justified virtually ten years of my life in two books.
Speaker 6: Will it ever be recognized as being a justifiable preoccupation?
Speaker 6: I have no idea, since I was arrested and prosecuted
Speaker 6: over a ten year period for alleged breaches of publication
Speaker 6: bands and court orders, and that exercise took whatever earnings
Speaker 6: I ever had from these books and much more beside,
Speaker 6: Will it ever justify that? I have no idea? You
Speaker 6: know that's up to buster.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what's incredible is that this is the
Speaker 2: inexplicable part is of course the evil, this evil that
Speaker 2: no one can comprehend. I don't care where you came from.
Speaker 2: If you read this, there's just no way you can
Speaker 2: even barely fathom it. But the judicial system in Canada's
Speaker 2: reaction to this, and that's what you outline, and that's
Speaker 2: what you were courageous to do. You have interviews with prosecutors,
Speaker 2: attorney generals, and you're not afraid to burn the bridge.
Speaker 2: You're not afraid to ask the hard questions, and hard
Speaker 2: questions needed to be asked this case is outrageous to anybody,
Speaker 2: I know Americans from this audience expressed the outrage and
Speaker 2: also just the confusion. So your book really he sets
Speaker 2: the record straight on how this could happen, the differences
Speaker 2: in the law, and then just how this prosecution the
Speaker 2: egos involved. So let's get to that, and let's put first,
Speaker 2: if you don't mind, and again I don't want to
Speaker 2: take you back, you know, bad memory, Lane, but tell
Speaker 2: us how you became in the crosshairs of prosecution and
Speaker 2: what you did exactly to enrage these people before we
Speaker 2: get into the deal itself. And what I would refer
Speaker 2: to earlier was not that Carla had anything to do
Speaker 2: with the deal, but being an intelligent, psychopathic personality that
Speaker 2: she was, she knew right away with the lawyer to
Speaker 2: you know, to read books, to have the terminology down,
Speaker 2: to sort of understand the defense that she wanted to
Speaker 2: the battered woman syndrome that she wanted to express. She
Speaker 2: sort of fits the bill. And also, of course we're
Speaker 2: going to get to this what everybody's participation, and it's
Speaker 2: because to me it's outrageous, of course it's outrageous. Paul
Speaker 2: Bernardo and Carla Malka, but I think it's outrageous. The police,
Speaker 2: the lawyers, the psychiatrist. So before we get into that,
Speaker 2: tell us how you became in the crossairs of prosecution
Speaker 2: during this case. Sell us how that happened.
Speaker 6: Well, it wasn't during, it was actually after the fact.
Speaker 6: I mean, what effectively a good investigative journalist does is
Speaker 6: get the backstory. Because, as I think most people are
Speaker 6: sympathetic to, nothing in the modern media is right or
Speaker 6: accurate or true. Nothing. The media, as Chomsky has discussed
Speaker 6: at length and with detail, which very few people have read,
Speaker 6: is a handmaiden of the government and of the police
Speaker 6: and of the power structure. The media does not function
Speaker 6: as watchers on the watch tower. So an investigative journalist,
Speaker 6: if he has the resources and has the will and whatnot,
Speaker 6: is working in a very fertile field because there are
Speaker 6: all sorts of people within the system who want to
Speaker 6: talk about what they are not supposed to talk about.
Speaker 6: So in Canada, the idea of a book writer, of
Speaker 6: a person who only has contracts with a publishing company
Speaker 6: and is not in league with any media doesn't work
Speaker 6: for a newspaper, doesn't work for a television broadcasting firm.
Speaker 6: It's almost even in nineteen ninety four, ninety three, ninety
Speaker 6: two was a foreign concept that some in Canada, not
Speaker 6: in the United States, but in Canada. So no one
Speaker 6: understood what my real purpose was or what my role was.
Speaker 6: But more importantly, the intelligent people that work in the
Speaker 6: toil in this minefield called judicial process, like the expert witnesses,
Speaker 6: you know, the psychiatrists, the psychologists, the defense lawyers, even
Speaker 6: some senior police and prosecutors, even judges. Some of them
Speaker 6: understand the duplicity, the ambiguity, the frailty of the process,
Speaker 6: the so called sacred process of adjudicating responsibility. They understand
Speaker 6: it's frail and fraught with politics and whatnot. So, particularly
Speaker 6: at that place and time, they saw in me someone
Speaker 6: who had no vested interest in disclosing anything I learned
Speaker 6: early on to the public. In other words, I would
Speaker 6: not breach confidence because, frankly, it was in my own
Speaker 6: interest not to do that. It was in my financial interest,
Speaker 6: in my personal interest as only a writer of books,
Speaker 6: with some contracts with Random House and whatnot, it was
Speaker 6: in my best interest not to disclose anything I learned
Speaker 6: until all of the proceedings were gone and finished. So therefore,
Speaker 6: people who would never talk to anybody in the media
Speaker 6: not only talked to me, but supplied incredible information. And frankly,
Speaker 6: it's all documented in the two books. If anyone spends
Speaker 6: enough time reading closely and paying attention all of this
Speaker 6: that happened to me, that I learned that the people
Speaker 6: I knew, that I met and who supplied me with
Speaker 6: information in the books. But at the time, no one
Speaker 6: knew any of this. And we're dealing with a ten
Speaker 6: year period over which that period, each of the books
Speaker 6: was published and each of the prosecutions were initiated. And
Speaker 6: so not only did I get the backstory, I got
Speaker 6: the backstory that no one thought was ever going to
Speaker 6: be told. So the authorities aren't faceless bureaucrats, they're actually individuals.
Speaker 6: There were a few individuals that took umbrage with this.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 6: The one official who was not an official who took
Speaker 6: umbrage was the lawyers for the family, a guy named TENN. Denson,
Speaker 6: And he was very active. People go, well, why would
Speaker 6: he care? Well, because every time anything was about this case,
Speaker 6: money flowed into his office because there was some setup
Speaker 6: that he had created to defend their honor the victims
Speaker 6: of the families of the victim's honor created a very
Speaker 6: strange phenomenon whereby people would donate money to their so
Speaker 6: called victim's fund or integrity fund or whatever it was,
Speaker 6: whenever there was anything in the press about the case,
Speaker 6: whenever anyone was perceived to a transgrass or trespass on
Speaker 6: the victim's integrity. Of course, my work is the only
Speaker 6: work that really gave the victims their humanity, and it's anomaly.
Speaker 6: But nevertheless, through a number of back channels, I became
Speaker 6: a target for the Attorney General and the police to
Speaker 6: a sale on the idea that's my dog drinking water
Speaker 6: in the kitchen, I hope can you hear that?
Speaker 2: Yes, sorry, Dan, it's okay. Dog.
Speaker 6: You got to drink them in from a walk. We're
Speaker 6: in Ottawa. What can I do? The authorities looked at
Speaker 6: the situation and said, well, you know, this should be,
Speaker 6: this should be stopped, this should be we should fix
Speaker 6: this situation so that people don't think that they can
Speaker 6: just write anything they want or do anything they want
Speaker 6: if they uncover some information that is protected by us,
Speaker 6: not by any laws or anything like that, but just
Speaker 6: simply protected because we didn't want it told. Well. And
Speaker 6: then there's the other thing in my first book, where
Speaker 6: in the section where you a true crime writer always
Speaker 6: looks at the history of the people who were involved
Speaker 6: in the case. In other words, the fifteen or sixteen
Speaker 6: or twenty important people that were involved in the case.
Speaker 6: One goes down and says, well, this I died of
Speaker 6: a heart attack in nineteen ninety seven. This guy went
Speaker 6: back to the Crown Law Office in New York in
Speaker 6: two thousand. This guy did this. This guy did that.
Speaker 6: I happened to mention the fact that the prosecutor prosecuted
Speaker 6: Carla had divorced his wife and left his three children
Speaker 6: for his assist secutor, who was his second chair in
Speaker 6: the prosecution of Carla Homonka, that they had affair during
Speaker 6: the case, and he was the assistant Attorney General at
Speaker 6: the time. That powers that be decided to have me
Speaker 6: arrested for breaching publication orders and ignoring court orders in
Speaker 6: nineteen ninety eight, after the book of the first Invisible
Speaker 6: Darkness was published. What do you say about that. Once
Speaker 6: there's an order to investigate an individual ordered by the
Speaker 6: Attorney General, the police do what the police do. They
Speaker 6: had dogs hunt, so when they finish hunting, they kill.
Speaker 6: In the case of the police, they arrest, So whether
Speaker 6: or not it was justified is immaterial. To arrest me again,
Speaker 6: charge you with numerous breaches of publication, bans and court orders.
Speaker 6: Make a long story short. You know, after almost three
Speaker 6: years on trial, I was acquitted of those charges, as
Speaker 6: I should have been, because there was innocent of the charges.
Speaker 6: But it takes three years out of a man's life,
Speaker 6: a writer's man's life. When a writer is interrupted in
Speaker 6: his life, it's a serious interruption because it makes all
Speaker 6: of his concentration, all his momentum and rhythm, so they
Speaker 6: end up doing serious image. So I may have won
Speaker 6: the battle, but I lost the war when I also
Speaker 6: in the process because I was forced to go back
Speaker 6: into all my research and archives. I realized in that
Speaker 6: period of time, which is ninety eight to two thousand
Speaker 6: or so, that I realized something that no one else realized.
Speaker 6: That Carlo was actually going to get out of jail
Speaker 6: and she was going to be let out scott free
Speaker 6: at some point. So I went to another publisher and
Speaker 6: I was able to get an advance to write Carla.
Speaker 6: A pact with the devil. My wife happens to be
Speaker 6: a very prolific and successful writer, and she was able
Speaker 6: to continue her work. So it was a terrible period,
Speaker 6: but it wasn't a horrible, horrific end of life period.
Speaker 6: When Carla came out in two thousand and three, they
Speaker 6: decided to arrest me again, but this time they had
Speaker 6: decided to double down. They had put twenty senior investigators
Speaker 6: on me, brought in the FBI, they brought an inter Pol.
Speaker 6: They took me down like a drug dealer in my
Speaker 6: farmhouse at six am with a swat team and my
Speaker 6: old farmhouse up in southwestern Ontario. They drove me around
Speaker 6: for ten hours so my lawyer figure out where I
Speaker 6: was or what jail I was in or whatever. And
Speaker 6: they doubled and tripled down by charging me with one
Speaker 6: hundred and ten counts of breach, a publication ban and
Speaker 6: court order. They raided the farmhouse, all of my wife's
Speaker 6: computers and all of my computers and all of our
Speaker 6: files and everything we have. Now my wife writes funny
Speaker 6: stories about living, like moving from the city to the country.
Speaker 6: She won the Leecock Award, which was the equivalent of
Speaker 6: the Mark Twain Award for Humor in the United States, etc.
Speaker 6: Et cetera. So she has to do with any of this.
Speaker 6: But they took all of her stuff as well. And
Speaker 6: even more importantly and bizarrely, they arrested her and I
Speaker 6: on illegal storage of firearms. We live on a farm,
Speaker 6: and part of that law states that anyone that lives
Speaker 6: on a farm can have firearms at the ready that
Speaker 6: they're exempt from the principles of this particular law. But nevertheless,
Speaker 6: that can't be adjudicated until you're a year or a
Speaker 6: year and a half into your charge before it gets
Speaker 6: to a judge. I arrested her by thereby stopping her
Speaker 6: work and everything else, stopping me completely, and they decided
Speaker 6: they just continued to prosecute for another three years, and
Speaker 6: they failed. The whole point in the end, which I
Speaker 6: realized too late in life, was that the idea was
Speaker 6: to not really put me in jail, but rather make
Speaker 6: an example of me, but more importantly, to break me financially.
Speaker 6: I won the battles. I was acquitted in the first
Speaker 6: instance instead of one hundred and ten. You know, the
Speaker 6: firearms charges were dropped. I ended up in bankruptcy, misdemeanor breach,
Speaker 6: of a publication ban to do with my website only.
Speaker 6: None of the books were never assailed nothing. I was
Speaker 6: never sued for lear anything else. But I ended up broke,
Speaker 6: which was the point. And that's after almost a decade
Speaker 6: of prosecution and persecution for the simple fact that the
Speaker 6: books are completely accurate and tell the real story behind
Speaker 6: what went on in the government, with the prosecution and
Speaker 6: the police.
Speaker 2: What's interesting too, No, what's interesting too, even more fascinating
Speaker 2: is the idea of well, first we're going to talk
Speaker 2: about doctor Hans Aren't, and if I've mispronounced that, he
Speaker 2: can tell me and the incredible moment there that did
Speaker 2: you have with him? But I just I, yeah, so
Speaker 2: let's talk about that, because that's I think one of
Speaker 2: the more profound parts of this book and surprising to
Speaker 2: me knowing that the psychiatrist for the prosecut for the defense,
Speaker 2: pardon me, tell us doctor Hans Aren't's role in this,
Speaker 2: and then after that you can tell us about this
Speaker 2: profound moment where he gives you this incredible amount of information.
Speaker 6: He was a really fascinating character and a very interesting
Speaker 6: man who was retained by Carlo's lawyer, George Walker. The
Speaker 6: recommendation of the prosecutors to examine Carla psychiatrically early on,
Speaker 6: and Hans a psychiatrists from all walks of life and
Speaker 6: in all parts of the world. Psychiatrists and psychologists do
Speaker 6: a lot of work as expert witnesses and it's a
Speaker 6: controversial area of the law, and that being what it is,
Speaker 6: Hans lawyers had issues. He just wondered if this role
Speaker 6: was really valid or if he was just a very
Speaker 6: kind and intelligent and gifted man who had questions when
Speaker 6: he was given the responsibility in the case to examine
Speaker 6: Carla at length on behalf of the legal community. He
Speaker 6: and I happened to me. I mean, this is all
Speaker 6: there's a serendipity to it that is beautiful, but there's
Speaker 6: also the fact that he was doing his job. I
Speaker 6: was doing my job. And we happen to have mutual
Speaker 6: friends who introduced us, and we spent five or six
Speaker 6: hours having dinner and talking about things in general, and
Speaker 6: my telling him that I had a real interest in
Speaker 6: the case and in his patient, et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 6: And he decided, in a period of a very short
Speaker 6: amount of time to share with me everything he knew
Speaker 6: about his patient, all of her records, medical school, whatever,
Speaker 6: And because he decided that, as I described earlier, I
Speaker 6: was a person in a position that people actually believed
Speaker 6: they could trust me, and that I could hold information
Speaker 6: that no one else should have and it wouldn't compromise
Speaker 6: them or their profession at the time that they shared.
Speaker 6: He knew that ultimately, maybe all of the information that
Speaker 6: he had, technically all of the information that he had
Speaker 6: then should have been made public. It never was, but
Speaker 6: he knew that legally, at some point in time, once
Speaker 6: the trials of these two individuals was over, that this
Speaker 6: material was technically legally in the possession of the Canadian
Speaker 6: American public, in the possession of the public, and he
Speaker 6: decided to share it with me before she had even
Speaker 6: been tried, because he believed he could trust me not
Speaker 6: to disclose it until it was appropriate, and that gave
Speaker 6: me enormous insight into the process of what was going on.
Speaker 6: In fact, it was probably the pivotal thing that allowed
Speaker 6: me to get the amount of insight that I needed
Speaker 6: to realize who I should then subsequently interview and who
Speaker 6: I should pay attention to, and how much effort should
Speaker 6: be put here there. In another place. I mean, it
Speaker 6: was like a road for the best investigative journalism in
Speaker 6: the world. It was one of those scenarios that you
Speaker 6: very very seldom see, and it really did provide that
Speaker 6: that capacity so that I could write both of the
Speaker 6: books with ultimately absolute authority and confidence that I had
Speaker 6: the correct information.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's very very important too, because the involvement of
Speaker 2: psychologists and psychiatrists in this and psychiatry in this trial
Speaker 2: is paramount. So it really you really do need to
Speaker 2: understand it or you can't have a good question.
Speaker 6: It's paramount. I don't mean to interrupt. It's become more
Speaker 6: and more important and efficacious and prevalent as time's gone
Speaker 6: by since the role of the expert witness. I wrote
Speaker 6: a piece back in nineteen seventy nine about a shoeshine
Speaker 6: what they call in Toronto the shoeshine Boy murders, where
Speaker 6: four very strange pedophiles kidnapped a shoeshine boy and raped
Speaker 6: him for twenty four hours and then drowned him in
Speaker 6: their sink and then put his body in a bag
Speaker 6: on top of a massage parlor on Young Street in Toronto,
Speaker 6: and then fled to all parts of the continent, and
Speaker 6: of course they caught all of these guys, and in
Speaker 6: the trial I wrote a piece about it, the only
Speaker 6: other true crime piece I've ever really written except these
Speaker 6: two books, called Sympathy for the Devil in Toronto Life
Speaker 6: in nineteen seventy nine. And what my real interest in
Speaker 6: that case was, is psychopathy a real thing? What's the
Speaker 6: role of the psychiatrist to the expert witness in a
Speaker 6: trial of this kind? Because one of the lawyers pled
Speaker 6: one of the perpetrators who was like sort of a
Speaker 6: Hollywood looks guy named Saul David Patch, who came from
Speaker 6: a very well to do Jewish family and was completely
Speaker 6: deranged and basically the leader of these four strange, lethal people.
Speaker 6: His defense put on the argument, because he was a psychopath,
Speaker 6: he was not legally responsible for what he did, and
Speaker 6: of course that defense has been tried probably before and
Speaker 6: many times since, but at my age in those days,
Speaker 6: in the late nineteen seventies and eighties, it seemed like
Speaker 6: an absolutely unique and bizarre defense, because even then I
Speaker 6: thought psychopathy was a fiction, and so I had a
Speaker 6: really hard long look. Those were the days when magazines
Speaker 6: would actually pay serious money to do serious in depth pieces,
Speaker 6: and I looked into the whole issue of expert witnesses
Speaker 6: and their role relevance in the judicial process, of course,
Speaker 6: concluding that they're mostly an impediment and a confusion and
Speaker 6: not really relevant to the issue at hand. But this
Speaker 6: was a later day revelation that just up the stakes.
Speaker 2: Now. I want to go back briefly because we would
Speaker 2: have about an eight hour interview, but if you can
Speaker 2: stay with me a little bit over the hour. But
Speaker 2: what I wanted to ask was I wanted to get
Speaker 2: to the nexus of Walker and then Aren't and how
Speaker 2: this whole thing happened, because you explained it at the
Speaker 2: end in terms of how all the decisions were isolated.
Speaker 2: There's two different trials. Let's get to just a little
Speaker 2: bit of of the nexus of how Carla got to
Speaker 2: have this future in terms of contacting Walker and then
Speaker 2: Walker making those next moves, and the Psychiatrist's involvement in
Speaker 2: this even before they cook up this deal. And then
Speaker 2: we can talk about Vince Bevin because he is the
Speaker 2: most important or one of the most important characters in
Speaker 2: his story. So first talk about that nexus with Walker
Speaker 2: and the psychiatrist and what they did for Carla to
Speaker 2: be able to come up with this deal.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, it's interesting because Saint Catherine's is a
Speaker 6: small city about ten miles from the American border in
Speaker 6: the Niagara Peninsula, and they have two or three things
Speaker 6: that everyone would recognize Americans and Canadians together. They have
Speaker 6: a lot of donut and coffee shops, and they have
Speaker 6: a lot of veterinarian practices, and Carla worked at one
Speaker 6: of them, and a lawyer of the statue of George
Speaker 6: Walker would never have even considered taking on Carla as
Speaker 6: a client except for the fact, like I am, he
Speaker 6: was a very serious dog lover, and he happened to
Speaker 6: be a big Dalmatians guy, and he had the vet
Speaker 6: clinic that Carla happened to work at, had actually, knowing
Speaker 6: that he was a Dalmatians dog man, had given him
Speaker 6: a Dalmatian that was partially blind because they knew he
Speaker 6: would take care of it. I think at the time
Speaker 6: he had three or four Dalmatians and they were right,
Speaker 6: of course, and he brought his dogs back, of course,
Speaker 6: to the same clinic where Carla was working, certainly after
Speaker 6: he had gotten the half blind dalmatian and she had
Speaker 6: met as the sort of receptionist, VET clinic assistant whatever.
Speaker 6: She had met both George Walker, who became her criminal
Speaker 6: defense lawyer, and his wife Lori in the context of
Speaker 6: their need for veterinary services for the dogs. And when
Speaker 6: Carla realized that she was under siege and that she
Speaker 6: was in jeopardy, the first thing she could she couldn't
Speaker 6: think of any lawyers per se, but she remembered that
Speaker 6: George Walker was a lawyer and she was wife well
Speaker 6: enough to call her. So she put a call in
Speaker 6: to Laurie and said, I need help and I've got
Speaker 6: a domestic problem, and do you think that George would
Speaker 6: see me? And of course Laurie said, no problem, having
Speaker 6: known I mean, nobody knew anything. No one had any
Speaker 6: foreknowledge of anything there was. Laurie had no idea what
Speaker 6: was going on. She said, of course, my dear, you know,
Speaker 6: I'll set up an appointment for you and you can
Speaker 6: come in and talk to George. I hope it's not
Speaker 6: too serious. So when Laurie, George Walker's wife, turned to
Speaker 6: George and said, by the way, I've set up an
Speaker 6: appointment for you with Carla Amonka at three pm the
Speaker 6: next day, George looked at her and said what for,
Speaker 6: And she said, well, there's some apparently domestic problem she's having,
Speaker 6: and George said, worse to this effect, Well, tell her
Speaker 6: to kill the bastard and then I'll defend her. Because
Speaker 6: his practice was basically a very high end practice. He
Speaker 6: defended murderers and drug cartel, keypins and stuff like that.
Speaker 6: He didn't do domestic law. And it's darkly funny. Tell
Speaker 6: her to murder the bastard and then I'll see her.
Speaker 6: And Laurie said, no, no, this is the girl that
Speaker 6: helps our dogs in the Martindale clinic. So and I've
Speaker 6: set up the appointment, so you're going to see her.
Speaker 6: And so he did, as we all do, we do
Speaker 6: what our wives tell us, and the game was on
Speaker 6: from then From there on forward, it's so complicated, I mean,
Speaker 6: I could digress at almost every statement I made. Because,
Speaker 6: of course, the Toronto Police, the police from the city
Speaker 6: of Toronto drove her to the appointment because they had
Speaker 6: discovered that the DNA and the rapes that were committed
Speaker 6: in Toronto were Bernardo's DNA, but they didn't suspect her,
Speaker 6: so they actually drove her to her lawyer's appointment. From
Speaker 6: that point on, Of course, George became her lawyer and
Speaker 6: he immediately started to talk to the senior prosecutors that
Speaker 6: would be involved in this case, and the rest is history.
Speaker 2: Now, George Walker knew the definition of battered women's syndrome,
Speaker 2: even though it wasn't super I mean, it wasn't around
Speaker 2: for them many years, but he was aware of the
Speaker 2: definition of it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, I think it goes back to a psychologist
Speaker 6: named Alice Walker. I'm mad living here, but I'm relative.
Speaker 6: He's certain. I'm in the ballpark that who would a
Speaker 6: book about it? In these things are weird. I think
Speaker 6: it's nineteen eighty four. I could be wrong, that could
Speaker 6: be early, but the battered one syndrome was around, so yeah,
Speaker 6: he'd be familiar with it, maybe roughly. If you're a
Speaker 6: criminal lawy, if you're handed something you don't argue with it,
Speaker 6: you say, that's an interesting concept, you know, because your
Speaker 6: obligation is to your client. And George, I don't know
Speaker 6: what he opinion he holds today, but certainly back in
Speaker 6: those days he thought that was as good an explanation
Speaker 6: as any.
Speaker 2: Well, that's what a lot of people have a hard
Speaker 2: time with when they hear the principle of the lawyers
Speaker 2: not to lie or have his client lie.
Speaker 6: And then no, he didn't lie. He listened to what
Speaker 6: the psychiatrist said, what the psychologists said. There were at
Speaker 6: the time three prominent two psychiatrists and one psychologist that
Speaker 6: agreed that that was a viable diagnosis.
Speaker 2: My question is how did he look for those psychiatric experts?
Speaker 2: Who did he go to and did? How much did
Speaker 2: he know about what he might get from them? Did
Speaker 2: he look for cooperative people? Did he have people that
Speaker 2: he had used before? Did he know what they'd likely
Speaker 2: tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 6: Well, you're suggesting that criminal lawyer should make assessments and
Speaker 6: adjudications about the relative guilt of their clients and the
Speaker 6: best don't. The best know that they're in the midst
Speaker 6: of an adversarial system and their clients may be guilty
Speaker 6: or they may be innocent. But that's not their job.
Speaker 6: That's the job of the court to decide. And in
Speaker 6: this case, and I think I've documented it fairly extensively
Speaker 6: for anyone who really wants to delve into it in
Speaker 6: more detail, these psychiatrists were brought to his attention. He said,
Speaker 6: that's fine, they're well known, they have good reputations, so
Speaker 6: we'll work with them and take what their assessment is.
Speaker 6: People seem to think there should be some different morality
Speaker 6: on the part of defense lawyers than there are for
Speaker 6: prosecuting attorneys or the government. In this case, as I've demonstrated,
Speaker 6: it was the government's idea that he worked with these
Speaker 6: particular psychiatrists and psychologists, two of whom were at least
Speaker 6: no one for their work with the prosecution. Nobody in
Speaker 6: their right mind, given the definition of their job in
Speaker 6: his case or in a defense lawyer's case, would move
Speaker 6: away from that. And if the ultimate decision that the
Speaker 6: psychiatrist and the psychologists make is that she was about
Speaker 6: a woman suffering from post traumatic stress disorder was the
Speaker 6: definitive position, who's to argue not him.
Speaker 4: It's not, oh, you're right.
Speaker 6: The government's job to sort out the duplicity from the truth.
Speaker 6: It's the government's job to assign, guild and prove it.
Speaker 6: It's not the defense lawyer.
Speaker 2: You're correct.
Speaker 6: Let's go ahead.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about Vince Bevin and the situation that he
Speaker 2: came to be with the investigation. The DNA describe the
Speaker 2: Toronto police poised to make an arrest. Vince Bevan is
Speaker 2: in Saint Catharinees of this little town outside of Toronto,
Speaker 2: two different jurisdictions. Tell us the situation Vince Bevin is
Speaker 2: in and why to explain why they don't make an
Speaker 2: imminent rest on Paul Bernardo, And it's this is the
Speaker 2: crux of this entire story. So tell us what Vince
Speaker 2: Bevin the situation he was in.
Speaker 6: Indeed, it is very much a crux. I'm trying to
Speaker 6: think of a better word, but you're absolutely right, it's
Speaker 6: the crux of the story because Bevan's inexperience and an
Speaker 6: aptitude is the catalyst that ultimately allowed everything else to unfold. Now,
Speaker 6: having said that, you have to remember that Saint Catharine's
Speaker 6: wasn't a place, isn't a place, wasn't a place where
Speaker 6: crimes of this dimension occur. So you've got a police
Speaker 6: force that is hugely inexperienced in dealing with anything this weird,
Speaker 6: but anything like weirder than some motorcycle gangs beating up
Speaker 6: themselves in the back of an alley, or some cross
Speaker 6: border drug dealing, some organized crime stuff like that. But
Speaker 6: it's not a crime ridden area. It's certainly not a
Speaker 6: sex crime area. It's not an area where it's any
Speaker 6: real history of sex crimes. That's what I'm I'm trying
Speaker 6: to say. So, you have two strange, bizarre incidents in
Speaker 6: fairly quick succession whereby Leslie Mahafi is murdered and dismembered
Speaker 6: and her body parts are encased in cement and they're
Speaker 6: thrown in a reservoir near the city of Saint Catharine
Speaker 6: or that feeds the city of Saint Catherine, and those
Speaker 6: are discovered in nineteen ninety one. And you have a
Speaker 6: couple of other strange incidents of a sexual crime nature
Speaker 6: that happened uncharacteristically between that particular incident and the death
Speaker 6: of Christian French in nineteen ninety two around Easter in
Speaker 6: April nineteen ninety two, whereby her naked body with her
Speaker 6: long hair cut off, is found in a ditch across
Speaker 6: from the cemetery where less than Haffi had been buried,
Speaker 6: but uncharacteristic to the area, he had a couple other
Speaker 6: sex crimes. And when French's body is found, of course,
Speaker 6: because she is from Saint Catharine's and Mahaffy wasn't. She
Speaker 6: was from another town further along the peninsula. Niagar Regional
Speaker 6: Police took horrendous interest, a very serious interest in her
Speaker 6: disappearance immediately and couldn't find couldn't solve it, and couldn't
Speaker 6: figure it out. They immediately, you know, within that period
Speaker 6: of time, they formed the task force, which involved the
Speaker 6: Ontario government and involved other police forces, with the exception
Speaker 6: of the Toronto Police Force, who had absolutely no interest
Speaker 6: in being involved with the Naga Regional Police Force for
Speaker 6: reasons that can only be talked about in a book
Speaker 6: because they're about regional prejudices and discrepancies among police forces,
Speaker 6: which I think most people are vaguely familiar with. But
Speaker 6: Bevan was somehow appointed as the head of the task
Speaker 6: force that was formed with the impetus of the Ontario government,
Speaker 6: the state government, and was the participants, the people who
Speaker 6: they are police officers that were enlisted into this task
Speaker 6: force involved six or some six or seven regional forces
Speaker 6: in the vicinity. That's the other thing. There were all
Speaker 6: kinds of regional forces in a very not very big area.
Speaker 6: There was a very small area where all kinds of
Speaker 6: small police forces were operational, and so they brought in
Speaker 6: the Hamilton people that whatever, it doesn't matter a bunch
Speaker 6: of regional police forces, and the funding came from the government,
Speaker 6: and therefore Bevin became not a young police officer who
Speaker 6: was going to report to his chief and Nagara Regional
Speaker 6: but he then became somebody who was reporting to the
Speaker 6: Ministry of the Attorney General and the Ministry of the
Speaker 6: Solicitor General in Toronto, and he made all kinds of
Speaker 6: like bizarre rookie mistakes based on ida is like semi
Speaker 6: witness to this crime that no one knew was actually
Speaker 6: a crime, had been driving an old Camaro. In fact,
Speaker 6: that Bernardo and Carla when they kidnapped Christian French were
Speaker 6: driving a very late model, like only a year or
Speaker 6: two old Nissan. So almost everything that he accumulated as
Speaker 6: a clue and then publicized as clues was wrong, which
Speaker 6: made the idea that they'd be apprehended almost impossible. And
Speaker 6: even though because the Toronto Police been developing DNA evidence,
Speaker 6: finally after years, because DNA evidence was in its naiscence,
Speaker 6: the development of it as evidentiary stuff that worked well
Speaker 6: in courts, and all this stuff was in trial even
Speaker 6: in New York. I mean, this was nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 6: and only the first first use of DNA evidence was
Speaker 6: in nineteen eighty four in a small area in England.
Speaker 6: So it was new stuff, new science, and yet police
Speaker 6: tend to get into new science. Bernardo's DNA from Toronto
Speaker 6: rapes had been sitting in the lab for years, and
Speaker 6: the Toronto Police had developed a couple of hits that
Speaker 6: made him the man who committed those couple of crimes,
Speaker 6: and they were down and arrest Bernardo. Bevin had already
Speaker 6: interviewed Bernardo, He'd already had enough information passed on by
Speaker 6: the government liaison and all that stuff to know that
Speaker 6: he could be a suspect, interviewed him, cleared them. So
Speaker 6: it was an impossible situation. Bernardo had been cleared by
Speaker 6: Bevin and the Toronto Police were about to arrest him
Speaker 6: definitively as the Garborough rapist. And that's when the politics
Speaker 6: started to kick in, because what are you going to do.
Speaker 6: You're going to let this guy be arrested as a
Speaker 6: rapist when in fact he's in responsible for two murders
Speaker 6: of young girls down in the Nagara region. Not politically acceptable.
Speaker 6: So in that scenario, which is far more complicated than
Speaker 6: I've been able to describe because I'm already testing anyone
Speaker 6: who's listening patients, you know, evolution of this bizarre and
Speaker 6: inexplicable case that let her go free and put Bernardo
Speaker 6: behind bars not for the Scarborough Race, but for the
Speaker 6: two murders in Saint Catharines, as you.
Speaker 2: Described in the book. And we do have to be
Speaker 2: a little more. We have to be concise with the
Speaker 2: rest of this interview, like I say, because otherwise I
Speaker 2: keep you on here for all night, which I would
Speaker 2: enjoy but you probably won't. What I want to talk
Speaker 2: about is the case that you stake out, because then
Speaker 2: later in the book you're talking to Michael Code, which
Speaker 2: is Bevin Superior and the guy that makes made the decisions,
Speaker 2: and you are questioning them about his decisions.
Speaker 6: Very he was a very key player, yes, very senior.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. What you're talking about about is you start off
Speaker 2: in that given that Carla Jamalca gives a Christmas present
Speaker 2: to Paul Bernardo, which is the sister she uses Halathane
Speaker 2: that she stole from work along with Halcyon, and then
Speaker 2: you pick it up in terms of six months after
Speaker 2: her sister's death. There's Jane Doe, So talk about Jane
Speaker 2: Doe because this again, this is a very important point
Speaker 2: that you made to Michael Code that this is hard
Speaker 2: to fathom that they could get past that. So tell
Speaker 2: us explain to the audience about the importance of Jane
Speaker 2: Doe and Carla's behavior six months after her sister was
Speaker 2: killed accidentally.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the idea that I can explain it is a
Speaker 6: bit of phantasma gore. But what I really wanted to
Speaker 6: know when I was talking to Michael, and I was
Speaker 6: the only person he ever talked to publicly, he was
Speaker 6: very forthcoming. He's a very serious guy. He's now a judge,
Speaker 6: very senior man. At the time he was the key
Speaker 6: man and in a Maulka deal. We were talking about
Speaker 6: the fact she did what she did to her sister
Speaker 6: using hall of thing that she stole from the veterinary clinic,
Speaker 6: using a sleeping pill. I can't remember whether Tamasa, PAM
Speaker 6: or something in conjunction. She is almost absurd, an anesthetic
Speaker 6: that was counter indicated to even eating or let alone
Speaker 6: being put on a cloth, and she used these same
Speaker 6: techniques on her sister and the sister died. Then six
Speaker 6: months later did the same thing of her own volition
Speaker 6: to a young teenage girl that she knew and enticed
Speaker 6: into their home Paul Bernardo, of her own volition, and
Speaker 6: the same thing to Jane Doe as she had done
Speaker 6: to her sister six months earlier, and that procedure killed
Speaker 6: her sisters. Without regard to that issue, she did it.
Speaker 6: And then old Bernardo was out gallivanting somewhere and said,
Speaker 6: come home, dear, I have a present for you, and
Speaker 6: of course the present was a comatos Jane Doe, and
Speaker 6: they proceeded aper and videotape their performance. I think that
Speaker 6: what I was saying to Michael was have you seen
Speaker 6: the videotapes of both incidents? And were you were aware
Speaker 6: of the of the proximity? And if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 6: Mike said, I haven't really a reviewo tape at all,
Speaker 6: and no, I haven't seen those. That wasn't the issue.
Speaker 6: The issue was to do with the decisions that have
Speaker 6: been made about how to deal with the situation and
Speaker 6: what was So anybody who wants to try and parse
Speaker 6: that is I understand what he's saying, and I understand
Speaker 6: the position he's taking, but it's a hard one to
Speaker 6: reconcile with. Das of tooth in the American way.
Speaker 2: He talks about the deal. We're skipping ahead, but we
Speaker 2: have to talk well, he talks about the deal as
Speaker 2: as you are. Why this deal happened and why it
Speaker 2: had to happen is that they were afraid that the
Speaker 2: Bernardo prosecution, the Vince Bellen of Bevin, had jumped the
Speaker 2: gun and made basically an illegal arrest, premature arrest. So
Speaker 2: they counted from that. But they it was a matter
Speaker 2: of there was a few points that he made in
Speaker 2: terms of they needed her to be more credible that
Speaker 2: the case hardly would have added. He said, hardly added
Speaker 2: any more time to the twelve year sentence, and it
Speaker 2: would affected her credibility in the Bernardo case. And like
Speaker 2: you say, he seemed to compartmentalize it in terms of, well, no,
Speaker 2: I didn't review I just reviewed the statements from the experts.
Speaker 2: I didn't review the evidence, and the evidence I looked
Speaker 2: at I looked at a certain way.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think you are. But you see, that's the
Speaker 6: culture of deniability that exists. And I don't think any
Speaker 6: American or a Canadian or you would find this surprising
Speaker 6: in this day and age, that there's a huge culture
Speaker 6: of disconnected deniability in very stations along the way. I mean,
Speaker 6: the deal here was, as far as Michael concerned, done,
Speaker 6: and this was an after the fact situation that could
Speaker 6: not be allowed to collapse the entire structure of the
Speaker 6: resolution as it had been developed. In other words, she
Speaker 6: had been dealt with, and Bernardo was being dealt with
Speaker 6: in his own way. The thing that's very hard to
Speaker 6: understand is that in the end, what I suggested was that,
Speaker 6: and it's true. And by the way, the prosecutor in
Speaker 6: the Nardo trials said, coo things structive, they're in my books.
Speaker 6: When he was starting the case against Paul Bernardo, he said,
Speaker 6: we're going to call Paul Bernardo's wife, Carla Hamalka to
Speaker 6: the stand as a witness. She is not on trial
Speaker 6: in this case. She had a witness and as such,
Speaker 6: only her testimony is relevant. You're not to be concerned
Speaker 6: earned with any other issue other than what she testifies to.
Speaker 6: They're both guilty of first degree, but we've made an
Speaker 6: arrangement and a plea agreement with miss Amoca, so she's
Speaker 6: not on trial. So that was part of his opening statement,
Speaker 6: his closing statement after her having been on the stand
Speaker 6: for twenty days and most of being in cross examination,
Speaker 6: not examination in chief. In other words, she was on
Speaker 6: for nineteen days with Bernardo's defense lawyer and about a
Speaker 6: day with the Crown with the prosecutor. The prosecutor said
Speaker 6: in his closing remark to the jury, they're both guilty
Speaker 6: of first degree murder, but we made an arrangement with
Speaker 6: Carlo Homalca and nothing she said had any relevance to
Speaker 6: this case, ignore all her testimony. So what I've always,
Speaker 6: I mean, I understand what's going on, and most people don't.
Speaker 6: I don't think because most people don't get themselves deeply
Speaker 6: involved in this ship. I mean, what's going on is
Speaker 6: that this trial could have been conducted in four days.
Speaker 6: The Crown and the defense could have agreed on selected
Speaker 6: stills from the videos, like a dozen, maybe sixteen them
Speaker 6: in front of the jury. They also have this evidence
Speaker 6: in this evidence, you know, this stuff from the stains
Speaker 6: on a carpet, this DNA and whatnot. He's guilty and
Speaker 6: it would have been found so in three or four days.
Speaker 6: But instead they were intent on doing three or fourms
Speaker 6: of what I think is a Dasadian sort of charleton play,
Speaker 6: a sick play from the decade from the asylum where
Speaker 6: he used to put on his place for French Aris doctors.
Speaker 6: And they do this to somehow justify this incredibly inexplicable
Speaker 6: and bizarre deal they made with Carla, the She Devil.
Speaker 2: Sure, so I'm gonna wrap of this episode of True
Speaker 2: Murder and thank Steven Williams for coming on and explaining
Speaker 2: this incredible story Carla a pact with the Devil.
Speaker 6: Ben, thanks for having me.
Speaker 5: Good night.
Speaker 3: Hi, I'm far Mohammed, host of Canadian Immigrants upcoming podcast
Speaker 3: First Generation, and.
Speaker 8: Hello, I'm Ramya ramad An editor of Canadian Immigrants.
Speaker 3: In this series, I'll be sitting down with Canadian immigrants,
Speaker 3: each with their own unique story to hear about their journey.
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Speaker 3: to new episodes as soon as they're released. First Generation
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