What to know about serial killer Paul Bernardo, and what he did

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Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is weighing in on serial killer and rapist Paul Bernardo, whose 2023 transfer from a maximum-security prison in Ontario to a medium-security institution in Quebec sparked widespread public outrage.

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During an election rally in Hamilton, Ont., on Tuesday, Poilievre promised a federal Conservative government would repeal Bill C-83, and “send Paul Bernardo to a maximum-security penitentiary forever.”

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The legislation he referenced, C-83, was brought in by the Liberal government in 2019. While it was aimed at ending the use of solitary confinement, it amended the corrections law to say officials should ensure inmates are held in the “least restrictive environment.”

While Public Safety Canada is on record saying Bernardo would have also been transferred under the old law brought in by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, the move to a medium-security institution stunned the families of Bernardo’s victims. Here’s what to know about Bernardo and what he did.

Who is Bernardo?

In the early 1990s, Paul Bernardo, along with his then-wife Karla Homolka, raped and killed her younger sister, Tammy. They also kidnapped, raped, sexually tortured and killed schoolgirls Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy near St. Catharines, Ont.

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“The ‘perfect couple’ first raped and murdered Karla’s little sister and then kidnapped teenage schoolgirls whom they enslaved, raped, tortured and killed while gleefully recording themselves on video doing it,” according to the 2015 book penned by Peter Vronsky and RJ Parker, entitled Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka: The Ken and Barbie Killers.

“Bernardo admitted that he and his former wife, Karla Homolka, abducted 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffy and 15-year-old Kristen French during separate episodes in 1991 and 1992 and abused them sexually for days while videotaping the acts at their home in St. Catharines,” The New York Times reported after his conviction. “But he testified he was not present when either girl died.”

Bernardo, now 60, was the only person to testify in his defence.

A judge declared Bernardo a dangerous offender and sentenced him to life in prison in 1995 with no chance of parole for at least 25 years after a jury convicted him on two counts of first-degree murder.

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“The likelihood of you ever being treated is remote in the extreme,” said Associate Chief Justice Patrick LeSage, who declared Bernardo a dangerous offender in November of 1995 after sentencing him to life in prison two months earlier for the first-degree murders of Leslie Mahaffy, 14, of Burlington, and Kristen French, 15, of St. Catharines, Ont.

“You have no right ever to be released. Everyone in this country knows that you are a dangerous offender, and you know that yourself.”

Bernardo was also found guilty of the manslaughter and rape of his sister-in-law Tammy Homolka, who was 15 at the time.

In a surprise development, Bernardo admitted he was the notorious Scarborough Rapist, confessing to 32 rape-related crimes that took place in the 1980s, ranging from sexual assault to robbery, involving 14 young women.

The full extent of Homolka’s role in the killings didn’t come to light until after her trial, when videos of the rapes were revealed. She got out of prison in 2005 after serving a 12-year sentence in a plea bargain widely dubbed “the deal with the devil.”

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Bernardo has tried and failed to get parole three times.

What have Bernardo’s victims said?

“I remain hopeful that you understand the sadistic, manipulative, and psychopathic nature of Bernardo’s behaviour and the endless threat he represents to public safety,” Debbie Mahaffy, whose 14-year-old daughter Leslie was snatched off the street more than three decades back, told the parole board last November.

“Sadistic, sexual psychopaths like Paul Bernardo are incapable of understanding and apologizing for what he did to Leslie. After all these years he is incapable of acknowledging that he abducted, raped, tortured and killed Leslie and then destroyed and discarded her body. We have to accept the reality and truth of what he did.”

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Ryan Mahaffy was seven years old when his big sister was kidnapped on June 15, 1991. He never saw her again. She was held captive for days in Bernardo’s house in St. Catharines, Ont. Her body was found in pieces two weeks later.

“I am filled with anger that my children will learn that people like him could walk freely among us and fear that I cannot protect them from something like him,” he told the parole board last year. “I know my own father was tormented by this same fear.”

What did Bernardo do?

Bernardo and Homolka, his then wife, “were an attractive couple, but Bernardo would ultimately be found by police to be a serial rapist, with sometime-assistance from Homolka,” according to a report in The Washington Post. “In 1990, according to court testimony, Homolka and Bernardo drugged her younger sister Tammy, 15, with animal tranquillizers after a family Christmas dinner. He raped Tammy, who later died, apparently from choking on her own vomit.”

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On April 16, 1992, Bernardo, with Homolka’s help, kidnapped Kristen French from a church parking lot. They raped, tortured and killed her, then left her body naked in a ditch with her hair cut off.

On June 14, 1991, Bernardo kidnapped Leslie Mahaffy from outside her house, then raped and murdered her with Homolka.

Fifteen days later, Bernardo and Homolka got married in a lavish ceremony.

On the same day, Mahaffy’s dismembered body was found encased in concrete in Lake Gibson near St. Catharines.

What has Bernardo said about his crimes?

At his murder trial, Bernardo told the court that he’d done some terrible things.

“I know that, and I’ve caused a lot of sorrow and pain to a lot of people and I deserve to be punished,” Bernardo told the court. “But I didn’t kill these girls.”

Bernardo testified that the sex fantasies he shared with Homolka hurt many people.

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“Obviously, looking back, I had a problem with sexuality,” he told the court. “I think down the road it’s something I’m going to have to seek professional help for.”

At his parole hearing last year, Bernardo showed no visible emotion as he discussed his crimes. But he choked up at times as he discussed his mother.

Bernardo told the parole board that his mother was sexually abused and he was rejected by his father for not being his biological son. He said his crimes were revenge for what happened to his mother.

Bernardo said he had adopted a “victim stance” as a result of his difficult childhood and teenage years. “I was the very bad bastard child.”

But he said he felt “high happiness” when he abused and raped women.

“Are you a narcissist,” he was asked. “I’m effectively managing it,” he answered.

True Crime Byline: How Covering the Bernardo Trial Changed Tom Blackwell

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