tv Very Scary People CNN July 29, 2023 7:00pm-8:00pm PDT
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but the saga was far from over. when the public learned the sordid details of the crimes and who else was involved, it sent shockwaves throughout the country and the world in part 2 of "the ken & barbie killers." i'm donnie wahlberg. thanks for watching. goodnight. ♪ mccrary: they're two psychopaths... very cold, manipulative, and they feed off one another. and then we have this match made in hell. dlcyclone very cold, manipulative, and they takes off.ne another. ♪ ♪
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♪ welcome to "very scary people." i'm donnie wahlberg. it was one of north america's most haunting and horrific crime sprees -- a series of rapes, abductions, and murders of young women just north of the u.s.-canadian border. after more than five years, investigators finally identified a prime suspect, a handsome, educated accountant named paul bernardo. police were convinced they had the right man, but did he act alone? here's part two of "the ken and barbie killers." ♪ ♪ man: this is the story of one of the most sensational murder cases
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in the history of canada. it started with the scarborough rapes. reporter: since may 4, 1987, numerous sexual assaults have been attributed to a man dubbed "the scarborough rapist." paul hunter: his m.o. was to go up behind his victims and grab them from behind to make sure they couldn't see him. pron: he had put a knife to their throat and said, "if you look at me, i'll slit your throat." kenzora: and the attacks, each one got a little bit more violent as time progressed. mccrary: our fear was if he wasn't stopped soon that this is gonna escalate to murder. kenzora: no one had really seen the attacker's face, so the police didn't really have much to go on, but then the attacker made a mistake. pron: on his 13th victim, a lady was walking down the street and he was walking towards her. she was able to see his face. and she was able to give police a very detailed description,
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and it was so well-done that numerous people saw it and called police and said, "i know who that is. that's paul bernardo." reporter: several hundred suspects were questioned, including university of toronto graduate paul bernardo, an aspiring accountant. paul bernardo, at the time of the scarborough rapes, was living at home with his parents in scarborough. he was living the perfect life with karla homolka. they were gorgeous, this perfect couple. pron: the police called him in for an interview, and he came in willingly. he was very at ease. he wasn't nervous. kenzora: and they asked if he would volunteer a dna sample, and he agreed. and, unfortunately, it was put on a shelf with a whole bunch of other samples, where it sat for a number of years. reporter: after interviewing him, police let him go.
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no one was arrested. the rapes had stopped when bernardo had moved from scarborough. paul bernardo moved to st. catharines to live with karla homolka and her family. and then a body was found in the st. catharines area. leslie mahaffy. kenzora: the night that leslie disappeared, she had attended a memorial for a young gentleman who was killed in a car accident. garofalo: she got home at 2:00 in the morning. all the lights were off. kenzora: the door was locked. she left and went to a phone booth and called her friend to say, "i'm locked out. can i come stay at your house?" friend said no, so she walked back to her house. kenzora: and that was the last anyone heard from her. hemsworth: and everyone had hoped for the best, and then everyone discovered the worst. reporter: the dismembered remains of 14-year-old leslie mahaffy were found in a nearby lake. she had disappeared two weeks before.
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hemsworth: her body had been dismembered, encased in pieces of concrete. and i still was hoping that maybe the police had made a mistake. but it was her. and then another young girl goes missing. reporter: ten months later, another victim -- 15-year-old kristen french. she was kidnapped in broad daylight. ♪ pron: she passed by a church. there was a parking lot in front, and there was a car parked there, and there was this woman, and she had a big road map on the hood, and she saw kristen walking by. she asked her for help. while she was helping her, a man dragged her into the car. pushed her into the back seat, and away they go. [ voice breaking ] kristen, we want you to know that we are thinking of you and that everything that can be done is being done. kenzora: fourteen days later, kristen's body was found in a ditch in burlington.
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mccready: it was shocking. everybody was just devastated. i just kept thinking, "why did he have to kill her?" reporter: police are not discounting the possibility that the cases may be connected. mccrary: there were similarities. both had been physically assaulted. both had been asphyxiated. both had bruising to their bodies as though someone had been kneeling on their back, maybe using a ligature strangulation or strangling them from behind. paul hunter: we have to find who did this, or more young girls are gonna die. this danger is out there. ♪ the scarborough rapes began in may of 1987, but it would be six years before the police would get their first big break in this case. the lab that analyzed dna didn't have a lot of resources, so samples sat for a number of years.
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bryant: this is in the early stages of dna analysis, and so the technical side of that was still very much in a development stage. paul hunter: when they finally get around to testing, they say, "hey, we got a match." kenzora: and it was matched to paul bernardo. watch the car, please. reporter: police have 28-year-old paul bernardo in custody, accused of being the notorious scarborough rapist. they arrested him late yesterday at this house in st. catharines that he rented with his wife. paul hunter: i saw paul bernardo for the first time when he was being arraigned in scarborough after he was arrested. to see him finally, i thought, "so, that's the scarborough rapist." he didn't look like a monster. he just looked like a guy, and i think that's what made it even scarier. sacks: we expect our monsters to look like monsters, and they don't always. van allen: these types of offenders are known to have
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♪ "don't cha" written by callaway/ray, re-recorded by massivemusic ♪ (camera shutter) ♪ don't cha wish your phone was fun like this? ♪ don't cha wish your phone was fun like this? ♪ don't cha wish your phone was fun like this? ♪ don't cha wish your phone looked more like this? ( ♪ ) don't cha wish your phone could flex like this? ( ♪ ) don't cha wish your phone could fit in here? don't cha? ( ♪ ) get a free storage upgrade when you pre-order at verizon. reporter: paul bernardo is charged with 43 sex-related offenses in connection with the scarborough rapist case.
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reporter: how's your family coping? as well as can be expected. hemsworth: it seemed like an unlikely perpetrator. he appeared to be an accomplished person. he was married to an attractive wife and lived in a nice subdivision in st. catharines. reporter: karla homolka was ravishingly blonde and beautiful, and her husband was the clean-cut, handsome boy with a glittering career ahead of him. kenzora: karla homolka grew up in st. catharines with her parents and two sisters. shlosberg: karla was the oldest sister. she had a younger sister, lori, and then she also had tammy, who was her baby sister. kenzora: karla loved animals, worked at pet stores, and then at a vet clinic, and, you know, she was pretty focused on getting a boyfriend and getting married. shlosberg: when karla met paul bernardo, she thought her fairy tale was finally coming true.
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kenzora: they were all about having, you know, the latest fashions and all the gadgets, which is partly why paul bernardo never was without a video camera in his hand, because one of the cool things to have in the late '80s, early '90s was a video camera. they were going out for fancy dinners and drinking champagne, and even their wedding was a fairy-tale wedding by all accounts. i, paul, take thee karla... this beautiful fairy-tale wedding almost did not happen... look at the camera. ...because her sister tammy had passed away just six months prior. after this tragedy that the homolka family had suffered, karla was very insistent, and karla had her perfect wedding day. she really thought this was the start of the life she always wanted, but it wasn't. ♪ after he was arrested for the scarborough rapes, authorities go and talk to karla about her husband.
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and they found out that he and his wife are separated. and she says, "he beat me up." pron: she told police she was afraid because he was incredibly abusive towards her. "he would punch me. he would kick me. he would slap me." his abuse towards her just escalated. mccrary: we knew from the scarborough case, if he had a relationship, it could be violent. if it lasted long enough, then this anger and the need to punish and humiliate would manifest itself. kenzora: karla homolka finally left paul bernardo after he beat her with a heavy-duty security flashlight. she went to the hospital, emergency ward, and the doctor there said it was the worst case of wife abuse he'd ever seen. kenzora: she was starting to get afraid that he might kill her.
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for karla, that was the straw that broke the camel's back. she left paul after that. and she went into hiding essentially at her aunt and uncle's place. the police say, "we now have to ask you a few more intimate-type questions, if you don't mind." police officers asking her about did she know anything about the scarborough rapes? shlosberg: karla said at the wedding was the first time that paul informed karla that he was in fact the scarborough rapist. and they say, "does he like to fantasize about schoolgirls or young teenagers?" mccrary: was she at all familiar with the parking lot of the grace lutheran church? had she ever been there? they weren't accusing her. they were just asking her. and she apparently held it together during that interview with the cops, but once they left -- she was staying with her aunt and uncle, and she sort of collapsed into their arms and said,
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"ah, they know everything. they know everything." karla knew she could be implicated in what happened. sacks: she knew he was going down, and she didn't want to go down with him. rosen: she immediately lawyers up, and she tells them what's going on, and she walks into the crown attorney's office -- now, we call our prosecutors crown attorneys -- and says, "what if i can solve all these crimes for you?" karla finally decided to come clean to save her own skin, and that she would turn on her husband and say he did it. he killed those other two girls, leslie mahaffy and kristen french. he's not a rapist anymore. he's a murderer. ♪ with the new straight talk multiline plan... ...more lines mean more savings. get unlimited data, talk and text for just $25 dollars a line ...all on nationwide 5g. plus, no hidden fees. no contracts. no compromises.
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- [announcer] do you have an invention idea but don't know what to do next? call invent help today. they can help you get started with your idea. call now 800-710-0020. ♪ reporter: 28-year-old paul bernardo is in protective custody at the metro east detention center. brad hunter: paul bernardo is already known as the scarborough rapist, and now he is busted being part of these horrific rapes and murders of these young girls, leslie mahaffy and kristen french. reporter: there's a lot police aren't saying about this investigation. what breakthrough led to the arrest? is bernardo's wife being questioned? rosen: karla homolka was speaking with the police. mccrary: when this thing came crashing down, she rolled. she turned on paul. paul bernardo has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder of leslie mahaffy
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and kristen french. mccrary: paul bernardo is our worst nightmare. he is manipulative, controlling, domineering, and astute enough to get away with this for a long-enough period of time. he was able to hide his true personality beneath this glowing face of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy next door, but deep down inside, what was growing was an anger towards women. paul's family was a little tumultuous. garofalo: he came from a very troubled family. his father was a convicted molester. sacks: and what paul found out at 16 was that this father that he thought was his father wasn't actually his father at all. that he was actually the product of an affair, and that really made him snap.
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mccrary: he apparently went ballistic. it made him very angry at his mother. you could certainly see how that hatred then would then be transferred onto these other female victims. and he, you know, went down a very dark path. paul hunter: bernardo was a voyeur. he was caught outside women's bedrooms in scarborough, looking in. mccrary: peeping, prowling, looking in windows, watching women undress. sacks: voyeur is what we call preparatory paraphilia. it escalates the fantasies. and as he gets away with it and gets away with it, it's not enough anymore. mccrary: now, some sex offenders plateau off there, but for bernardo, this is just a stepping-stone. this is just the beginning. and his wife knew about it. reporter: to those who saw them, paul and karla seemed a normal and wholesome couple. he had a great job as an accountant.
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she was working in a veterinarian's office. sit. hemsworth: and together, they made a beautiful couple in the prime of life, and all of this was a sham. paul bernardo really wanted to be seen as important, as influential, that he was materially successful... ...when, really, he had failed as a businessperson. kenzora: bernardo had declared bankruptcy. he left his job at price waterhouse. in the meantime, his job was smuggling cigarettes from across the border. kenzora: they gave the appearance that they were doing well, but i think they were just probably barely hanging on. garofalo: he was a monstrous fraud, but he tried to still live the big life. i believe that karla homolka had a dangerous fantasy based on a love, affection relationship with bernardo
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that led her to try and keep him happy. paul knew that karla was willing to do anything for him, and so he could still have both worlds. he could have this façade of stability, and he could have his violent secret life. bernardo: you look great. hawaiian wife. ooh, yeah, hawaiian wife. shlosberg: i don't know if she kept it quiet because she was fearful of him or she was fearful of losing him. reporter: things finally started unraveling when paul began beating karla. she couldn't take it. she left him. karla is the only evidence they have against paul bernardo at this point. she knew she was in trouble, so she gets herself a lawyer, george walker, and he says, "okay, we'll make a plea deal." reporter: karla, sensing her own legal jeopardy, made a deal with police. she'd testify against her husband. in return, she'd get 12 years maximum in prison.
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once homolka came forward, things started lining up. rosen: she tells them about the two young girls who were being sexually molested -- kristen and leslie. and she told them, "what's more, we videotaped all of it." karla and bernardo -- they taped everything. homolka: here is my husband. you'd see them on vacation, and they taped the sexual abuse and assault of these young women. mccrary: one of the things that our research has shown is these sexually violent offenders memorialize their crimes. so, we were able to get a search warrant to look for those tapes. bevan: we have obtained a search warrant. we entered the premises last evening and began our work. paul hunter: and they looked for 71 days inside that pretty, little house in st. catharines. they couldn't find it. reporter: police tore the house apart,
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but they failed to find any physical evidence showing the slain teenagers had ever been inside. the absence of physical evidence makes the videotapes even more important to the prosecution's case. pron: bernardo kept tapes of raping the two women, and he hid the tapes in the ceiling, in the pot light in the bathroom. mccrary: they were missed during the initial search. then one of bernardo's attorney's got the tapes. bernardo directed him, gave him a handwritten note where to find the tapes. reporter: the videotapes were picked up by bernardo's defense lawyers, right where bernardo told them they'd be, hidden in the ceiling of the upstairs bathroom. paul hunter: all the evidence was right there in the hands of paul bernardo's lawyer, and he did nothing with them for 17 months, during which time karla finishes off her deal. sacks: had the videotapes surfaced earlier, the police would not have viewed karla as the victim they saw her as. she wasn't a bystander.
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in custody, charged with a series of violent sexual assaults and the abduction and murders of leslie mahaffy and kristen french. the key evidence against bernardo was the testimony of his then-wife, karla homolka, but newly discovered videotapes are about to turn the case upside down. sacks: karla's claim was always that she was a victim of paul's, that she wasn't a participant in these crimes because she was willing. she was forced to do it. so, she arranged herself a plea deal. they needed her to testify, and she struck a good deal -- 12 years. reporter: she pleaded guilty to manslaughter for her part in the killings of schoolgirls kristen french and leslie mahaffy. in exchange, she'd get a 12-year sentence and appear as key witness in her ex-husband's murder trial. before the discovery of these now-infamous videotapes,
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she was all they had. bernardo's lawyer at the time went and got the tapes. ken murray didn't turn them over to the prosecution. for 17 months, he hangs onto them. malbon: in the meantime, karla makes this deal, the deal with the devil, as it's known. the law in canada is that if a lawyer comes into possession of evidence of the crime, the lawyer is obliged to turn it over to the authorities. paul hunter: he ultimately did hand them over. the crown may have made a deal with the devil. i didn't think it would go quite this far. rosen: i now have the videos. we watch some of the videos. i'm getting a sense of what this is about, and i get really upset. when you saw the videotapes, their tapes, their homemade tapes,
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you see how they were both in this together. she participates in the sexual abuse and assault of these young women. it was clear that karla was very much a willing participant. sacks: had the videotapes surfaced earlier, she would not have gotten the sweetheart deal. rosen: the agreement was that if you don't tell the truth, you don't tell us everything you know, then you'll be prosecuted for what we find out independently, and you may not even have a deal. so, she thinks about what happened to her sister, which everybody at that point thinks is an accident, and she decides, "i better come clean." malbon: this is where we find out about tammy, and i remember letting out this loud gasp because it was just so horrifying.
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mccrary: the one thing that she forgot to mention when she was talking to the police, raping and killing her own sister. the death of tammy homolka had been considered accidental at the time, but they were responsible. shlosberg: paul had an unhealthy infatuation with karla's younger sister, tammy homolka. tammy was a virgin, and that was very appealing to paul, who often criticized karla for not being pure. he is, according to karla homolka, harassing her to have sex with her little sister. he keeps pressuring her and pressuring her, and eventually she agrees. karla and paul come up with this plan
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where they will drug her and sexually assault her while she's unconscious. malbon: karla goes and she gets drugs from where she works. she drugs her own sister and says, "here, i'm giving her as a gift to you." reporter: just hours before this tape was recorded, she says, bernardo announced, "this is the day." paul hunter: you look at this videotape, the christmas party at the homolka home, where poor tammy is getting very quickly, seemingly drunk. what nobody knew, except for paul and karla, was that she had been drugged, and they're about to rape her. kenzora: after tammy passes out, they assault her,
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and karla has halothane, which is a liquid anaesthetic. and they put some of the halothane on a cloth and hold it either right on her face or very close to her face to keep her unconscious during the assault, and the whole time, it's being videotaped. tammy vomits. she's a little girl. and she chokes, and she stops breathing. mccrary: it was not ruled a homicide. it was ruled accidental death. kenzora: but it wasn't until later that tammy's body was exhumed and they discovered that she had actually died after being drugged. reporter: when she was later exhumed, tammy's body was found to be laced with sedatives. karla made the decision to bring home drugs
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for her own sister so her boyfriend could rape her. karla made that decision of her own free will. at this point, the plea was done, and the crown could not go back on that, and i think that's what horrified the public the most. karla couldn't be held more culpable than she already had been. karla homolka wasn't charged in the death of her sister, nor will she be charged in any other crime she's admitted to. it's all part of a deal she struck with the crown in exchange for one thing -- her testimony against paul bernardo. ♪
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text for just $25 dollars a line ...all on nationwide 5g. plus, no hidden fees. no contracts. no compromises. that's the straight talk talki'' from straight talk. available at walmart and walmart.com. ♪ reporter: paul bernardo is on trial, accused of raping and murdering two ontario schoolgirls. his ex-wife, karla homolka, was convicted of manslaughter in the same deaths. people were gripped that summer by the horror of what these two people had done. reporter: they've been lined up for 12 hours outside this toronto courthouse. bryant: because of the interest in the trial, tickets were being handed out every morning so that people could be assured of gaining entry.
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kenzora: people would line up often overnight so that they could get a spot inside. nikkel: a job came up for standing in line at the courthouse for the toronto star from 6:00 p.m. until 10:00 a.m. the next day. and for three months, i was there. it was quite the atmosphere. there were some that wanted to hang him. reinstate capital punishment. there were some that wanted to date him. there were some there just to learn or observe what was going on. i wanted to come down here and basically stare into the face of evil. pron: people just wanted to know, but then when they learned the details, they were horrified. reporter: the trial provided some of the most dramatic moments in canadian courtroom history, but it was the heartbreaking videos of the victim's ordeal that set the case apart. there had not been this kind of videotape evidence offered in a trial.
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justice patrick lesage was required to make a decision about how they would be used in court. he decided that videotapes that directly involved the victims would be shown only to the jurors, witnesses, lawyers, and the accused himself. the audio portion of those videotapes would be heard by all. there is nothing pleasant, there is nothing good in seeing, let alone just listening, to what was going on. malbon: we heard young girls being raped, hit, abused, tortured, crying out for their parents, and i remember reporters openly weeping in the courtroom. paul hunter: we watched the jurors watching the tapes, and you could see the blood draining out of their faces. van allen: paul bernardo was asked why on earth did he keep the videotapes
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that contained such damning evidence against he and homolka? and he answered, "well, i felt i had to keep those videos because they contained the last remembrance of those girls' lives." and that was a sickening answer. [ crowd yelling ] reporter: the key witness against bernardo was his ex-wife, karla homolka. homolka testified she was an abused, unwilling accomplice. karla homolka, on the stand, lasted for about 21 days. malbon: karla is matter-of-fact, stone-cold, just telling her version of events -- these horrific, horrible acts. reporter: the nightmare for the mahaffy family began june 14th, 1991, when 14-year-old leslie disappeared. according to karla homolka, she was asleep when paul bernardo brought home leslie mahaffy.
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she says paul came up to the bedroom, said, "i kidnapped a girl. stay in bed." she said, "sure, okay." went back to sleep, which is hard to imagine, but she did. karla says she finally came downstairs. she looked over at the dining-room table, and her expensive champagne glasses that they had received as a gift were sitting on the table, and they had never used them before, so she was really upset that paul was using them with leslie mahaffy. it's so bizarre that that's what she was concerned about, not the fact that he had kidnapped and was assaulting a teenage girl. leslie ended up being in the house for about 24 hours, and after he had spent time with leslie on his own, he had karla come in, as well, and either videotape or take part in the sexual assaults.
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reporter: homolka testified she was so afraid of bernardo that even as leslie mahaffy screamed in agony and begged, "please, help me," homolka continued to videotape and did not intervene. in the kristen french case, paul was driving the vehicle, and she was lured into the car by karla homolka. reporter: kristen french endured three and a half days of horror in the bernardo home. kenzora: kristen was held for longer than leslie, and during that time, such strange things happened, from bernardo having kristen and karla dressing up and pretending they were friends, putting perfume and makeup on each other.
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it was just so bizarre. pron: karla was complicit in helping bernardo, and she had opportunities to leave and save kristen's life. paul hunter: when kristen was being held, at one point, bernardo goes out for, i think, swiss chalet dinner, chicken dinner. pron: and kristen french suggested he go to this place. she knew it would take him about a half an hour to get there and back with the food, and in that half hour, this woman begged for her life, and karla could have saved her. but karla wouldn't do it. and kristen died, just like leslie. kenzora: when kristen was kidnapped, it was easter weekend, and by the sunday, they realized no one had seen them and that if they went to karla's parents for easter dinner, it would be a really good alibi. at one point, karla says to bernardo,
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"you have to do something." there is no explanation for any of it. they are simply two dark, sadistic, evil monsters. the final testimony was a string of cold confessions from bernardo himself, who confessed to kidnapping, raping, and torturing leslie mahaffy and kristen french, but he denied killing them. karla homolka's story was that paul bernardo had strangled both girls with an electrical cord, but there was no evidence showing paul bernardo committing the murders. they had everything else, but they did not have the murders on tape. bryant: the videos did not show the actual killing.
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so, the question was still left open as to who did it. malbon: the defense tried to say that karla killed the girls, that karla was jealous, and that's why she killed these people. paul hunter: john rosen, he was trying to convince the jurors, "how do you know it wasn't her?" rosen: and you got to decide, who do you believe? and yes, paul is sick, but he never killed anyone until he met karla. and that was all predicated on his word against her word. ♪ i'm currently out of the office [typing] focusing on a little blue-sky thinking. i'll be taking meetings with family and friends. and checking voicemail as my activities permit. i'll connect with you after reconnecting with me.
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♪ reporter: the jury is still out at the paul bernardo trial in toronto. the jury was out overnight. you wait and you wait impatiently. kenzora: at 9:00 the next morning, they started their deliberations again, and before noon, they came back with their verdict. i thought he was guilty as hell. reporter: it took less than a minute for the jury to read out its verdict -- guilty on every count against paul bernardo. kenzora: you knew he was going to be found guilty, but you just needed to hear the words. reporter: bernardo stood emotionless in court
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as the verdict was read. rosen: i was standing beside paul when the verdict is read, and he leaned over to me and he said, "well, thank you." he said, "at least i feel i got a fair trial." well, it certainly was disappointing but not unexpected. if you sat through the trial and you watched the videos, you'd know. the tapes were just impossible to get over, even though they did not show the homicides. just the participation and the domination of these two poor, innocent girls was just horrendous. kenzora: it was an emotional time for the families. doug french and dan mahaffy, the fathers of the girls, both spoke to the media. malbon: i remember holding the microphone up, and i asked about the verdict. did he feel that he had gotten justice? and he said, "no, i don't think there will ever be closure."
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[ voice breaking ] mahaffy: only the trial is over. leslie is still not coming home. [ voice breaking ] kristie, you can't be hurt anymore. we love you. ♪ [ camera shutters clicking ] and he cried, and we all cried. but their daughters were still not coming home. malbon: paul bernardo once said he'd never get caught. at 31 years old, he now faces life in prison. bryant: he was sentenced to life in prison with no eligibility for parole until 25 years had passed. [ crowd yelling ] ha ha ha! he was additional sentenced as a dangerous offender. in our law, that means you can be held in jail indefinitely. he is simply too dangerous to let out. paul hunter: the dangerous-offender hearing -- this was the day for the scarborough rape crimes to be addressed. these people are finally having their day.
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reporter: the victims of the scarborough rapist filled two rows of seats in the front of the court. some of the victims hissed and heckled when bernardo stood to address the court. and when he's declared a dangerous offender and sent away for life, they yelled at him, "you bastard." ♪ kenzora: paul bernardo is kept in this tiny 10-by-10 cell by himself 23 1/2 hours a day, thinking about what he did. ♪ ♪ pron: every two years, bernardo can apply for parole and talk about how he's reformed and changed, and it's such bullshit. reporter: bernardo admitted the obvious. "looking back, i had a problem with sexuality," he said. "i think it's something that down the road, i'm going to be seeking professional help for."
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pron: he can never change. a monster like that will always be a monster. he destroyed a lot of lives. and karla, who assisted him, she's out. bryant: karla was given a sentence of 12 years for her involvement in the killings of leslie mahaffy and kristen french and for her involvement in her sister's death. bernardo: hi, tam. how you doing? bryant: i don't think she's ever faced up fully to what it is that she actually did. [ crowd yelling ] she served the full 12 years, right to the last minute. [ speaking french ] kenzora: and she was released, and she got married to her lawyer's brother. malbon: now she is a mother. she has three children.
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she has a life. paul hunter: i think in a perfect world, they deserved and ought to be both in jail for the rest of their lives. ♪ reporter: the st. catharines home of paul bernardo and karla homolka was demolished. malbon: they dubbed it the house of horrors, and they decided they would tear it down. paul hunter: they knocked down the house as a way of kind of closing the book. they destroyed this place where unspeakable crimes happened for the fun and pleasure of paul bernardo and karla homolka. it's not the house that's evil. it's the evil souls that lived in that house. ♪ paul hunter: the families also got permission to have the evidence, including the videotapes, destroyed. no one will see those awful images again.
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bryant: it was an important part to ensure that the memory of these young girls were properly preserved, protected. hemsworth: that's what these families wanted. if that brings even a scintilla of relief to those families, bring it on. even though the pain won't go away...we're okay. paul bernardo became eligible for parole in 2018, but the mahaffy and french families have vowed to fight to keep him behind bars. hln reached out to bernardo for comment. he declined to speak with us, as did karla homolka, who, despite public outcry, remains free. debbie mahaffy, leslie's mother, has become a dedicated spokesperson for victims' rights. and the family of kristen french has created a child-advocacy center in her name, to provide a safe haven for children.
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