Invisible darkness : the strange case of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka

by Williams, Stephen, 1949-

  And then she described the house: “Our whole house is done in very neutral shades (which I love),” she wrote. “All of the rooms are white with light gray baseboards and light gray carpeting (except the living room which has a hardwood floor). It sounds boring, but it looks way better than having every room a different color. It’s much classier.”

  And her opinion of Toronto: “I decided a long time ago that we weren’t living in Toronto. A. Too dangerous B. Too expensive C. Too many immigrants D. Too crowded, are the main reasons. St. Catharines is good for now until we go south. (In a few years probably). It’s a good distance between Toronto and Buffalo for business.”

  Then Karla told Debbie that Paul’s business was booming— nobody really knew what that business was—and that their mutual friend Kathy had married her marine, and the wedding was great, but he was being shipped off to Desert Storm. Kathy was all upset. More about Debbie’s bridesmaid dress, and where was the money, and when was Debbie going to come and try it on?

  She gave Debbie some advice about life and men: “Never feel guilty about taking from Dale or anybody else. The world will screw you in every way it can, so take as much as you can while you can.”

  Karla gave Debbie some beauty tips and then nattered on about the guest list and other wedding stuff … “The only thing we really need or want are 1. A Dustbuster 2. China 3. Crystal 4. Money. We really don’t need anything. Plus, you know how picky we are! As for wedding gifts, please try to let people know that we want money! If they say things like, ‘We don’t believe in giving money,’ tell them to go take a flying fuck!”

  Then Karla told Debbie all about her mom and dad: “My parents are being assholes. They pulled half of the money out of the wedding, saying that they can’t afford it. Bullshit.

  “Now Paul and I have to pay for $7,000 to $8,000 of this wedding. So money is tight … but on Saturday, Paul and I

  just said ‘flick it,’ we’re doing everything the way we planned and some things even better! Real flowers for everyone, we’re paying for the bar, hors d’oeuvres, a cocktail party, EVERYTHING!

  “Fuck my parents. They are being so stupid. Only thinking of themselves. My father doesn’t even want us to have a wedding any more. He thinks we should just go to city hall. Screw that. We’re having a good time. If he wants to sit at home and be miserable, he’s welcome to! He hasn’t worked (except for one day!) since Tammy died. He’s wallowing in his own misery and fucking me!”

  Karla continues: “Tammy always said last year that she wanted a forest green Porsche for her 16th birthday. Now my Dad keeps saying, ‘I would have bought it for her, if I’d have only known.’ That’s bullshit. If he really felt like that, he’d be paying for my wedding because I could die tomorrow or next year or whenever? He’s such a liar.

  “And for the real reason we moved out. My parents told Paul and I that they wanted him to stay at their house until the wedding. They told us that they didn’t want him to go back to Toronto. So he stayed. Then a week before we moved they were driving me to work one day and asked me when he was leaving. They said they needed their privacy (after they told him he was their son) and that they needed me as a ‘daughter’?! They wanted him to go home during the week and come back on weekends only.

  “AFTER THEY TOLD US HE SHOULD STAY UNTIL THE WEDDING!! 1st they took away V2 the wedding money, then they kicked us out. They knew how much we need, we needed to be together but they didn’t care. What assholes. Now they wonder why I don’t phone them or come to visit. … Love, Karla.”

  Paul had redoubled his smuggling efforts. He had border crossing down to a fine science. Sometimes he made two and three trips a day. It was as if he had become invisible—the border guards simply did not see him.

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  One of Karla and Debbie’s best girlfriends, former Exclusive Diamond Club member in good standing—a big, talkative, permanently permed blonde named Kathy Wilson—had just married. Kathy’s marine, Alex Ford, also happened to be a Mason, an association that appealed to Karla and Paul. Whatever Kathy had, Karla wanted. She did not care about the military and the marine bit—that was stupid—but the Masons, that was something Karla could easily arrange. Karla’s parents’ best friend, Don Mitchell, was a Mason. He could get Paul into the Grantham Lodge, no problem. The lodge was just up the street. The Masons were a secret organization. Secrecy appealed to Paul and Karla. He could walk to the meetings if he wanted. At his first or second meeting, Paul took notes. “At conception, the programming phase occurs in which the genetic components gather information from actual experiences of the external environment and the process repeats itself… . Seeing into the future is merely viewing the past, which is accessible through the unconscious mind.”

  Karla was delighted. His Masonic notes read like her books about the occult.

  In March, Paul went to Florida for two weeks, to celebrate the arrival of spring with Van Smirnis and another friend, gullible Gus. Karla had encouraged him to go, which really surprised Gus.

  Once they got to Florida, they hooked up with a bunch of teenagers from Lindsay, Ontario, who were also down for spring break. Paul and Van were roughly the same age—twenty-five, twenty-six. The rest of these kids—Jason, Mark, Dave, Gus—were sixteen or seventeen. Paul liked being around younger guys. He was starting to think about a career in rap music; about how he could become the next big, white rapper, like Vanilla Ice. He had to keep that youthful perspective.

  In Daytona Beach, Paul met a twenty-four-year-old nurse from South CaroHna named Alison. The night they met, they

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  had sex—anal sex. Paul had never met a girl who actually wanted anal sex. Not only did Alison want it, she hked it. That showed real attitude,.as far as Paul was concerned.

  Now Paul was confused. He thought he might be in love with Alison, too. He told Alison his secrets: how devastated he had been when his litde sister, Tammy Lyn, mysteriously died in his arms the night before Christmas. Now he lived with his other sister, Karla, in a big house on a quiet street in a little town called Port Dalhousie.

  When Paul was days late getting back to St. Catharines— because he had decided to stop in South Carolina and see where Alison lived—Karla became frantic. Paul told Karla all about Alison. She was a nurse; she made lots of money. She drove a Pontiac Grand Am; Paul had video and snapshots of him and Alison kissing. Karla was beside herself She drank a whole bottle of champagne. On March 29, she went to the doctor and got another prescription for Halcion.

  Something was wrong. Karla told Kathy and Alex Ford she thought her new house might be haunted. Just after Paul and Karla had moved into 57 Bayview, they started to bicker and fight. Paul was very sensitive to things in the environment. For instance, he could not stand the smell of cleaning products. That was a problem, because Karla had been taught to scrub everything with the strongest abrasives and cleansers possible. A hospital worker all her adult life, Dorothy Homolka had always been very serious about cleanhness. Things had to be antiseptic. Just as they were in a vet clinic. Then Paul had decided there were strange flimes emanating from the drains in the basement. He plugged all the drains. Things seemed to get better after that. But Karla still wondered about the ghosts.

  On April Fool’s Day, Paul called his old girlfi-iend, Marie Magritte and told her all about Tammy Lyn and his inconsolable grief He bought Karla her Rottweiler puppy. They named the dog Buddy. Paul was such a sweetie. Even with his allergies, he went along with a dog. As far as Karla was concerned, Paul deserved whatever he got.

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  Corrina Jenkins would never forget Saturday morning, April 6, 1991. She got up at 5:00 a.m., passed on breakfast, and dressed warmly so she could jog over to the island and warm up for practice. Corrina was coxswain for the lighweight team from her school. Governor Simcoe.

  Rowing was a big deal in Niagara. The Henley Regatta, which was held
every year in August on the Martindale Pond in Port Dalhousie, drew as many as two thousand competitors. They ranged from teenage girls like Corrina to world champions such as Silken Laumann.

  Athletes from as far away as Argentina and Australia came to compete. The five-day event attracted as many as sixty thousand spectators. For a small city like St. Catharines, with its one hundred and thirty thousand citizens, sLxty thousand visitors was a staggering influx.

  But it was April, and the port was quiet.

  Corrina lived with her parents and sister near the antique carnival carousel on the beach park in front of town. She was a good student and a dedicated rowing fan. An ambitious and disciplined child of fourteen, when she was not training or studying she worked part-time at a gas station just across the highway on Ontario Street.

  As she had done a hundred times before, Corrina left her house around 5:30 a.m., walking south on Corbett to Main Street. It was dead quiet and pitch black; an hour before dawn, the streetlights were still on.

  She turned right on Main and walked east until she came to Henley Hill. Then she turned left and started to head south toward the bridge that Hnks Henley Island to the mainland. It was no more than a twenty-five-minute walk from her door to the clubhouse on the island.

  She sensed there was someone behind her and turned to look. Sure enough, there was a guy only fifty feet away. Even though he did not seem to be in a hurry, Corrina was seized with foreboding. He was not wearing rowing or jogging gear, so he was not a rower or someone just out for a run. What was

  he doing out here on the way to Henley Island at this hour in the morning? Corrina quickened her pace.

  As she turned to look again, there was a car driving past, headed for the bridge, no more than a few hundred yards ahead. It was a station wagon, driven by a lady with blond hair who w^aved at her. Everything seemed to have slowed down, as if she were underwater or something. She saw the woman so clearly that she noticed her roots were starting to show. Corrina felt incredibly heavv’ and stifled, unable to breathe properly or move fast enough to avert whatever it was that was about to happen.

  Suddenly, he was on her. But this sort of thing never happened in St. Catharines, so she must still be having a nightmare. The taste of her own blood convinced Corrina otherwise.

  He had placed one hand so tightly over her mouth that her lip was cut on her front teeth. He had his pelvis pressed into her back. Struggling, she tried to pull his hand away from her face to tell him she could not breathe. His hands were too big and too strong. He pulled her through the ditch to a path that went up the wooded hillside. They had crossed the road in flat seconds, like two dancers staggering through a mad tango, and were now over on the right-hand side just before the bridge.

  “This is just a joke,” he said. “So shut the fuck up.”

  She managed to pull his hand away and scream. Immediately, he put it back over her nose and mouth, harder still. It took all her strength and concentration to pull it away again. Gasping for breath, she barely whispered: “Please don’t cover my nose. I can’t breathe.”

  Now they were across the road before the bridge and up at the top of the hill where it became bush. They both fell. She begged him again not to cover her nose. He pulled her back up. They were moving further into the wooded area. He still had his hand over her mouth. They came to the area where the field met the bush in the corner, just at the edge by the water.

  She could hear the sound and voices of the sculling teams getting ready for the morning practice. Strangely, Corrina and the man started walking, as if they were out for a stroll. She was dazed and exhausted. Corrina stopped trying to remove his hand.

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  He said, “Everything is going to be okay. Just don’t try anything or you’ll regret it.”

  Then he pushed her down into a crouched position. He was behind her. He pulled her pants down to her knees. He took out his penis. She felt it between her legs. He tried to stick it in her. He tried again, and then again. He was pulling her head back by her hair with his right hand. She pleaded: “Please don’t. Please don’t hurt me.”

  He was half whispering, half speaking, gutturally repeating over and over again, “Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up.” Then he forced her face to the ground on top of her hands. The fourth time he tried, his penis went all the way in. He groaned and then pulled it out.

  He came around front. He was on his knees, too. He lifted her head with her hair, put his penis in her mouth and said “suck it, bitch.” She refused to do anything, so he started moving her head. He came a httle bit in her mouth. When she tried to spit it out, he said, “You fucking little bitch.”

  He stuck it back in her mouth and said, “Put your hand on it and move it with your hand.” Then he took it out again. He pushed her head down so that her head was on her hands again.

  He demanded that she take off her coat. She did. She had on her red nylon rowing jacket which said SIMCOE CREW in white letters across the back.

  Then he told her to take off her shirts. It gets cold on the water at spring thaw; over her white bra she had on her Emstein T-shirt, a grey Nike turtleneck, a mock cotton turtleneck, then a royal blue cotton turtleneck and a hooded shirt that said CANADA in red letters on the front.

  Once Corrina had her arms out, he pulled all the shirts over her head. Her bra came off, too. Then he made her take off her Reeboks and pulled off all her pants—she was wearing blue cotton panties, Nike Spandex shorts, longjohns and gray jogging pants. Her three pairs of socks came off with her pants. Corrma was completely naked.

  He got behind her again and covered her mouth with his hand. Then he pulled her up. He started walking her downhill

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  toward the water. “Please, don’t put me in the water. Please,” Corrina said. Her voice sounded so small.

  “I’m not going to. Just crouch down here by this tree.” She did as he said and he pushed her head toward the base of the tree. He had a pair of black Isotoner gloves and he was carrying a pair of used black pantyhose. Corrina remembered thinking “How odd. Why would he have used pantyhose?”

  “Wait here for five minutes, don’t move and don’t make a sound.” He started to walk away, then he stopped and said, “Oh, and do yourself a favor: don’t tell anyone or I’ll have to kill you.” Naked as a forest nymph, she knelt at the tree’s base, counting, silently.

  For some reason she thought about the old carousel on the beach. It was housed in a gazebo, which they closed up in the wintertime. During the summer, the children flocked around it and the hand-carved horses and majestic tigers with fire in their eyes rose up and down to jingle-jangle carnival music. They only charged the children five cents a ride.

  After a couple of minutes she glanced up. Dawn was breaking. There were a few swans on the pond. She was alone. Sobbing, she gathered up her clothes from where he had scattered them on the hillside. She ran back to the road and her friend Marilyn was driving by with her father and they stopped. They called the police.

  When Karla woke up on Saturday morning, she discovered Paul was not in the house. Karla was worried. He had gone out the night before with his friends. He often got home very late— with cigarette runs and everything—but he seldom stayed out aU night, especially on a Friday. Then again, Karla was a very sound sleeper. Maybe he had come home late and got up early. She went downstairs and started to make herself something to eat. Suddenly the door to the garage opened and he came in. He had something in his hands. He looked really happy. Karla was relieved.

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  Corrina told the police that her attacker was about six feet tall, muscular, with brownish-blond hair, pretty short on the top but it seemed to go down the back of his neck, the way some guys were wearing their hair then. She got a good look at him. He was clean-cut. He did not smell. He was probably in his twenties. He had on a green-and-black sweater and blue jeans. They took her to the hospital and administered a r
ape kit.

  “Where were you?” Karla asked Paul as he came through the door from the garage.

  “I just raped a girl,” he replied. He was so excited he could hardly hold still. He was just like a little kid. Then Paul showed Karla the rowing shell he had in his hand and explained how he had decided to take it because he thought he had got semen on it and he did not want them to be able to do any forensic testing. He was going to burn it in the fireplace.

  His Scarborough rape ordeal had long been forgotten. The police must have been making comparisons to samples they took from Margaret McWilliam, after all. Paul had not even been in the country when that happened. As far as Paul and Karla were concerned, he was free and clear. Even his friends, including that idiot Van Smirnis, had stopped kidding him about it.

  Next to her own, Paul’s well-being and happiness were Karla’s greatest concerns. He treated her like a princess and she treated him like a prince. Dogs with championship lines cost hundreds of dollars, and even though Paul had allergies he had let her pick out the best dog.

  And they really had not had any fun since the January Girl and the great movie they made in which she played her sister. There was one lame attempt with Tammy’s friend Tricia when they first moved. But all they got was a few seconds of video while Tricia was urinating.

  Tricia was very wary of them and Karla knew why. Karla had gone to a great deal of trouble to plug the toilet downstairs so Tricia would have to use the one upstairs. But Paul’s idea of removing the wall socket in the upstairs bathroom and filming

  through the small hole had not worked ver' well. They did not have much tun with Tricia.

  One day, when they were driving around Port Dalhousie, Paul pomted out an attractive, young girl who looked to be about fifteen years old. “There’s the girl I raped,” he said proudly.

  Karla was happy for him—whatever the king wanted, the king should have—but she was not as confident about his impunity’ as he was. What if he had left something behind when he raped her that Saturday morning on Henley Island and they got forensics on it, and somehow made the connection to Scarborough and compared them to samples he had given the pohce in Toronto last November?