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Speaker 5: You are now listening to True Murder, The most Shocking
Speaker 5: Killers in True crime History and the authors that have
Speaker 5: written about them. Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every week,
Speaker 5: another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous
Speaker 5: killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 5: journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Speaker 4: Good evening. This is your host Dan Zupanski for the
Speaker 4: program True Murder, The most shocking Killers in true crime
Speaker 4: History and the authors that have written about them. My
Speaker 4: special guest this evening is a veteran journalist and best
Speaker 4: selling author and crime reporter for the Toronto Star, and
Speaker 4: we're calling we're talking with speaking with him in Toronto.
Speaker 4: I want to welcome Nick pron to the program and
Speaker 4: thank you for doing this interview. Nick Pron. Well, we
Speaker 4: seem to have some technical problem here. I'm sure that
Speaker 4: Nick will get back on air here. I'd heard him
Speaker 4: talking in the background. We're going to be talking with
Speaker 4: Nick pron who's the author of Lethal Marriage, The Uncensored
Speaker 4: Truth Behind the Crimes of Carla Hamalka and Paul Bernardo.
Speaker 4: It's a particularly interesting case if you haven't heard about it.
Speaker 4: Even if you have heard about it, this is the
Speaker 4: one of the few journalists that was privy to all
Speaker 4: the information that was displayed in court, that was detailed
Speaker 4: in court, all the graphic details. One of the features
Speaker 4: of this was that Canadian law of sensing that these
Speaker 4: people would not have a fair trial and then there
Speaker 4: would be certainly some sort of media circus, chose to
Speaker 4: have a publication ban or what they call a publication
Speaker 4: deferral of information that could certainly be published later, but
Speaker 4: not at that particular time. So American journalists were not
Speaker 4: afforded the privilege of being in the courtroom to witness
Speaker 4: what some people have called the trial of the century,
Speaker 4: but certainly one of the most shocking, interesting, fascinating and
Speaker 4: incredible true crime stories ever told. And we're going to
Speaker 4: be speaking with Nick Prawn. I was just speaking to
Speaker 4: him just before here. So let's see what we have here.
Speaker 4: Hello Nick? Oh sorry, well, okay, great, okay, yeah, I
Speaker 4: just introduced your book and maybe you can tell us
Speaker 4: how long have you been with the Toronto Star and.
Speaker 2: About thirty two years? About thirty two years yeah, and
Speaker 2: murder trial. Well, I've actually followed the first murder and
Speaker 2: you know, followed the case for about three years before
Speaker 2: it went to trial.
Speaker 4: What year are we talking? What what year did the trial?
Speaker 4: Did the trial start itself?
Speaker 2: Well, he Bernardo himself was convicted in September of nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety five, and Carla was g two years before that,
Speaker 2: I guess in ninety three, nineteen ninety three, when she
Speaker 2: had her secret trial. And I was just listening to
Speaker 2: you because it was interesting the the Americans were shut
Speaker 2: out because it was felt that they weren't governed by
Speaker 2: the same loss, so they would break the pub band
Speaker 2: and all the information would get out about what she
Speaker 2: had done, and it was felt it would it would
Speaker 2: harm the fair trial rights of him, and he might
Speaker 2: get off or he wouldn't have a fair trial. And
Speaker 2: one of the American reporters I remember him standing outside
Speaker 2: the door and he was just sort of looking through
Speaker 2: the through the door, through the glass doors of the courtroom,
Speaker 2: and he couldn't get in. And shortly after that, a
Speaker 2: reporter from the Washington Post, she had an office in
Speaker 2: the same building, and she came and she started asking
Speaker 2: me for all the details and I told her I
Speaker 2: couldn't give it to him. I couldn't give her anything
Speaker 2: because I was under a pub band and one of
Speaker 2: the cops had called me up. He said, you know,
Speaker 2: if anybody leaks the stuff, you're the first time we're
Speaker 2: going to nail from because we figure you're the one
Speaker 2: that's going to do it. And I just, you know,
Speaker 2: like I couldn't talk to her, and I told her
Speaker 2: that I felt bad because you know, I'm a reporter,
Speaker 2: but I had to honor the band. And she eventually
Speaker 2: got the information from somebody, I think, and it eventually
Speaker 2: got out before his trial.
Speaker 4: Right, well, let's go back for our audience here way
Speaker 4: but way back to okay, for those that the people
Speaker 4: that don't know this story, but still we still want
Speaker 4: to lay out basically your incredible book and really what
Speaker 4: goes on is that we really need to know. We
Speaker 4: got to introduce the notorious killer couple, who are the
Speaker 4: really the starring subjects in your book, Lethal Marriage. Who
Speaker 4: is Carla Jlmalka.
Speaker 2: She was born to a typical middle class family in
Speaker 2: Saint Catharines, which is near the you know, near the
Speaker 2: border with the States. Her father was or was and
Speaker 2: still is probably a small businessman, made and sold lamps.
Speaker 2: Her mother worked in a nurse in the hospital. And
Speaker 2: you know, when talking to all the neighbors she was,
Speaker 2: they were a very well liked family. They'd just swimming
Speaker 2: poll in the backyard. It was a you'd seen it
Speaker 2: was You'd think it was a very normal upbringing. All
Speaker 2: the neighbors really liked the family. It was the Hamoka place.
Speaker 2: The Amoka household was a place to go for kids,
Speaker 2: you know, for something and all that. They were very
Speaker 2: open household. If she had any deep dark secrets in
Speaker 2: the family, you wouldn't think he'd that kind of openness.
Speaker 2: And the neighbors really thought there was nothing wrong with
Speaker 2: her that she was. They really thought she was victimized
Speaker 2: by him, totally victimized, that she was an abused wife
Speaker 2: and all that. And of course the truth was quite
Speaker 2: a bit different. And I mean there were several incidents
Speaker 2: of neighbors actually attacking reporters at first, you know, when
Speaker 2: she had her secret trial, because they couldn't believe that
Speaker 2: she had done all these things. She she she liked witchcraft.
Speaker 2: She was into witchcraft. She was fascinated. Talking to some
Speaker 2: of her friends, she was fascinated by death. I know
Speaker 2: she pet had died and she insisted on dragging her
Speaker 2: friend along to dig up this pet. I think it
Speaker 2: was a dog that died, or as a cat. And
Speaker 2: she worked in a very reputable veterinarian place, and you know,
Speaker 2: at times they have to put down animals or they
Speaker 2: have to put them to sleep, and that's where she
Speaker 2: sort of realized how you can drug people using hall
Speaker 2: of Fane. And she wanted to get to Saint Catherine's
Speaker 2: in the worst way. She was the kind of person
Speaker 2: who wanted something better, something more in her life than
Speaker 2: living in a Saint Catherine's is a wonderful community, but
Speaker 2: she wanted, I don't know, to move on, maybe move
Speaker 2: out to the States or something. And when Bernardo came along,
Speaker 2: you know, here's this big shot guy from Toronto drives
Speaker 2: a I think it was a Dats and Dats in
Speaker 2: three hundred ssex, you know, like a very sporty car.
Speaker 2: And you know he was National Lifeguard, which is a
Speaker 2: you know, very well advanced lifeguard. And he seemed like
Speaker 2: a very glitzy kind of guy. He was an accountant,
Speaker 2: or so she thought that was just sort of his lies.
Speaker 2: He wasn't really an account and he was never a
Speaker 2: credited as an account and he was, you know, good looking,
Speaker 2: well well built, and she bragged to her friends that,
Speaker 2: you know, this was the guy for me. And she
Speaker 2: was only I think seventeen, sixteen, seventeen and he was
Speaker 2: twenty three. So there was quite an aging gap there
Speaker 2: and then and then you know, and then, I if
Speaker 2: you are sympathetic towards her, you'd think, well, then she
Speaker 2: kind of got drawn in. And when she was drawn in,
Speaker 2: she was hooked. And you know, those things happen. You know,
Speaker 2: you get drawn into somebody, into a situation, and you
Speaker 2: get in your in your you're sunk. But you know,
Speaker 2: she had plenty of opportunities to leave and when she
Speaker 2: realized what a monstery was, and she never did. And
Speaker 2: that's I think that's what irritates a lot of us
Speaker 2: that not irritated, but when we were sat through or
Speaker 2: seek a trial and we had to listen to all
Speaker 2: the things that she was involved, and we were just infuriated,
Speaker 2: I guess the word. And we have to sit on
Speaker 2: that for about two years until his trial came up.
Speaker 4: He will let's go let's go back a little bit
Speaker 4: because at the same time that this is happening, that
Speaker 4: their relationship is unfolding, and she is talking to a
Speaker 4: lot of her friends. You you describe in great detail
Speaker 4: because some of the documents that you have that you're
Speaker 4: privy to is that she has all these glowing terms
Speaker 4: for her her fairy tale marriage. This is the man
Speaker 4: of her life. She's planning an elaborate wedding and has
Speaker 4: nothing extolling all the virtues of this man. But at
Speaker 4: the same time, there's something going on in Scarborough. And
Speaker 4: for our audience to say in the US, if you
Speaker 4: can tell us a little bit when somebody says Scarborough,
Speaker 4: we're still talking about Toronto. We're talking about an area Scarborough,
Speaker 4: or apartment an area of Toronto. He can tell us
Speaker 4: what was going on at the same time that their
Speaker 4: fairy tale relationship was just beginning.
Speaker 2: Well, he lived in He lived in an area of
Speaker 2: Toronto called Guildwood, Guildwood Village, and it was something like
Speaker 2: I'm dating myself here. It was like, we'll leave it
Speaker 2: to Beaver would live it to middle to supper class,
Speaker 2: middle middle class, supper class community. Probably one of the
Speaker 2: safest places to live. There's you know, all the years
Speaker 2: I covered crime. I never actually ventured into that area
Speaker 2: until he came along, because there was nothing ever happened
Speaker 2: on there of a criminal nature. And on the surface
Speaker 2: of it, it seemed like he had a very you know,
Speaker 2: his father was in the count and his mother was
Speaker 2: a stay at home mom. However, you know, things are
Speaker 2: not what they seem. The father later, as we found out,
Speaker 2: was he pled guilty. He was convicted of sexual assault,
Speaker 2: and I mean, I'd love to get into the details,
Speaker 2: but we can't because the victim's identity is protected by
Speaker 2: law and it still is. And you can imagine what
Speaker 2: kind of impact that would have upon a child growing
Speaker 2: up to see your father, you know, convicted of a
Speaker 2: crime like that. His mother, she had her own issues,
Speaker 2: and there was allegations that she was having in a
Speaker 2: fair and that his dad wasn't a real dad, and
Speaker 2: all that played upon him.
Speaker 4: Isn't that what she told him at a certain age
Speaker 4: she kept Yeah, and that.
Speaker 2: Had that had a huge impact on him, obviously, and
Speaker 2: then he developed like a nervous tick. And he I mean,
Speaker 2: on the surface, he was like he was the you know,
Speaker 2: the Barbie and Ken. He was the Ken. He was
Speaker 2: here was a guy who was a lifeguard. He was
Speaker 2: you know, good looking, you know, good build. He went
Speaker 2: to university, although he took him three times to get
Speaker 2: his degree, and he seemed like the perfect kind of guy.
Speaker 2: Underneath the surface, he was just a monster. I mean,
Speaker 2: he was a nurse. He suffered from narcissism, He was
Speaker 2: a sexual sadist. He literally enjoyed pain. I mean, he
Speaker 2: inflected a lot of pain on the women he assaulted,
Speaker 2: and like he didn't really care. I mean it didn't
Speaker 2: you know, didn't never crossed his path at these you
Speaker 2: know that he was really violently hurting these women. He
Speaker 2: just he had urges and he had to I mean,
Speaker 2: to be graphic. He'd be driving along and he'd see
Speaker 2: a woman that he liked on the street and he
Speaker 2: would get aroused and you know, I have to go
Speaker 2: and tay more details. He would just be, you know,
Speaker 2: with himself and he'd be trying to pleasure himself. He
Speaker 2: was that kind of guy. But I mean the police
Speaker 2: who investigate him when he was eventually suspected of being
Speaker 2: the rapist, he came across as an accountant, kind of
Speaker 2: a you know, easygoing guy, good luck and.
Speaker 4: The fact that he had no, the fact that he
Speaker 4: had no criminal record records, no criminal record.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And you know if he if he had lived
Speaker 2: in a say in a lower class housing housing area
Speaker 2: and he had a criminal record, the police probably would
Speaker 2: have been a lot more interested in them. But he
Speaker 2: just didn't fit the you know, the Hollywood mold for
Speaker 2: a for a for a serial killer. He was, you know,
Speaker 2: he was very outgoing, very good looking. He had a job,
Speaker 2: he had a you know, he had a had a girlfriend.
Speaker 2: He had lots of girlfriends, actually lots of girls liked them.
Speaker 2: He went around with a lot of I think, I
Speaker 2: think he one time he bragged that he could have
Speaker 2: as many as three hundred women or something. And he
Speaker 2: just didn't present the kind of character that you would think.
Speaker 2: And underneath the surface, well, he had his urges and
Speaker 2: he just when he had him, he was going to
Speaker 2: satisfy him no matter what, no matter who he hurt
Speaker 2: or no matter what he did.
Speaker 4: Let's go back just a little bit because I wanted
Speaker 4: to you outline Bernardo's background, and he does start off
Speaker 4: with voyeurism, and there is an acceleration not to start
Speaker 4: talking about that theory that some of these criminals start
Speaker 4: at a certain point and then accelerate, and who knows
Speaker 4: what they can do, but maybe let's talk a little
Speaker 4: bit about that acceleration. He didn't go. You're already mentioning
Speaker 4: serial murder, and maybe our audience is not sure what's
Speaker 4: going on here with these Scarborough rapes. Like I said
Speaker 4: at the same time that their relationship was just beginning
Speaker 4: detail in your book. I these Scarborough rapes are going on.
Speaker 4: And as far as you say in your book anyway
Speaker 4: that Carla was not aware that you was dating this
Speaker 4: rapist at that time, well.
Speaker 2: He I he started out before long before he met Carla.
Speaker 2: He was he was attacking women I think as many
Speaker 2: as thirteen and he was, you know, he was literally
Speaker 2: following buses around in the East end of Toronto, and
Speaker 2: and you know, and uh when they ever when there
Speaker 2: were women got off at a a lonely bus stop,
Speaker 2: there was there was Bernardo and he he he was
Speaker 2: he he sort of met her when he was after
Speaker 2: committing about I can't remember the exact number, but he
Speaker 2: met her and he confessed to her that he'd he
Speaker 2: that he was doing all these rapes. And then one
Speaker 2: of the victims saw sort of got a glimpse of
Speaker 2: his face. They put out a very good sketch and
Speaker 2: a lot of people recognized him, although not a lot
Speaker 2: of people went to the police, and this I think
Speaker 2: it was a woman at at a bank went to
Speaker 2: the police and they brought him in for questioning. And uh,
Speaker 2: he looked incredibly like the suspect, but again, he was
Speaker 2: very glib or he was very he wasn't like you're
Speaker 2: from your Central Casting type of villain. And uh, DNA
Speaker 2: was just sort of coming into coming into you know,
Speaker 2: just coming just coming online at that time. So when
Speaker 2: they got his DNA sample, they they didn't they didn't
Speaker 2: process it right away. And then once he once he
Speaker 2: was questioned by police, he confessed to Carla and then
Speaker 2: then the two of them moved out of Toronto. So
Speaker 2: then the rape stopped. And what happens a lot of
Speaker 2: times in these police investigations, you know, they have a
Speaker 2: huge task force and they they probe it like crazy,
Speaker 2: and then when the rape, when you know, the killing
Speaker 2: stop or the rape stop, the task force kind of
Speaker 2: just dissolved and and uh, you know, you know, you know,
Speaker 2: when talking to the investigators, they wanted to stay with
Speaker 2: the case, but you know, there were more. There were
Speaker 2: no more sexual assaults going on in scarb. In fact,
Speaker 2: they were moving to Saint.
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Speaker 2: Bath Rooms and there was you know that let lapse
Speaker 2: in there. So he told her, He told her when
Speaker 2: he was sort of well into his you know, into
Speaker 2: his into his spree of rapes and Scarborough and she, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean that was her first clue to
Speaker 2: get out of this relationship. But she didn't. She you know,
Speaker 2: she was portrayed as this, you know, is this abused
Speaker 2: wife and all that. But you know, in all the
Speaker 2: abused cases of that, I fall you know, or talk
Speaker 2: to women usually they're you know, they don't have a
Speaker 2: lot of a lot of education, they don't have a
Speaker 2: lot of family, a lot of friends. Carla had all
Speaker 2: of the above. She had family, she had friends, she
Speaker 2: had a job. She did not she was not an
Speaker 2: abused wife. She was she was a co accused who
Speaker 2: got beaten up, I mean, And they try to portray
Speaker 2: her as an abused wife to us, And I think
Speaker 2: that's what infuriated most of us, Dan and it's to
Speaker 2: this day, it still bothers me that that they were
Speaker 2: trying to portray her as a battered wife, because you know,
Speaker 2: all the battered women out there who are genuinely victims,
Speaker 2: she's she's not in that category at all, all right,
Speaker 2: So yeah, still, you know what, after all these years,
Speaker 2: I still have strong feelings on that. When we first
Speaker 2: heard it, had her secret trial there in Saint Catherinees,
Speaker 2: you know, when the American media was shut out, none
Speaker 2: of us could believe they were trying to tell us that.
Speaker 2: We just there's no way she's just as guilty as
Speaker 2: he is. She should, you know, she should still be
Speaker 2: in jail to this day.
Speaker 4: Well what did you make that determination though, before you
Speaker 4: were aware of the videotapes or at least before you
Speaker 4: were aware of the content of the videotapes. You know,
Speaker 4: it's easy to see, you know, I mean everybody would
Speaker 4: be affected by the videotapes. You made it very clear
Speaker 4: in your book. I mean, when you read the contents,
Speaker 4: let alone actually seen the video on a thirty screen.
Speaker 2: It was what we heard. She set up her sister
Speaker 2: to be raped by Bernardo. She drugged her sister like
Speaker 2: she wasn't a virgin. He had this thing about having
Speaker 2: only having virgins when he met her. She wasn't a virgin.
Speaker 2: That bothered him. So her way of perhaps making up
Speaker 2: for that was to set up her sister of the virgin,
Speaker 2: which is sounds bizarre, but that's and then she, you know,
Speaker 2: after setting up her sister, she set up a couple
Speaker 2: of other young girls at the house where they live
Speaker 2: in Saint Catherine's.
Speaker 4: Well, let's get back to the sister. But let's get
Speaker 4: back to the sister because this is the thing that
Speaker 4: I think, I don't care how liberal minded you are.
Speaker 4: You were reviled by the notion of this crime. So
Speaker 4: let's go slow on this one, because this is the
Speaker 4: most horrifying thing aspect of this completely is because especially
Speaker 4: in reaction that they continued that they didn't fall apart
Speaker 4: that they didn't they didn't, you know, commit suicide after this.
Speaker 2: I mean, where do I start? I mean, the police,
Speaker 2: the police watching the investigation, her wanting to set up
Speaker 2: her sister.
Speaker 4: I mean, well, let's go back with the night in question.
Speaker 4: It's December twenty third. She is offering her sister, her
Speaker 4: virginal fifteen year old sister, as a Christmas present to
Speaker 4: her husband, who, like you have said, has a thing
Speaker 4: for virgins, because Carla wasn't a virgin, and so she's
Speaker 4: going to participate in this. What goes wrong? They drug
Speaker 4: the girl. They how do they do that? They did use.
Speaker 2: Carla worked in a veterinarian clinic and she had access
Speaker 2: to halathane, which is the drug use to sedate you know,
Speaker 2: animals or whatever. So with her idea that she'd use
Speaker 2: a little bit of halothane on her sister, put her
Speaker 2: to and Paul could do whatever he wanted, you know,
Speaker 2: all his fantasies with the sister. And she would stay
Speaker 2: there and she would monitor her breathing to make sure
Speaker 2: everything was okay. Like I mean, I'm not making this up.
Speaker 2: This is what we were hearing in the courtroom where
Speaker 2: we were just incensed, and then they gave too much
Speaker 2: hallathane and she choked on her own vomit. And what
Speaker 2: happened was the the the it left a huge sort
Speaker 2: of blue mark, bluish purplish mark on her face, on
Speaker 2: her sort of on her cheek by side her mouth,
Speaker 2: and the police recalled and two cops came in there,
Speaker 2: and one was this very senior cop. The other was
Speaker 2: a sort of a rookie. And the senior cop kind
Speaker 2: of said, well, you know, it looks like an accident.
Speaker 2: Blah blah blah. The junior cop suspicious as hell. I mean,
Speaker 2: if you look at the picture, you would be, and
Speaker 2: he was convinced there was something more to it, and
Speaker 2: he got sort of overruled by his senior colleague, and
Speaker 2: the whole thing was passed off as an accidental death.
Speaker 2: You know. Funeral Paul expressed, is you know, he was
Speaker 2: told everybody he was suicidal after that, he was so
Speaker 2: distraught over her death and blah blah blah, and and
Speaker 2: her death was passed off as an accident. And then
Speaker 2: when Carla finally told people the truth, they you know,
Speaker 2: exhumed the remains, and they were able to you know,
Speaker 2: they were able to piece together what really happened. You know,
Speaker 2: she was drugged and she was violently sexually assaulted and
Speaker 2: it was and yes, and it was not an accident.
Speaker 2: I mean. And we were sitting in the courtroom. We
Speaker 2: sort of before we went into the courtroom had her
Speaker 2: secret trial, we sort of had an inclination that there
Speaker 2: was something going on with Tammy the sister, was something.
Speaker 2: We would hear something, and when we heard it, we
Speaker 2: were shocked. And I can remember being just horrified at
Speaker 2: the time and to this day I still am. And
Speaker 2: then we heard with Kristin French, for instance, all the
Speaker 2: things that Carla did, she could have maybe got herself
Speaker 2: on some one some something or other with the public.
Speaker 2: She was alone with Kristin French, that was the second
Speaker 2: of the two victims, and she was alone with her
Speaker 2: in the house there while Bernardo went out for food,
Speaker 2: and she was alone with her for twenty minutes at
Speaker 2: one or two times. And Kristin said, why don't she's
Speaker 2: called the police, And you know Carla didn't. All she
Speaker 2: had to do was you know, dial nine one one.
Speaker 2: The police would have been there in about twenty seconds
Speaker 2: about a dozen cruisers, and she never did. And she
Speaker 2: was just you know, she was obviously just afraid for
Speaker 2: herself and she knew this, this young girl was going
Speaker 2: to be murdered within the next day or two. And
Speaker 2: you know, if she was a true battered wife, I
Speaker 2: somehow I think that she would have got the courage
Speaker 2: to call the police. But she know she never did
Speaker 2: because she knew damn well what we all knew. She
Speaker 2: was a co accused, She was a co conspirator, and
Speaker 2: why would she want to turn herself in? And also
Speaker 2: to me, that was when we heard those two things
Speaker 2: at her trial there it was just like, I don't
Speaker 2: need to any more about this woman. I think she
Speaker 2: should be in jail for the rest of her life.
Speaker 2: The fact that she's not is a terrible injustice.
Speaker 4: Now, after her sister was accidentally killed, these people had
Speaker 4: already they were already engaged to be married. They already
Speaker 4: had their wedding plans well under way for the spring,
Speaker 4: I believe, so they didn't want to change their plans
Speaker 4: at all. In fact, there was a letter that's revealed
Speaker 4: in your book, its contents talking about what assholes she
Speaker 4: said her parents were because they were still grieving, and
Speaker 4: then they wanted to cut back some of the money
Speaker 4: that they were contributing to the wedding. And it was
Speaker 4: a real lavish wedding by the way, but they wanted
Speaker 4: to cut back some of the money because they just
Speaker 4: had to pay for a funeral. So it was part
Speaker 4: of the psychopathy when you can read a letter like
Speaker 4: that showing the absolute lack of remorse from this both
Speaker 4: of them at that time, but not only a lack
Speaker 4: of remorse that would be shocking enough. What did the
Speaker 4: couple go on to do? You talk about other murders,
Speaker 4: but after this accident death where they come very very close,
Speaker 4: they should have been caught, Like you say, that should
Speaker 4: have been somebody should have noticed this wasn't an actual
Speaker 4: accidental death. And meanwhile there's still the Scarborough rapist is
Speaker 4: on the loose. What does this couple do? What does
Speaker 4: Paul Bernardo want to do? He says he's distraught over
Speaker 4: the sister dying, But what does this killer couple do?
Speaker 2: He I mean, he says what he'd like to do
Speaker 2: is he'd like to you know, he's done all these
Speaker 2: rapes sort of at night and just grabbing women as
Speaker 2: they're out jogging or coming home from the bus. So
Speaker 2: what he told Carly what he'd like to do is
Speaker 2: he'd like to he said, I think as a phrase us,
Speaker 2: wouldn't it be neat to actually bring a woman home?
Speaker 2: He can hold her captive and then he can kind
Speaker 2: of do with her as he wants at his leisure.
Speaker 2: He doesn't have to worry about, you know, people coming by,
Speaker 2: and he could sort of bring her into the house
Speaker 2: and then he could do, you know, do what he wants,
Speaker 2: you know, like a silence of the lamb kind of thing.
Speaker 2: And again in her hearing that, I mean, it's obvious
Speaker 2: that you do that, you're gonna have to kill the person.
Speaker 2: And don't forget Carla is quite a bright person. She's
Speaker 2: very well read. Uh, she's not like a dummy. I
Speaker 2: mean when she was testifying and she was talking about
Speaker 2: battered wife syndrome, she knew all the symptoms or all
Speaker 2: the you know, all the all the science. She had
Speaker 2: them all memorized. She'd read every textbook on battered wife syndrome.
Speaker 2: So she her testimony came across as so phony. It
Speaker 2: just like to this day, you can tell it, you
Speaker 2: know when it's when it's contrived, and so he wanted
Speaker 2: to bring somebody home. So he kidnapped Leslie Mahaffey one night,
Speaker 2: brought her home. Carla was sleeping and Paul brings her
Speaker 2: in and said he's got this girl here. She's blindfolded
Speaker 2: and had whatever. And Carla's is, oh, okay, and she
Speaker 2: goes back to bed. And the next day she's TechEd
Speaker 2: at Paul because he gave Leslie I think champagne out
Speaker 2: of her best classes and so she was really ticked
Speaker 2: at him for using her best china where could have
Speaker 2: broken them or something? Things right, right, you have a
Speaker 2: young with Leslie fourteen, you have a young girl's being,
Speaker 2: you know, kidnapped and raped and murdered. And what is
Speaker 2: Carla worried about her china where because it's her fine
Speaker 2: glasses that he might break them, while while he's you know,
Speaker 2: giving her champagne. I mean it's like, you know, you
Speaker 2: sit there and you listen to this stuff and you
Speaker 2: and you think this woman should never be out of
Speaker 2: front of jail. And you know, the Crown was saying
Speaker 2: at the time, while you know, we don't think she'll
Speaker 2: ever re offend, and we're all saying in the gallery.
Speaker 2: How the hell do you know that, like Jesus, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't want her as a neighbor.
Speaker 4: Well, let's go back, just for our audience, that it's
Speaker 4: catching this and and woman's involvement as a co conspirator
Speaker 4: with this rape sadistic rapist, murderer or killer and his
Speaker 4: his carla, his wife, his accomplice. Now we were getting
Speaker 4: ahead of the game if we're talking about this woman
Speaker 4: at at trial and this woman being released in this
Speaker 4: person being depicted as a battered woman's in So let's
Speaker 4: just get some of the stuff out of the way
Speaker 4: before we actually get to the trial, which is, you know,
Speaker 4: half of this amazing story is the incredible trial. Half
Speaker 4: of the shocking aspects of this whole book and this
Speaker 4: whole story are the trial. So let's just so, how
Speaker 4: did he eventually get caught. You talked about DNA, and
Speaker 4: we all know about DNA. Now we have a sort
Speaker 4: of a perception that DNA could be tested very very quickly,
Speaker 4: but at the time DNA could be tested, but it
Speaker 4: wasn't tested very quickly, And in fact, you mentioned in
Speaker 4: your book, by the time Bernardo was connected, because first
Speaker 4: they have to whittle it down to thirty nine suspects.
Speaker 4: It took two years before that DNA sample said let's
Speaker 4: go pick up Paul Bernardo. And they didn't go pick
Speaker 4: up Paul Bernardo. What did they do with Paul Bernardo
Speaker 4: once they knew he was a Scarborough rapist? Well, they
Speaker 4: put him under surveillance, But I mean, what was they
Speaker 4: They knew that they they had their suspect, but they
Speaker 4: still did not arrest Paul Bernardo immediately.
Speaker 2: Their case was not It was only when he started
Speaker 2: beating her up towards the end and that she actually
Speaker 2: went to the police that that they that they closed
Speaker 2: in you know it. Uh he you know, things were
Speaker 2: breaking down in their world and and uh he was
Speaker 2: you know, he was smuggling cigarettes over the border from
Speaker 2: the US, and he wanted to be a rap singer
Speaker 2: and and his whole world was just imploding, and he
Speaker 2: just took out his anger on her and just kept
Speaker 2: beating her up. And she eventually went, you know, she
Speaker 2: went to the police, and then then the story started
Speaker 2: coming out, and then and then they then the police
Speaker 2: moved in on him.
Speaker 4: Well, the first thing, though, I thought was very interesting
Speaker 4: was the how she negotiated this deal. She didn't immediately
Speaker 4: go to the police. She made sure that she had
Speaker 4: checked herself into a psychiatric hospital, she had found a lawyer.
Speaker 4: She was already under the negotiations. Like you talk about.
Speaker 4: She was not a stupid woman. Well she certainly wasn't,
Speaker 4: because she made all the right moves to protect herself
Speaker 4: when she knew everything was coming, when she knew things
Speaker 4: were going to go down anyway, she made her move,
Speaker 4: and she made it so.
Speaker 2: She got one of the best lawyers in the area,
Speaker 2: George Walker. You know, he very sharp lawyer. I mean,
Speaker 2: he got her the deal of the century. I mean
Speaker 2: she when she first left Bernardo, she she went to
Speaker 2: stay with her relatives, right supposedly she was recuperating from
Speaker 2: all this, And then turns out she was actually going
Speaker 2: to a bar and where she met a guy and
Speaker 2: they had to tour at affair. And then the guy
Speaker 2: was engaged and the guy's wife would eventually or the
Speaker 2: guy's wife to be as fiance, would eventually find out
Speaker 2: that he was going up with Carla Homo when her pictures,
Speaker 2: when her picture appeared in the paper, and and she
Speaker 2: was she was shattered. And I remember she called me
Speaker 2: one night and she was very distraught because she felt
Speaker 2: that because she was, you know, because of Bernardo and
Speaker 2: having sex with all these women, that somehow that this
Speaker 2: fiance would end up you know, getting it, you know,
Speaker 2: sexually transmitted disease. And she was terrified, and she called me,
Speaker 2: she was just sobbing, and I said, well, you know
Speaker 2: a lot of times the women he raped it were
Speaker 2: mostly virgins, so you probably don't have to worry. You
Speaker 2: should get checked. But you know, then then later at
Speaker 2: the trial we see him having sex with a prostitute
Speaker 2: from New Jersey. So then I thought, oh god, so
Speaker 2: he it was. I mean, she she You'd think that
Speaker 2: somebody who was gone through all this would probably just stay.
Speaker 2: If she was a genuine victim, she would have just
Speaker 2: stayed hidden below the radar. But in fact she wasn't.
Speaker 2: She was, you know, going out to bars and looking
Speaker 2: to pick up guys. And one of the bars she
Speaker 2: went to was a cop bar, and you know, some
Speaker 2: of them almost picked her up until they realized who
Speaker 2: she was when there are other buddies tip tipped.
Speaker 4: Them to that, right. So, but she had sex with
Speaker 4: that gentleman in the bar that evening first night you
Speaker 4: met him, Yep, Yeah, so she was yeah, so so
Speaker 4: much for being suicidal and depressed and distraught.
Speaker 2: Well exactly if she was suicidal and depressant, then why
Speaker 2: is she doing that? She's running to this bar and
Speaker 2: you know, I mean the way the way the guy
Speaker 2: described it, the way the bartender there described it. I
Speaker 2: mean she was literally in the center of the dance
Speaker 2: floor with a very short skirt, no bra, tight skirt,
Speaker 2: tight sort of dress, and and just and.
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Speaker 2: Literally ring by guys who were all drooling, and there
Speaker 2: was a surveillance team following around and just to make
Speaker 2: sure she didn't do anything really stupid. And there was
Speaker 2: a lot of cops in that bar, and when they
Speaker 2: were moving in, some of the other cops who were
Speaker 2: following her said, you know, that's Carla Amoka and they
Speaker 2: all fled. And the one fellow who she coupled up with,
Speaker 2: so you know again Paul, handsome, good looking guy, and
Speaker 2: they had this torrid affair. He didn't know what the
Speaker 2: time who she was. I mean, he found out later,
Speaker 2: and it just that sort of a little sad, little
Speaker 2: or little sidebar to the whole whole saga that that
Speaker 2: you know, that showed that she really wasn't this poor victim.
Speaker 2: She was, in fact, you know, just it's hard to
Speaker 2: believe that somebody would come from, you know, a very
Speaker 2: seemingly well adjusted family, and she had plenty of opportunity
Speaker 2: in her life to you know that that somewhere along
Speaker 2: the line, something went wrong with her brain and she
Speaker 2: ended up you know, I mean, she had drawn in
Speaker 2: by his by his charm, and I think that's for sure.
Speaker 2: I mean, she believed he was something that he wasn't,
Speaker 2: and then when I when she realized that he was
Speaker 2: a sexual sadist. I mean, you could argue that that's
Speaker 2: the point that she she should have backed out of
Speaker 2: the whole thing, but for some reason she didn't, and
Speaker 2: then she just kept getting drawn in farther and farther
Speaker 2: with him until the final it was just too late
Speaker 2: and she was alone. When she was alone with Kristen French,
Speaker 2: she did not you know, she should have called the police,
Speaker 2: but she was so she knew she was sitting so
Speaker 2: deep that she would be in trouble, so she just didn't.
Speaker 4: Now you talk about the battered woman syndrome is the
Speaker 4: defense that she presented eventually at court. Now now just
Speaker 4: to give I agree with you that she wasn't a
Speaker 4: battered woman in any sense. But at the same time,
Speaker 4: let's explain the whole story how this went, how they
Speaker 4: could depict her as a battered woman syndrome. And this
Speaker 4: is before the trial ever happened, So there is some
Speaker 4: maneuvering behind the scenes, legal maneuvering behind the scenes. But
Speaker 4: at least some at least some evidence that they could
Speaker 4: use that she was battered was the hospital report where
Speaker 4: she was beat up with a couple of black eyes,
Speaker 4: and so she did look pretty good for the photos.
Speaker 4: At least some there was some evidence of the brutality
Speaker 4: of Paul Bernardo and the beatings.
Speaker 2: The problem was the police when they went into the
Speaker 2: house to search it, they didn't have that. They didn't
Speaker 2: about the videotapes. They didn't find the videotapes, and the
Speaker 2: videotapes were hidden inside a potlight. And as the copper
Speaker 2: said to me later, why do you think they call
Speaker 2: them potlights? That's where you put all the dope. And
Speaker 2: the fellow the officer who reached up into the potlight
Speaker 2: to look didn't reach in far enough, and during the
Speaker 2: trial he was forever known as the short arm of
Speaker 2: the law. And had they found Had the police found
Speaker 2: the videotapes, they wouldn't have needed her as a witness.
Speaker 2: I mean, they have the evidence right there. They don't
Speaker 2: really they didn't really need her, but they didn't have
Speaker 2: the tapes at the time. You know, his lawyer got
Speaker 2: them later and didn't turn them over right away, and
Speaker 2: there was a whole controversy over that, but eventually the
Speaker 2: police got the videotapes. All that time, they had already
Speaker 2: made the deal with her, but the deal was, they
Speaker 2: had the deal, but if she'd done anything, she'd done
Speaker 2: anything that they hadn't told her about, the deal would
Speaker 2: be negated. But then later on she admitted that, yeah,
Speaker 2: she was involved in another sexual assault of another young
Speaker 2: woman at the house, but she you know, blew that
Speaker 2: one away as she didn't remember all the details or
Speaker 2: something like that. And so you know, the deal, the
Speaker 2: deal that never should have been made, was kept and
Speaker 2: it just sort of you know, capture the whole trial
Speaker 2: and the whole thing was pass officer as the battered wife.
Speaker 2: And I don't think anybody believed that theory.
Speaker 4: I mean, now you talk about the videotapes, though there's
Speaker 4: I think there's some other culprits to blame here. We
Speaker 4: haven't gone too much into the bungling police. How many
Speaker 4: times people reported Bernardo, we won't we won't labor labor
Speaker 4: that because it's easy in hindsight to criticize the police.
Speaker 4: But I think that there is some criticism to be
Speaker 4: had for this deal with the devil and and and
Speaker 4: it hinges on this her being depicted as a battered
Speaker 4: woman under this battered woman syndrome. So the thing is,
Speaker 4: when we also talk about these videotapes, you say, well,
Speaker 4: we never would have needed that deal. They would have
Speaker 4: not had to give her a sweetheart deal, which was
Speaker 4: two manslaughters five years a piece, and then two years
Speaker 4: in the addition for the act accidental death of her sister,
Speaker 4: uh the other any other crimes that were supposed to
Speaker 4: have happened, she would have to be disclose those. And
Speaker 4: that's what you just refer to this woman that oh yeah,
Speaker 4: I remember it. It's coming back in phases, but my
Speaker 4: mind prevents me from recalling all the all the details.
Speaker 4: It's like, okay, great, another another fanciful tale. But the
Speaker 4: thing is what you talked about the videotapes. The police
Speaker 4: didn't find the videotapes. But who found the videotapes and
Speaker 4: why was the evidence of the videotapes suppressed enabling Carlo
Speaker 4: Hamel because they get this deal of the century.
Speaker 2: Well, the videotapes were in a potlight and the police
Speaker 2: spent I don't know weeks if not months going through
Speaker 2: the house, and you know, they often said they were
Speaker 2: gonna tear the house apart find any scrap of evidence. Well,
Speaker 2: the major evidence they didn't find. So after the you know,
Speaker 2: after the search warrn't expired, Bernardo tells his lawyer Ken
Speaker 2: Murray about tapes. They go in the house, they find
Speaker 2: the tapes, Murray keeps them. And then here's where you
Speaker 2: have a very difficult situation for a lawyer. Do I
Speaker 2: do I turn over the most decriminating piece of evidence
Speaker 2: against my client or do I keep them? And he
Speaker 2: sat on them for the longest time, and eventually they
Speaker 2: got turned over. By that time, the deal had already
Speaker 2: been struck. Murray was eventually charged and then he was
Speaker 2: you know, he was never really convicted of anything, and
Speaker 2: that whole thing kind of went away.
Speaker 4: And why did he hold onto the tape though? What
Speaker 4: was what was the logic of holding onto the tapes.
Speaker 2: Well, it was the most incriminating piece of evidence against
Speaker 2: this client. I mean, there's Bernardo with the victims, and
Speaker 2: what is it. It's a dilemma for a lawyer. Do
Speaker 2: you turn over the evidence that's going to convict your
Speaker 2: client or going to hang your clients? So he he
Speaker 2: he eventually, I think he eventually sought out some legal
Speaker 2: advice and eventually it was disclosed.
Speaker 4: But he he.
Speaker 2: Hung on him, hung on to him for a long time,
Speaker 2: and criticism was he probably should have turned them over
Speaker 2: right away. But certainly then you can argue, well, the
Speaker 2: police were in the house for I don't know what
Speaker 2: three months or something and they didn't find the tape,
Speaker 2: so then he had them. So was he under any
Speaker 2: obligation to turn this incriminating evidence over to the police.
Speaker 4: Well, he had the opportunity to seek legal advice, which
Speaker 4: would have been confidential legal advice. So he didn't do
Speaker 4: that immediately. He held on and I think there's at
Speaker 4: least in your book, it seems to be a little
Speaker 4: bit of an overlap. Sure, he decided to give them up,
Speaker 4: but he was also negotiating with John Rosen at exactly
Speaker 4: the same time. John ros coincidentally says, oh, I'm going
Speaker 4: to use these tapes to our advantage. You see what
Speaker 4: I'm saying. Something could be said about that overlap. Did
Speaker 4: he talk to John Rosen? And John Rosen say hey,
Speaker 4: you know, listen, I've done one hundred murders and you
Speaker 4: have done a few. I know how to take you know.
Speaker 4: At least he knew what evidence was going to be
Speaker 4: given to the Crown Attorney.
Speaker 2: And then when Rosen got them and he realized what
Speaker 2: they were and how horrific to where he just there
Speaker 2: was no doubt in his mind he had to turn
Speaker 2: him over.
Speaker 4: I mean, it was no but he's doing that out
Speaker 4: of legality, though he knew that anybody that holds onto
Speaker 4: these tapes is going to be in serious trouble.
Speaker 2: You're legally yeah, you're basically suppressing the key evidence in
Speaker 2: a major murder case.
Speaker 4: And it's physical evidence. It's physical evidence becomes even though
Speaker 4: it's a documentary evidence because it speaks to all these things.
Speaker 4: It becomes physical evidence becomes very important evidence.
Speaker 2: I mean, the police were there, and it's it's not
Speaker 2: as if the police didn't know that there was evidence
Speaker 2: in the house. I mean, they had the house under surveillance,
Speaker 2: and I know I sat outside that house for weeks
Speaker 2: on end, just watching them go in and out and
Speaker 2: tearing it apart. And the fact that they missed the
Speaker 2: key piece of evidence was just astounding. I mean, you cannot.
Speaker 2: You know, it's always easy to criticize the police after
Speaker 2: the fact, but in this case, well, and you know,
Speaker 2: had they had the tapes, they wouldn't have needed Carla.
Speaker 2: And but you know, she already had the deal, and
Speaker 2: then and then even when she admitted other crimes, they
Speaker 2: still kept the deal. There was some it just it
Speaker 2: was baffling to us. It just none of it actually
Speaker 2: made sense. I mean, it was kind of a case
Speaker 2: that you're thinking, this is this is an embarrassing this
Speaker 2: is an embarrassed this is like what it's I was
Speaker 2: reading a website before I talked to you. It was
Speaker 2: the worst case of jurisprudence in Canadian history or something.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 2: It was just truly awful. Truly the worst deal in
Speaker 2: Canadian jurisprudence is of the.
Speaker 4: Speaking speaking of Carla hamalcan her deal, and her deal
Speaker 4: was to testify against her husband. How did she do?
Speaker 4: I know that you talk about in your book, It
Speaker 4: was incredible to me, having been involved in a trial myself. Well,
Speaker 4: of course this is a much bigger trial, much more
Speaker 4: important that they spent hundreds and hundreds of hours or
Speaker 4: hundreds of hours, will say, in preparing her for the
Speaker 4: difficult crime examination. There's a direct examination for people that
Speaker 4: don't know where the prosecution asked you questions, But much
Speaker 4: more difficult is when the defense sets upon you and
Speaker 4: cross examination asked you questions.
Speaker 2: So how did she do well when she she was
Speaker 2: a crown witness and in their chief crown witness, so
Speaker 2: you would think, and in most cases the chief crown
Speaker 2: witness is going to be treated very tenderly or you know,
Speaker 2: they're going to be given the benefit of doubt, they're
Speaker 2: going to be helped through and and in Carla's case, well,
Speaker 2: how graphic do I have to be here? There was
Speaker 2: two twenty seven inch screens in the courtroom in front
Speaker 2: of us, right, And the first day Carla was on
Speaker 2: the stand, she was, you know, the crown's witness, and
Speaker 2: Ray Hulahn was there and he played a videotape and
Speaker 2: the videotape was a naked Carla Hamoka pleasure in herself
Speaker 2: and It went on for I don't know, like ten minutes.
Speaker 2: She was totally naked, and Carla looked at Ray hula han,
Speaker 2: Carla has this had this habit of not moving her head,
Speaker 2: just moving her eyes sideways, and the books could kill
Speaker 2: he was a dead guy. I mean, she was just furious.
Speaker 2: And then Ray said, it was one of the only
Speaker 2: time in the whole trial that you laughed. He said
Speaker 2: to her, misschoola hand or sorry, miss Hamoka, what if
Speaker 2: anything are you doing on this videotape? And I tell
Speaker 2: you we sat to her and we started, some of
Speaker 2: us started. We couldn't we couldn't help it, like, what
Speaker 2: do you think she's doing? Ray, She's you know, it's obvious.
Speaker 2: And so it kind of went downhill from there. I mean,
Speaker 2: here here is the Crown attacking there, literally attacking their
Speaker 2: their chief witness. So when when Rosen got ahold of her,
Speaker 2: just you know, she she you know, she she had
Speaker 2: all that, she knew all the right things to say
Speaker 2: about you know, how she was battered and this and
Speaker 2: that she like she it sounded like she'd read every
Speaker 2: single textbook going And you know, sometimes when you when
Speaker 2: you see what this is understanding, you can tell you
Speaker 2: can almost you can hear the sincerity in their tone.
Speaker 2: They're they're just they talk, they make mistakes, they don't
Speaker 2: know if anything exactly, but she was so well coached
Speaker 2: and rehearsed it just sounded too phony by half, and
Speaker 2: you know it just uh what can I say? It
Speaker 2: was a farce? I mean really it was just she
Speaker 2: should have she should she just you know, she should
Speaker 2: still be in jail.
Speaker 4: Really, But to give it, to give her a little
Speaker 4: bit of credit, she was on the stand for sixteen days. Yes,
Speaker 4: it was nine days in nine days in uh, I think,
Speaker 4: in in direct examination and seven and cross examination. So
Speaker 4: was she looking like? Was she looking like Barbie when
Speaker 4: she went to court? Though? What was she looking like?
Speaker 4: What was what was the reaction from people in in
Speaker 4: the courtroom about her sexiness and her allure?
Speaker 2: The artists probably described it best. There was about six
Speaker 2: artists there and they were very talented people, and none
Speaker 2: of them could capture her face, and they were all
Speaker 2: commenting on it like everything about her was elusive. She
Speaker 2: was interviewed by about a dozen psychiatrists and they couldn't
Speaker 2: seem to get a handle on her true character either,
Speaker 2: you know, like sometimes you know, this guy's a complete
Speaker 2: nutbar or he's a good guy who just went wrong.
Speaker 2: But they just couldn't Nobody could quite get a handle
Speaker 2: on what kind of person she really was. From the
Speaker 2: sketch artists who couldn't really seem to draw her, to
Speaker 2: the psychiatrist who couldn't really quite get a handle on her.
Speaker 2: She was very She wasn't She wasn't like an extreme
Speaker 2: on either side. She was sort of a blur somewhere
Speaker 2: in the middle, like you could see some of her reasons,
Speaker 2: but then the things she did were inexcusable. But on
Speaker 2: the other hand, she you know, it was kind of like.
Speaker 4: You were.
Speaker 2: It was, I mean, with him, with him on the stand,
Speaker 2: it was it was he got up on the stand
Speaker 2: and he actually thought in his mind, you know, in
Speaker 2: his narcissic mind, he thought that he was going to
Speaker 2: talk sweet talk the jury into showing that she had
Speaker 2: done the murders. And it wasn't him at all. And
Speaker 2: he got up there, and he was very expressive with
Speaker 2: his hands, and he was talking quite you know, openly,
Speaker 2: and just very seemed very alive. And and then as
Speaker 2: as you know, as the trial wore on and as
Speaker 2: he as the jurors as the scowls of the jurors
Speaker 2: got to him, you know, was later on on the stand,
Speaker 2: he was just he was barely you could barely hear
Speaker 2: him speak. He was just he knew he was. He
Speaker 2: was done like dinner. But that, I mean, that was
Speaker 2: Paul Bernardo. He he thought he could probably talk his
Speaker 2: way out of it.
Speaker 4: Do you think his lawyer advised him to go on
Speaker 4: the stand? They normally don't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think in this case, because he wanted
Speaker 2: to blame Carla for the murders, it.
Speaker 4: Was the only way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well how else can you do it? You know,
Speaker 2: it was the only way. It was, I mean a
Speaker 2: total long shot. And nobody believed it for a minute.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean nobody believed that at all. And
Speaker 2: I mean he so I guess it was a question
Speaker 2: what has he got to lose? And so yeah, it was.
Speaker 4: And and the thing is it was it was a
Speaker 4: victory for the prosecute because he was given a first
Speaker 4: degree murder, which make sure that he doesn't have a
Speaker 4: parole eligibility for twenty five years.
Speaker 2: And he's like, yeah, he's also declared a dangerous offender,
Speaker 2: which means that he could be jailed indefinitely and that
Speaker 2: you know, his case can come up for review every
Speaker 2: I don't know, whatever was three or four years. But
Speaker 2: when I went to the prison there, one of the
Speaker 2: people I talked to Stadio he'll live, grow old, and
Speaker 2: die where he is now. And I mean where he
Speaker 2: is now is enough. I mean I saw his area,
Speaker 2: I saw his cell, and but where me. I'd rather
Speaker 2: take a needle in the arm than live like that.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's got his just rewards. He's so this
Speaker 2: is a guy who loved to travel all all over
Speaker 2: the States, all around, you know, all over the place.
Speaker 2: He loved to, you know, go out and be the
Speaker 2: big shot guy, spend a lot of money, the big
Speaker 2: rap star kind of guy. And now he's in the
Speaker 2: cell that's about three paces long by arms, your wingspan
Speaker 2: of your arms wide, and the smell in there would
Speaker 2: just it would knock you out. It's like a hundred
Speaker 2: dead bodies. It's just a stension because there's I think
Speaker 2: there's like two dozen guys in there, and I don't
Speaker 2: think any of them have ever showered in years. It
Speaker 2: was quite a quite a place. So he's quite fitting.
Speaker 4: So he's so he's in segregation as well, So he's
Speaker 4: not any general population. He's reviled criminal and he's in
Speaker 4: like you say, with you say a dozen or two
Speaker 4: dozen guys, and that's it.
Speaker 2: It's a it's a special winging. And on the outside
Speaker 2: doors of the winging, like there's iron bars, but there's
Speaker 2: plexiglass on the outside or on the iron bars on
Speaker 2: the outside. And I asked my tour guide why the
Speaker 2: iron or why the plexit? He said, well, that's because
Speaker 2: the other prisoners when they walk by, these are the
Speaker 2: most vial of creatures because they've you know, they've raped
Speaker 2: and killed children, so they always throw stuff at them.
Speaker 2: And when you walk into into his range, there's a
Speaker 2: plexiglass shield over the there's two or three guards there
Speaker 2: who monitor them twenty four to seven on close circuit
Speaker 2: to make sure they don't harm themselves. And over them
Speaker 2: is a plexiglass shield. And I said to my tur guide,
Speaker 2: why the plexiglass shield? And just as I did that,
Speaker 2: or said that, a volley of fecal matter came hurling
Speaker 2: out of one of themselves inside Bernardo. And that's what
Speaker 2: they do to amuse themselves. They collect their fecal matter
Speaker 2: and throw it out the guards, but they hit the
Speaker 2: guards that actually hits the shield and kind of just
Speaker 2: drips down to the floor. And he was in there
Speaker 2: and basically he's you know, they do get they do
Speaker 2: get out there their allowed yard, they have their own
Speaker 2: private little yard. There's also a house on there inside
Speaker 2: the prison where you can have conjugal visits. And supposedly
Speaker 2: there's some woman who is still going to visit him.
Speaker 2: His family can visit him.
Speaker 4: You're kidding me.
Speaker 2: I wish I were. I wish I were, so I
Speaker 2: didn't real the.
Speaker 4: Conjugal visits for for for everybody. Are you sure that
Speaker 4: he well has the opportunity for conjugal visits because.
Speaker 2: There's you're you're out stay in this house. There's actually
Speaker 2: I think there's two houses in there, like a little
Speaker 2: small little house right inside the prison.
Speaker 6: Mm hm.
Speaker 2: And you're allowed free use of the house. So I mean,
Speaker 2: if if your wife or your came, presumably you could
Speaker 2: have conjugal visits. And I mean I forgot inside the house.
Speaker 2: But if he does, I think his parents were visiting.
Speaker 2: So but there was some woman supposedly trying to visit him.
Speaker 2: I you know, I don't know. I just never followed
Speaker 2: it up. After I saw where he was, I thought,
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's very fitting that he's he'll spend
Speaker 2: the rest of his life in in that in that
Speaker 2: in that hole.
Speaker 4: Well, let's let's let's talk about one thing I think
Speaker 4: for our American audience, and I find it just as
Speaker 4: a person that came late to this. You know that
Speaker 4: the changes in our laws, but when you talk about, uh,
Speaker 4: you talk about the dangerous offender designation, he's only a
Speaker 4: dangerous offender designation because of the rapes. He's not he
Speaker 4: couldn't be considered a dangerous of because of the murders?
Speaker 4: Am I not correct on that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're.
Speaker 4: To me, that's ridiculous. You know that he would have
Speaker 4: a parole hearing, I think to our audience in America
Speaker 4: and other jurisdictions, seems absurd as well.
Speaker 5: What do you mean?
Speaker 4: And the reason for that is you explained in your
Speaker 4: book as well. We have something where we don't have
Speaker 4: consecutive sentences. We give concurrent sentences. So really, no matter
Speaker 4: how many people you kill, if you're Robert Pickton, you
Speaker 4: still get a parole hearing after twenty five years.
Speaker 2: Unbelievably, Yeah, it is unbelievable, U, danger dangerous fender. You.
Speaker 2: I interviewed a fellow in time at Pentatanguishing, that's where
Speaker 2: they keep them, and he had killed three people, and
Speaker 2: he said, had he pled guilty for murder first to
Speaker 2: be murder, he would have got life twenty five and
Speaker 2: he probably would have been out. But what he did
Speaker 2: was he pled not guilty by reason of insanity, and
Speaker 2: they declared him a dangerous offender. And basically that gives
Speaker 2: you the system the right to jail somebody indefinitely, like
Speaker 2: they have hearings ever, you know, every three years or something,
Speaker 2: and and if they feel in interviewing the guy that
Speaker 2: he's still a risk, then they can block any parole.
Speaker 2: So even if he's done twenty five, say he'll he
Speaker 2: still is not going to get out. I mean, he
Speaker 2: has to clear the dangerous offender. The panel at the
Speaker 2: dangerous offendal hearing have to be convinced he's not a danger.
Speaker 2: And how could you somebody like Bernardo, how could you
Speaker 2: say he's not a danger, so he'll never get out.
Speaker 2: So I guess it's that's the Canadian way of keeping
Speaker 2: somebody locked up forever, you know, rather I you know,
Speaker 2: I know, in the States you get like six hundred years.
Speaker 2: He would have got like six hundred years for this
Speaker 2: and never get out. But here it's you know, life
Speaker 2: with parole after he can actually apply after fifteen years too,
Speaker 2: the faint opola as they call it. Yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: for somebody like that should never be out.
Speaker 5: And now talk about rehabilitation.
Speaker 4: Now we have Carla. Now let's get back to Carla,
Speaker 4: because the story doesn't end here yet. You figure, oh,
Speaker 4: he's locked up, Well what about his partner? She gets
Speaker 4: twelve years, But really in Canadian law, we would she
Speaker 4: would be automatically out without parole in eight years. And
Speaker 4: what I thought was really fascinating about your book you
Speaker 4: talk about that she said at trial that the deal
Speaker 4: was that if she had the twelve year sentence, they
Speaker 4: wouldn't Now you can correct me on this one, because
Speaker 4: I want to know a little bit more about this.
Speaker 4: That they wouldn't oppose the authorities wouldn't oppose her being
Speaker 4: released after four years. Now do you remember anything about that.
Speaker 4: I know it's a long time ago, but that's what
Speaker 4: you said in your book, that she had said that
Speaker 4: the authorities. Now I don't know if the authorities mean
Speaker 4: the police, because a parole board obviously is a separate entity.
Speaker 2: Yes, but at least at least well, well, what happens
Speaker 2: is you have a hearing, and if the police come
Speaker 2: forward or the prosecutors come forward, and they say, well,
Speaker 2: we have a strong case by she should be kept up.
Speaker 2: She should not get parole. That would obviously carry a
Speaker 2: lot of weight and at the hearing, and if it's safe,
Speaker 2: say if it's only the well not only, but it's
Speaker 2: say if it's the family of the victims coming forward, well,
Speaker 2: they may not have as much weight, They may not
Speaker 2: carry as much weight at the hearings as as the
Speaker 2: prosecutors or the police would have. So they by saying that,
Speaker 2: what they were saying was that that would you know,
Speaker 2: when her parole hearing comes up, We're not going to
Speaker 2: get involved. We're gonna step back, We're gonna you know,
Speaker 2: you've done your time, your four years, and we're not going.
Speaker 4: To raise Isn't that remarkable too?
Speaker 8: Though?
Speaker 4: It's just the deal just keeps getting better and better.
Speaker 2: All I mean when we heard that, I mean again,
Speaker 2: like both of us who were covering this, we were infuriated,
Speaker 2: Like we were infuriated when when we heard what something
Speaker 2: came up in court from the prosecutor's side that we
Speaker 2: don't think she's a danger to offend again, Like, how
Speaker 2: the hell would you know that? I remember, I remember
Speaker 2: I either blurted it out in courtroom or one of
Speaker 2: the other reporters did. And I think you have to
Speaker 2: shut down the trial or something for because we were
Speaker 2: just furious, like, how the hell would you know that?
Speaker 2: I mean, how could you say that about this person
Speaker 2: who set up her sister to be raped or sexually
Speaker 2: assaulted and died, and there when two women were two
Speaker 2: young girls were brutalized and murdered.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's not an appropriate thing to say. I think.
Speaker 4: I think it's incredible when I hear that they're unlikely
Speaker 4: to reoffend. Now, let's get back that's unlikely. Let's get
Speaker 4: back to unlikely to reoffend. Now. She is supposed to
Speaker 4: get out in eight years, but the public hears through
Speaker 4: the media again, the media breaks some stories about her
Speaker 4: partying in jail, and so she can't. The only reason
Speaker 4: she can't get out after eight years is because there's
Speaker 4: a public outcry that what she's doing in there and
Speaker 4: what the hell? So it's her own deeds and thanks
Speaker 4: to the media, and she has to stay in there
Speaker 4: for another four years, thankfully, but she gets out. Tell
Speaker 4: us a little bit about just you know, the Canadian
Speaker 4: government tried to keep her in. Tell us just to
Speaker 4: give us the epitaph on or at least the latest
Speaker 4: on Carla where she is now, what happened to her?
Speaker 4: And you know, thanks to rehabilitation Canadian style.
Speaker 2: Uh well, we when we got word that she was
Speaker 2: close to getting out, needless to say, there was about
Speaker 2: thirty five or forty reporters staking out the prison there
Speaker 2: up in Quebec, and she managed to sneak by us,
Speaker 2: and we were, you know, like she was given special treatment.
Speaker 2: And usually if a prisoner, you know, they would just
Speaker 2: have to leave the institution, walk to the bus stopice
Speaker 2: some of them do, or else get picked up by
Speaker 2: family and we'd see him in the car. But she
Speaker 2: managed to sneak out, and she weren't to work for
Speaker 2: a fellow there in Quebec. And then then she got
Speaker 2: married and I kind of I was sort of there
Speaker 2: staking out the prison and we we totally she totally
Speaker 2: got bias and you know, we're there, which in itself
Speaker 2: was kind of a you know me, it's all angry
Speaker 2: because you know, like why is she getting again special
Speaker 2: sort of treatment. She was afraid for her life, All
Speaker 2: these death threats were against her, you know, so I
Speaker 2: guess maybe I think maybe that was their reasoning. We
Speaker 2: have to sort of ensure her safety until she's off
Speaker 2: the prison ground, so we'll, you know, we'll kind of
Speaker 2: quietly make sure she gets out of here so nobody,
Speaker 2: nobody knows. And to us that was annoying, say the least,
Speaker 2: it was a total bs And she got she got married,
Speaker 2: and I mean she has a child too, right yeah,
Speaker 2: And I mean I haven't I know, I'm in contact
Speaker 2: with some people who have websites on whereas Carla and I.
Speaker 2: I was talking to some of them not recently, and
Speaker 2: last I heard, I heard she'd moved to the Caribbean
Speaker 2: or something like that. And I have to admit I
Speaker 2: just I kind of I kind of lost track of
Speaker 2: her after after she got out of jail. I just
Speaker 2: to tell you that, I mean, the woman should she
Speaker 2: should be still in prison and she never should have
Speaker 2: got out. And it's kind of like a story that
Speaker 2: you want to forget and and for you know, for
Speaker 2: the longest time. I tried to forget, but you know,
Speaker 2: it's hard to walk away from it because there were
Speaker 2: so many things about it that were so unusual that do.
Speaker 4: You blame Do you blame the judicial system for its
Speaker 4: part of this? Do you think they're culpable in any way?
Speaker 4: That's everything from the police, to the to her lawyer,
Speaker 4: to to murray the Bernardo's layer discovered the tapes and
Speaker 4: suppressed them. Was was it a fiasco in many in
Speaker 4: many aspects or was it just let's just focus on
Speaker 4: the two killers.
Speaker 2: Well, they wanted to make sure they had Bernardo. They
Speaker 2: wanted to make sure I mean, what did they have they?
Speaker 2: I mean, did they have a lot of evidence from
Speaker 2: the house I can't recall and I'm not a hell
Speaker 2: of a lot. And who did they have? They had Carla,
Speaker 2: you know, and they didn't have the tapes, so they
Speaker 2: needed Carla, and once they got into that situation where
Speaker 2: they needed her, things just kind of you know, had
Speaker 2: they I mean, it goes right back to when they
Speaker 2: first when the woman, when the schedu artist did the
Speaker 2: incredible likeness of him, based on the eyewitness of one
Speaker 2: of the Scarborough rape victims, had had they had they
Speaker 2: kept them, or you know, they took his DNA and
Speaker 2: had the crime lab processed it, you know, like in
Speaker 2: two weeks instead of like, what was it, two years,
Speaker 2: had they had they had they processed it, well, we
Speaker 2: wouldn't even be talking here because he would have been
Speaker 2: he would have been caught. And it just it just
Speaker 2: went from bad to worse. You know, they missed the
Speaker 2: videotapes in the house. They made they made the deal
Speaker 2: with her. She broke the deal was pretty obvious. They
Speaker 2: broke it. She broke it. But then they didn't. They didn't.
Speaker 4: They were looking they were looking for a GM car.
Speaker 4: They were looking for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean and that, you know, I thought about
Speaker 2: that a lot too. And I mean when she was
Speaker 2: when Kristin French was abducted, I mean, Carlo, she Kristin
Speaker 2: was a very careful young woman. She never would have
Speaker 2: gone anywhere. She actually told a lot of her friends
Speaker 2: because there was another woman had gone missing there and
Speaker 2: another one had died mysterious, and she told her friends,
Speaker 2: you know, don't ever talk to strangers. They were all
Speaker 2: when I talked to them, they were all very clear
Speaker 2: that she was very careful. Yet when she was walking home,
Speaker 2: it was Carla acting as its klutz with the with
Speaker 2: the roadmap and and pulling out this roadmap on the hood,
Speaker 2: and not Carla, who lived in Saint Catherine's her entire life,
Speaker 2: asking Kristin French for directions in Saint Catherines. Of course,
Speaker 2: you know, Kristin French didn't the victim didn't know that
Speaker 2: Carla lived there her whole life. There she is asking
Speaker 2: for directions and that was the only reason they got
Speaker 2: Kristin French close to the car. And then when they
Speaker 2: got her in the car, who was holding her down
Speaker 2: while Bernardo was driving, Well it was Carla, I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, she was holding her down. And police, well,
Speaker 2: they had to go on eyewitnesses the person there thought
Speaker 2: was a Camaro and it was actually what was a
Speaker 2: that's in that's in uh three hundred SX And I
Speaker 2: don't think they look alike. But you know, you can
Speaker 2: criticize the police for that, but they didn't have anything
Speaker 2: else to go on. Perhaps in hindsight, and if they
Speaker 2: weren't one hundred percent on the description of the car,
Speaker 2: they shouldn't have put out the Camaro. And what happened
Speaker 2: was all the Camaro users and drivers and Saint Catherines
Speaker 2: were immediately suspected. So what they did is they all
Speaker 2: banded together and they had this massive drive downtown saying,
Speaker 2: you know, we're we didn't kidnapper, We're innocent. We want
Speaker 2: to help the police in any way we can. So
Speaker 2: you had a whole cavalcade of Camaro drivers driving through
Speaker 2: Saint Catherines claiming their innocence, because anytime you saw a
Speaker 2: Camaro the person was, you know, immediately suspected as being
Speaker 2: the abductor of Christian French. And in fact, you know,
Speaker 2: Bernardo never drove a Camaro.
Speaker 4: So I mean, well, Paul, I mean, Nick, we've got
Speaker 4: we've got to wrap this up. I know we'd gone
Speaker 4: for a long time. I want to thank you very much.
Speaker 4: So I want to tell our audience that you've been
Speaker 4: listening to Nick Pron. He's the author veteran journalist and
Speaker 4: author and of his incredible book Lethal Marriage, The Uncensored
Speaker 4: Truth behind the crimes of Carlo Malcom Paul Bernardo. Thank
Speaker 4: you very much, Nick Pron for a great interview. Uh
Speaker 4: and have yourself a good evening.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Okay, good night.
Speaker 4: You've been listening to the program, You've been listen to
Speaker 4: the program True Murder with your host Dan Zupansky, have
Speaker 4: yourself a good evening, Good night,