Joann told Janine everything was going to be okay. But neither Joann nor Van seemed surprised, and they did not do anything. They just kept saying, “It’s okay, you’re going to be fine.” Then Van and Joann cleaned up Janine’s mess.
Mike, Van, Joann and Janine all spent the night. In the morning, they sat around the kitchen table and ate Kentucky
2o8 STEPHEN wiiiiams
Fried Chicken. Karla seemed a litde distant, but nobody said anything.
Janine went home to Youngstown with Van and Joann. On the way home Van was oblivious, and Joann asked Janine an odd question. What would Janine do if she was pregnant as a result of the sex she’d had with Paul? Janine never saw Paul Bernardo again. She did not plan to tell anybody else what happened.
On New Year’s Eve Paul and Karla went to a bar and dance emporium in Niagara Falls, New York, called the Pleasure Dome. They went with Jason Mooney, Gus Draxis, Van Smirnis and Joann Fuller. During the evening, Paul expressed his extreme hatred for his mother. Everyone except Van and Joann stayed overnight at 57 Bayview.
On January 2, 1992, Inspector Vmce Bevan telephoned Detective Steve Irwin to ask about his ongoing investigation into the sexual homicide of Alison Parrott.
Bevan had now focused on Peter John Stark as his prime suspect in the murder of Leshe Mahaffy’. He had been told that Irwin knew a good deal about Stark. They had a nice talk, but neither man was of any particular use to the other.
Bevan and Constable Mike Kershaw went to Erie, Pennsylvania, to check out one of Stark’s alibis. Stark said he had been at the Colonial Motor Motel in Erie when Leslie MahatF>’ was killed. The motel records indicated he had stayed there on May 17 and 18, 1991, not June 17 and 18, as he had told them. Their suspicions of John Peter Stark deepened considerably, but they had nothmg concrete.
They interviewed Stark’s wife. Then Bevan drove to Oakridges Hospital in Penetanguishene, Ontario, to discuss the Mahafiy-case with a psychiatrist and psychologist. Drs. Grant Harris and Marnie Price worked up a profile.
Some things they got right, such as the fact that the offender was bright, careful and organized. He was a white-collar Worker and did not work in construction. The dismemberment was
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done in the basement of a relatively new house. A carefully controlled personality, the murderer looked like a solid citizen and would not do anything to draw attention to himself If interviewed, he would appear very cooperative. Leslie had been taken on an opportunity. The killer did not live in her neighborhood. He would kill again. He would not return to the dumping spot.
But they got as many thmgs wrong. They said the perpetrator lived alone, acquired pornography, possibly kiddie porn, and according to the doctors, the crime did not involve two people. Whoever he was, they told Inspector Bevan, he was not a classic psychopath.
Bevan instigated a good deal of discussion among the investigators about the possibilities for a dramatic reenactment of the Mahaffy case on television. Bevan saw the media as a way to generate leads—manufacture needles in haystacks. He tried to interest “America’s Most Wanted” and “Unsolved Mysteries” in the Mahafly investigation, to no avail.
On Valentine’s Day, Friday, February 14, 1992, Karla bought herself another dog collar. Her valentine card read: “Honey, I love you with all my heart, now and forever… . Sweet Dreams.”
The next day, Paul reciprocated: “I will always be totally and undenyingly in love with you.”
Lori Lazaruk, an attractive twenty-six-year-old woman, and her twenty-three-year-old sister, Tania, thought it odd that the same gold-colored sports car had driven slowly through the parking lot half a dozen times over the past half-hour. It was 12:15 or 12:30 in the morning on Monday, March 30, and the parking lot and the streets were pretty much deserted. The driver seemed to be staring at them. Lori and Tania were sitting in the window of Robin’s Donuts at the corner of Lakeport and Lakeshore Roads. There were only one or two other people in the shop.
The corner of Lakeport and Lakeshore was considered the entrance to Port Dalhousie. The town and Lake Ontario were only a few niinutes east along Lakeport. Tania had just left work and she and Lori were having coffee and talking.
Then Tania saw the most unusual thing: the lens of a video camera in the lower outside corner of the doughnut-shop window. Because it was Hght inside and dark outside, she could not quite make out who was operating the camera. It was really weird because it was as if whoever it was operating the camera was tr'ing to point the lens up her skirt. She immediately told her sister. When Lori turned around there was no one there.
The sisters left the doughnut shop at 2:45 a.m. They saw the same gold sports car they had seen drive back and forth earlier. It was parked across the road behind Bufiy’s Tavern. Lori drove Tania home. As Tania was gettmg out of the car, the gold sports car drove by vers’ slow^ly with no Ughts on. Lori was not particularly scared, but she was starting to become angr>’ and concerned.
Lori drove around the block and saw the car parked a couple of doors down from her parents’ house, where she had just dropped Tania. She took the license-plate number and called the police. She said that she and her sister had been stalked by a man with a video camera in a gold sports car. She had two of the six license-plate numbers wrong. She said it was 660 NFM or 660 MFN instead of Paul Bernardo’s number—660 HFH. Lori said the car looked like a gold two-door Mazda with tinted windows; it was a GXL or RX7 or something. She told the police that she had followed the car to Port Dalhousie but lost it on Bay^view Drive.
The following day, Lori saw the car again in Port Dalhousie. This time she got it right. She called the police again and corrected the license-plate number: it was 660 HFH and the car was not a Mazda, it was a gold Nissan 240 SX. Like Rachel Ferron before her. Lori Lazaruk never heard from the pohce again.
On April Fools Day, Inspector Bevan sought and received permission to apply for funding to extend the Mahaf!y investigation. He got the funding almost as easily as Paul Bernardo got cigarettes across the border.
Paul Kenneth Bernardo was one of five suspects whose samples were resubmitted by Detective Irwin to the Center for Forensic Sciences on Thursday, April 2, 1992. Following scientist Kim Johnston’s directions from the previous November, Irwin sorted through the 230 samples she had returned to him, and discovered that only five suspects met the non-secretor and PGM criteria.
Early in April, Paul was notified that his name had been stricken from the record by the Institute of Chartered Accountants for non-payment of his student fees. This meant nothing to Paul. He had never had more money in his pockets or bigger dreams in his head. Since he could be whatever he wanted, he no longer needed their sanction to be an accountant.
The institute records showed him to be unemployed at the time. Technically speaking, that was correct. Except he had never been busier. He was running more and more cigarettes, with greater and greater success. He had started dealing directly with Patrick Johnnie, the biker guy who financed and fenced the smokes from his repair garage on Highway 48 south of Sutton, Ontario. Although Paul had met Johnnie through his pal Van, Patrick Johnnie had become disenchanted with Van.
At the beginning of the year, Paul put Mike Donald to work. He convinced Mike—who was no rocket scientist himself—that smuggling cigarettes was virtually a risk-free way to make money. Paul told Mike that crossing the border with contraband was a trick he could teach him.
Mike Donald was a pleasant, clean-cut kid who otherwise worked as a waiter. Paul told Mike he could become a millionaire if he just followed Paul’s advice. Mike was sold. He did what he was told and now he was doing very well. Paul took a
piece of Mike’s action as well. Paul was far more concerned about how he was going to increase the volume of cigarettes he could get across the border than he was about giving the Institute of Chartered Accountants one hundred and fifty dollars.
Sergeant Maracle had a meeting with FBI Special Agent Chuck Wagn
er on April 14, 1992. Wagner was stationed in Buffalo. He set up a conference call with Supervising Special Agent Gregg McCrary in Quantico, Virginia, to discuss the Leslie Mahaffy case in detail.
During the conference call, McCrary told Maracle he beheved the person who killed and dismembered Leshe Mahaffy-either knew her or had seen a Hght on in the Mahafiy’s house. Maracle knew there had been no lights on in the Mahaffy house. He said the crimes were sexually motivated, the murder was secondary. His conclusion was based on the inordinate lengths to which the killer had gone to try and conceal the body. In McCrary’s opimon, the killer had fantasized this scenario in the past and he simply acted it out as the opportunity presented itself
“The killer had tools and experience to carry out dismemberment,” McCrary explained. Therefore, he was probably a laborer who was comfortable with the use of tools and materials such as cement.
Consider that the killer took the trouble to drive the body fort^ miles—it was McCrary’s assumption that Leslie Mahafiy had been abducted, raped, murdered, dismembered and cemented in Burlington and that the perpetrator then drove nine hundred pounds of cement to Lake Gibson—because he was comfortable with the disposal site. It was obviously a place where he could readily explain his presence if he was questioned by the poHce while in the process of dumping the cement blocks in the lake.
McCrary concluded that the perpetrator would now be under a great deal of stress and that would precipitate changes in behavior. He might start abusing alcohol or drugs or suddenly
find religion. McCrary was further off the mark than the doctors in Penetanguishene.
He counseled the police to take a proactive approach and use the media. As the anniversary of Leslie’s death approached, make use of the press—release selected information about the status of the investigation, about the many interviews with her friends and the fact that they had brought in the FBI.
A substantive media blitz with this kind of information would make the killer even more uneasy. Set up surveillance of grave and dump sites. These kinds of killers often spent a great deal of time in the past—visiting the scenes of their crimes and their victims’ graves.
McCrary said the police should encourage the Mahaffy family to hold an elaborate memorial service and enlist them to help the police with the media. There was nothing like a be^ reaved mother to get the media’s attention.
nineteen
aul and Karla agreed. What they really needed was another surprise. Karla wanted to play a bigger role this time. On Thursday afternoon, April 16, 1992, prior to the long Easter weekend, they would go out shopping. She would choose their next sex slave, someone with whom they could both really have fun.
They were a long way from the fitty sex slaves and virgins that Karla had said she would help Paul get when they made
INVISIBLE darkness 215
their movie a year and a half before. That video v^^as one of the best things they had ever done. That and the Jane Doe video. The videos they had made with LesHe Mahaffy were substandard—Leshe’s bHndfold made the whole thing awkward and unappealing.
There were a lot of virginal teenage schoolgirls to choose from in St. Catharines. Karla suggested they cruise by Holy Cross and that other high school—Lakeport Secondary, near Linwell Road—around three o’clock. Because it was a long v/eekend, ail the classes would be dismissed early. They could take their pick. On Thursday morning before she left for work she wrote a note, cut it out in the shape of an Easter egg and left It on the kitchen counter: “It’s Easter soon and do you know what that means? A day off for Karly Curls to spend with her wonderful king. Isn’t that great? Miss you. Love you. Karly.”
Fifteen-year-old Kiisten French had asked her parents about the California Club before they went to Fonthill on Wednesday evenmg. The long Easter weekend was coming up and Kristen wanted to have some fun. Donna French turned to her husband. Kristen was such a responsible child there was no need for the Frenches to be disciplinarians. Doug said that it would be all right providing Elton went with her. Elton Wade was Kristen’s boyfriend. The California Club was a dance club. Everybody went there. The only problem was Elton didn’t dance.
Kristen and Elton did a lot of things together. They went to watch his dad play hockey. They went to movies, they watched TV, and they washed Mr. Wade’s car. It was a Firebird. Elton played hockey too—for Merritton, and for another team that occasionally traveled out of town. He also played for his high-school team. Kristen often went to watch Elton play hockey and she occasionally went over to his house. They went to Swiss Chalet whenever they could—Kristen loved Swiss—her father brought it home all the time. There was a Swiss Chalet just up the street from their house on Geneva.
Kristen had Elton’s ring on the middle finger of her left hand. It had a big E on its face. Elton had dated one of Kristen’s
best friends, Julie Fitzsimmons, until Julie introduced them on the third of August. Since then, Kristen and Elton had been inseparable.
Except for the two weeks Kristen had spent in Florida during March, when her parents had bought her a Mickey Mouse watch with a real leather strap. That was cool. She had fun, but she spent a lot of time wondering what Elton was doing while she was away.
Then there was the blue couch in Kristen’s basement. They had had sex on the blue couch a couple of times, but they always used a condom. Nobody knew.
Before Kristen went to bed around ten that night, she left her parents a list of gift suggestions for her forthcoming birthday. Kristen would be sixteen on May 10.
Kristen was not one to He in bed. On Thursday morning, April 16, 1992, she was up at seven to face what looked to be a rather cruel spring day. “There are a number of things 1 want for my birthday,” she told her mother. “I really must sit down with Elton today and go over my list.”
Kristen wasn’t allowed to go out during the week—unless for a very good reason. But her parents let Elton come over pretty much whenever Kristen wanted, so Kristen suggested she would invite him over for dinner.
Kristen was favoring her back that day. The fact that her right leg was shorter than her left meant she had to become an alternate—which was the coach’s polite way of relegating her to spectator status—on the Holy Cross rowing team. She also had to curtail her precision figure skating. Rowing and skating were two activities in which Kristen had taken enormous pleasure. Kristen had been skating since she was sLx, first at the St. Catharines Winter Club and lately with the Merritton Precision Figure Skating Team.
“Good morning and goodbye,” was all she said to her father. It was barely 7:30 and Doug French was out the door. He worked for Wegu Rubber in Whitby; they sold tires and other rubber products. He was the salesperson in the Niagara Region, a tall man with black hair that was just beginnning to thin and a square jaw that gave him an affirmative aspect. Both Kristen and
her mother felt he worked too hard, but today was going to be a hght day for him. Only moments after he left the house he pulled the big red Chrysler up in front of Perkins Restaurant just off Lake Street. His pal Donnie McCallum was in there, waiting for him. His coffee was already on the table when Doug sat down.
Kristen pulled on a pair of maroon bikini panties and put on her black lace bra. She got this bra and a pink one just like it from a box of clothes one of her mother’s bosses. Bill Bright, brought to work one day. He brought it for Kristen to look through and she was glad he had.
She put on some blush and a bit of eyeliner. Over a pair of opaque green tights, she pulled on boxer shorts with the Georgetown University bulldog symbol on them. The bulldog was blue, the shorts white. All the girls at Holy Cross wore boxer shorts under their skirts. To get the particular hang that was fashionable the shorts had to be medium/large. At almost five feet five inches tall, Kristen weighed close to 120 pounds.
She latched her gold chain around her neck. There were the Praying Hands her father had given her and the letter-form
gold charm. Today, Tomorrow, Forever, she had got from Elton.
At the same place she had bought the green tights—Le Chateau in the Pen Center—she got her green plaid kilt. She pulled on her white turtleneck with the embossed letters HC—for her school, Holy Cross—over the left breast pocket, along with her green V-necked sweater, which also had the letters HC embroidered in gray over the left breast.
Kristen had amazing, long brunette hair, of which she was justifiably proud. She had just had a perm, which made her hair keep its place. While she Hghtly brushed it, patting it into shape, the diamond stud in her left ear caught the light and flashed in the mirror. Elton had given her that too. She grabbed her olive green Kettle Creek book bag and went to the phone.
It was 7:45 a.m. —lots of time, since her mother always drove her to school around 8:15 a.m. She dialed Elton’s number, fiddling with her knapsack. It was a few years old and starting to fray at the edges. There was a rip at one end of the zipper and
2i8 STEPHEN Williams
the pull loop was torn. Kristen would definitely add a new Kettle Creek bag to her birthday list.
Donna French was making Kristen’s lunch: ham-on-white, a maple-filled cookie in the shape of a maple leaf and a box of iced tea. She could see her daughter on the phone from the kitchen. Mrs. French did not need to guess who she was talking to. The Frenches approved of Elton. He was clean-cut, pohte, and he seemed responsible. That his parents were divorced, that Elton hved with his father and his girlfriend did not faze them. After all, even though it had been twenty-two years. Donna was Doug’s second wife. She was fifteen years his junior.
Doug had been married to Joan Slade for fifteen years—he had a daughter named Pam Radunski who, at forty, was approximately Donna’s age; she lived in Capreol, north of Sudbury. Brad, thirty-seven, and Brian, the baby at thirty, both lived nearby in St. Catharines—they were good boys but seemed to be at loose ends. Dwayne, who was thirty-four, had moved to California and was doing quite well. Then there was Darren, Kristen’s brother. Donna’s son, who, at eighteen had just got a summer job as a press operator at Lindsay Rubber off Cushman Road. They were a close-knit family. It was as though Kristen and Darren had three older brothers and a sister.
Invisible darkness : the strange case of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka Page 21
