Part 1
Rapes and murders are ugly things, but they happen every day. What doesn't happen every day is the eruption of issues of free speech in the electronic age from murder trials. What makes the deaths of Leslie Mahaffey, Kristen French, and Tammy Homolka so much better known than the deaths of Nina de Villiers, Terri Anderson, and so many others isn't only the brutality of the murders. It's something entirely different: the clash between time-honoured Canadian legal tradition and new, internationalist/individualist/libertarian online culture. The Homolka trial ban was a demonstration of the current meme that information wants to be free, not restricted by court orders.
The story of the murders began, obviously, well before anyone had ever heard the names Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. The following Globe and Mail article (excerpted, not reproduced in full, because it's copyrighted) is from Saturday, July 20, 1991. The article was written by Timothy Appleby.
AFTERMATH
"It keeps going through your mind. Who's next?" The Burlington teen-agers, shocked and saddened by the untimely deaths of five of their friends, join together for support
As homicide investigators hunt the killer of a popular teen- ager slain with incredible savagery, this quiet, middle-class community 50 kilometres west of Toronto, with its large houses and spotless streets, has been left stunned.
The disclosure that a concrete-encased, dismembered body found in a lake is that of Leslie Mahaffy, 14, came soon after a fiery car accident that killed four other teen-agers.
"Everybody's afraid they're going to lose their best friend next," says Paul Bernier, 17, who knew all five of the deceased. "It keeps going through your mind: 'Who's next?' "
The four died on June 11 when their car went out of control on a side road known locally as "roller-coaster road," slammed into a culvert and burst into flames. Two other youths survived.
"If there is a God upstairs and he's going to take everybody," Mr. Bernier says, "why put them through all this?"
The connection between the two tragedies is inescapable for Leslie Mahaffy's friends, a group that displays a striking sense of caring and responsibility. She disappeared early on June 15 after visiting a funeral home and attending a wake for the four dead teen-agers in a patch of woods not far from her Burlington home. Three and a half weeks later, her remains would be identified.
[...]
She had asked Alex Bakos, 20, for a ride home from the wake that night. Instead, he acted as driver for some others in the group who were drunk. Now he wonders if things would have turned out differently. "If I'd drove her home, it might not have happened. I just wish I'd done it."
But a reconstruction of Leslie's last movements indicates that it might not have made any difference. Sometime after midnight, other friends walked her home to her parents' house on a well-kept cul-de-sac. She didn't have a key and, her friends say, was apprehensive about waking up her parents because it was a couple of hours past her curfew. Instead, in her last known contact, she went to a nearby all-night Mac's Milk store to phone a girlfriend named Amanda, hoping to stay with her.
But she didn't go to Amanda's house. And at that point, the trail goes cold for the seven-member homicide investigation team drawn from the Halton and Niagara regional forces. Police won't disclose the contents of that last conversation, but Staff Sergeant Cornelis VanderMeer says: "Yes, it is significant in our investigation."
Police have not ruled out the possibility that she phoned someone else, but since that night, there hasn't been one confirmed sighting of her alive. Reports that a scruffy man entered the milk store around that time asking for Leslie have been discounted.
When Leslie disappeared, it was initially thought that the Grade 9 graduate and keen drama student had run away from home, as she had twice earlier this year, staying on occasion with her friend, Jason Booth, in a Burlington motel.
But she had always stayed in touch, and when her 15th birthday came and went this month, her friends say that Leslie's parents became truly alarmed.
[...]
Over the Canada Day weekend, fishermen at Lake Gibson, 60 kilometres from Burlington, made two gruesome discoveries. A nearby power dam had been opened, lowering the water level by three or four metres, and on June 29, near the water's edge, anglers noticed a broken concrete block. Inside a casing that had been created by pouring concrete onto a slab were severed arms and legs. The next day, at another point on the lake, other fishermen found a floating torso and attached head. Here, too, concrete had been used, most of it having broken away.
Nine days later, dental charts identified the remains as Leslie's.
Police are still unsure how the body was cut up, but Staff Sgt. VanderMeer says speculation that a chain saw was used is "totally unsubstantiated. . . . All we can say at this point is that some form of cutting device was used. This is all quite horrific enough without conjuring up visions of chain saws."
Tests are still being carried out to determine the cause of death and whether there was a sexual assault.
A $25,000 reward has been posted for information leading to the conviction of Leslie's killer. Police are also following up on an anonymous tip phoned in by a woman on July 5 about a suspicious vehicle seen hauling pieces of concrete in the area of Decew Road and Beaverdams Road in Thorold. Niagara Regional Police say the information may be essential to the investigation and have issued a plea that the woman contact them again.
While the tip is encouraging, investigators concede that they may be in for a long wait before they catch the murderer.
"It's going to be a tough one," says Detective Sergeant Bob Waller of Halton Regional Police. "God willing, we'll find him."
Everyone knows the names of Leslie Mahaffey, Kristen French, and Tammy Homolka. But before Bernardo was arrested, several other murders were linked to the death of Leslie Mahaffey, before other suspects were found. The following Globe and Mail article by John L. Gray and Scott Feschuk, published Monday, April 20, 1992, shows the uncertainty in the community.
Police seek link in fate of 3 teens
Public to join search today
Police tried to calm fears yesterday that a serial killer is stalking teen-aged girls in this community of 120,000, across Lake Ontario from Toronto.
Niagara Regional Police are investigating the possibility of a link between the abduction Thursday of 15-year-old Kristen Dawn French and the disappearances of two other girls, one of whom was found dead last July.
"We are looking into the (Leslie) Mahaffy and (Terri) Anderson disappearances, but there is no hard-core evidence to link them at this time," Staff Sergeant Murray MacLeod said yesterday. "There are some similarities, but that's it for now. We have absolutely no evidence of a serial killer."
Police suspect Kristen was abducted Thursday afternoon, shortly after she left Holy Cross Secondary School in the city's north end.
Last November, 14-year-old Terri Anderson walked away from her home, about three blocks from the Lutheran church parking lot where a shoe of Kristen's was found, and never returned. Terri was in Grade 9 at Lakeport Secondary School, which is next door to Holy Cross.
The dismembered body of Leslie Mahaffy, a 14-year-old from nearby Burlington, was discovered in a lake south of St. Catharines last July.
No arrests have been made in either case.
[...]
Police suspect Kristen was abducted from the parking lot, about a kilometre from her home, as she walked home from school Thursday at about 2:45 p.m. They believe she lost the shoe in a struggle.
A Canada-wide alert has been issued for a plain cream- coloured Firebird or Camaro, a 1982 model or newer. Staff Sgt. MacLeod said a witness saw the car in the area when Kristen disappeared. Police previously had been looking for a blue van that approached a student from Holy Cross school on the day Terri Anderson disappeared.
Staff Sgt. MacLeod said other witnesses came forward yesterday but would not say how many.
[...]
"There has been a lot of paranoia among the parents and students, and this will only serve to heighten that fear," he said.
[...]
The cases of the three girls have many St. Catharines people speculating whether the abductions are the work of one person.
Police say they have no evidence to suggest a link. But Terri Anderson and Kristen French were abducted within two kilometres of each other in an area residents described as safe and a good place to raise children.
Terri's parents have been waiting for word from their daughter for almost five months. More than 100 sightings of a girl matching her description have been reported, but none has led to her.
"We hope there isn't a lunatic going around grabbing girls," said Terri's mother, Beth Pomeroy.
There have been few clues to Terri's disappearance, and Ms. Pomeroy says the longer their daughter is missing, the harder it is to keep faith that she will be found safe.
[...]
As 15 Niagara Region detectives spent their Easter Sunday investigating Kristen's disappearance, officers at the Ontario Provincial Police's Woodstock detachment marked the second anniversary of their investigation into the killing of University of Western Ontario student Lynda Shaw.
Ms. Shaw was returning to London on Easter Sunday, 1990, to write an exam but never arrived. Her body, stabbed, burned and beaten, was found in a farmer's field a week later. No arrests have been made, although in December the OPP released a composite sketch of a man wanted for questioning.
Two years ago Easter Monday, 14-year-old Julie Anne Stanton was last seen getting into a car near her Pickering home. A former family friend is in custody and faces first- degree murder charges, but Julie's body has never been found.
Last week an inquest into the death of Jonathan Yeo began in Hamilton. Police say Mr. Yeo killed two women last August, including Nina de Villiers, a McMaster University student who went missing while jogging near a Burlington racquet club. Her nude body was found a week later in a creek just outside of Kingston.
Mr. Yeo shot himself after a police chase last August. A Crown counsel has told the inquest investigators believe Mr. Yeo had attacked eight women since 1979.
Dr. Rocco de Villiers, the slain woman's father, says the level of violence against young women has become intolerable.
"It's getting to the point where you can't let your daughters out at all without a bodyguard," he said. "We hope and pray that the child is safe because we know the kind of hell the parents are going through now."
Almost a year later, Paul Bernardo was arrested for the murders of French and Mahaffey and for a number of rapes. The Globe and Mail ran the following front page story, by Timothy Appleby and Donn Downey, on Thursday, February 18, 1993.
Man charged in girls' slayings
Also accused of Scarboro attacks
After one of the most intensive investigations in Ontario history, an unemployed St. Catharines man has been charged in the grisly slayings of teen-agers Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy, along with a string of sexual assaults in Metro Toronto by a stalker dubbed "the Scarborough rapist."
Paul Bernardo, 28, was arrested at his home yesterday afternoon by the Green Ribbon task force of the Niagara Regional Police and other Southern Ontario forces, aided by members of the Metro Toronto Police sexual- assault squad.
A second man was being sought in the French killing. "We know who the person is," said Niagara Inspector Vince Bevan, who heads the task force.
A police source said last night that DNA evidence had been instrumental in the laying of the murder charges, and that at least one other unsolved homicide in Metro is now being re-examined. The case is that of Margaret McWilliam, a 21-year-old worker at a Scarborough senior citizens' home, who was killed in August of 1987 as she jogged through a wooded park near her home.
Mr. Bernardo was being returned to Toronto last night, and is to appear in court this morning. He faces charges of first-degree murder in the two slayings, as well as 16 sexual-assault charges in Scarborough.
The horrific deaths of Miss French and Miss Mahaffy, of St. Catharines and Burlington respectively, and the disappearance of several other young women had stirred wide fears that a serial killer was roaming Southwestern Ontario.
Asked last evening whether the sex attacks with which Mr. Bernardo is charged included those of the Scarborough Rapist, whose assaults sparked a high-profile manhunt until they abruptly ended nearly three years ago, a spokesman for Metro's sexual-assault squad replied, "They certainly are saying that on TV now, and I didn't get angry."
[...]
Leslie was last seen in June of 1991 after making a late- night call from a variety-store pay phone a few blocks from her Burlington home. Two weeks later her dismembered body was discovered encased in concrete in Lake Gibson, south of St. Catharines.
Kristen was seen the following April 16 being dragged into a cream- coloured car by two unidentified men as she crossed a churchyard on her way home from school in St. Catharines.
Her naked body was found two weeks later in a ditch in Burlington, a half-hour's drive from St. Catharines. Her hair had been cropped, and police later confirmed she had been kept alive until a day or so before her body was found. She had been sexually assaulted.
Police said Mr. Bernardo's late-model gold Nissan was being combed for clues yesterday.
Mr. Bernardo and his wife, a veterinarian, live in Port Dalhousie, a section of St. Catharines. They moved there from Metro Toronto in the spring of 1991, police said.
The 16 charges of sexual assault that he faces in Metro Toronto relate in part to a series of eight brutal, well- planned attacks in Scarborough between May, 1987, and May, 1990.
All involved the use of a knife by a man who accosted his victims as they walked alone at night, usually after alighting from a transit vehicle. Another common denominator was that all the women were ordered not to look at their assailant.
The first two attacks took place in May of 1987. Two occurred in December, 1987, one in April of 1988, and another the following December. Then there was a nine-month hiatus, until the man struck again in August of 1989, and then once again in May, 1990.
U.S. investigators put together a detailed psychological picture of the attacker, and a $150,000 reward for his conviction was offered, but the trail appeared to go cold after the incident in May of 1990.
It was not clear whether the other eight attacks with which Mr. Bernardo is charged conformed to that pattern.
The Green Ribbon investigation was far larger in scope - thousands of tips were followed up and hundreds of people interviewed - and it was dogged by controversy almost from the start. Amid accusations that the police had bungled, and withheld information that could have helped solve the case, one persistent rumour was that the Ontario Provincial Police were going to step in.
Last October, investigators believed they were on the verge of a breakthrough in the French case when they broadcast a 911 call made in June by a man who said he had overheard two men talking about Kristen's killing. Later, however, they decided the information had "no substance."
[...]
The designated spokesman for the Green Ribbon task force would say last night only that an unidentified man had been arrested. Confirmation that Mr. Bernardo had been charged came from the Metro Toronto Police, who together with the task force scheduled a press conference for this morning.
[...]
Another neighbour said she witnessed the arrest yesterday afternoon when plainclothes officers with guns in their hands descended on the scene.
"Eight or ten of them surrounded the house, then they entered the house." A few minutes later, police emerged with Mr. Bernardo, who she said was handcuffed and offered no resistance.
Over the next few months, the remaining misconceptions about the crimes were laid to rest, a process that culminated in the trial of Karla Homolka. Gay Abbate wrote about the trial result in the Wednesday, July 7, 1993 Globe and Mail.
Homolka found guilty
Judge says he understands public's "righteous outrage"
Karla Homolka (Teale) wept yesterday as she was sentenced to 12 years in prison for her role in the deaths of Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French.
In a forceful, passionate judgment, Mr. Justice Francis Kovacs of the Ontario Court's General Division found the 23- year-old veterinary assistant guilty of two counts of manslaughter in connection with the sex slayings of the two teen-agers.
However, he said he believed she was capable of rehabilitation.
He imposed a 12-year sentence for each count, to be served concurrently. He also banned her for life from owning firearms, ammunition or any like substances. While the maximum sentence for manslaughter is life in prison, the judge noted the maximum "is reserved for worst offences committed by worst offenders." Ms. Homolka "has committed the worst crime. However, she is not the worst offender, for whom the maximum sentence is designed." He also said that "no sentence I can impose would adequately reflect the revulsion of the community in the death of the young girls who lived lives beyond reproach. I understand the outrage the community feels, and rightly so."
Under legislation that took effect in November, Judge Kovacs could have ordered that Ms. Homolka serve at least half her 12-year sentence before becoming eligible for parole.
[...]
As police escorted Judge Kovacs from the courthouse, an angry group of onlookers booed and hurled insults, calling: "Is that what you mean by justice?"
Residents of St. Catharines and nearby Burlington, the home towns of the victims, reacted angrily. "There's no way you can tell me 12 years justifies the killing of these two girls," said Dave Sabourin, 29, a landscape-company owner in St. Catharines.
[...]
Under the publication ban ordered by Judge Kovacs, details of evidence about the killings may not be reported. The judge said that Mr. Teale's right to a fair trial unsullied by publicity was paramount, and that the ban would last until his trial is completed.
(Ms. Homolka and Mr. Teale changed their names from Bernardo to Teale in February, but Ms. Homolka has resumed the use of her birth name.)
Details from an agreed statement of facts by the Crown and defence also may not be reported except for their recommendation that the sentence be 12 years. No witnesses were called to testify.
Judge Kovacs also prohibited publication of "the circumstances of the deaths of any persons referred to during the trial." Besides the Mahaffy and French deaths, the court heard mention of the death on Christmas Eve, 1990, of Ms. Homolka's 14-year-old sister Tammy.
Also included in the ban are the contents of the victim- impact statements, and details of any agreement the Crown may have made with Ms. Homolka for her testimony at her husband's trial.
Lawyers had suggested last week during arguments for and against a publication ban that Ms. Homolka would plead guilty. She entered a plea yesterday, but the ban prevents disclosure of what it was.
Leslie Mahaffy, 14, was last seen outside a convenience store in Burlington in June, 1991. Her dismembered body, encased in concrete, was discovered two weeks later in a lake near St. Catharines.
Kristen French, 15, was abducted from a parking lot on April, 1992, on her way home from school. Her naked body was found in a ditch in rural Burlington two weeks later. She had been sexually assaulted and asphyxiated. Police later determined she had been alive until shortly before her body was found. The courtroom was filled with emotion during the day-long conclusion of the five-day trial. It was open only to accredited Canadian reporters, relatives of the victims, Ms. Homolka's family and lawyer Timothy Breen, representing Mr. Teale.
Crown attorney Murray Segal described the circumstances of the two girls' deaths and the mothers of the two victims read statements outlining the impact the murders have had on their families.
Members of the Mahaffy and French families cried as they listened to details of how the two girls were slain, prompting Judge Kovacs to call for a break so they could compose themselves.
Some reporters also shed tears, and others fought to hold them back.
Ms. Homolka's younger sister Lori cried as her sibling was sentenced.
In giving his reasons for sentence, Judge Kovacs said that Ms. Homolka had co-operated with police.
"The accused gave significant and perhaps invaluable information to the police," he said. "There are serious unsolved crimes here and elsewhere. . . . Crown also considered, quite properly, her (Ms. Homolka's) past assistance and her future assistance."
He added that the Crown weighed three factors before laying the manslaughter charges: Ms. Homolka gave information to police that would otherwise not be known; she did not personally cause any deaths, although she is responsible in law and in fact; and the public interest.
The pieces were now in place for a curious public and opponents of the ban. It was only a matter of days before a Usenet newsgroup was created for people who wanted to discuss the case, the ban, the murders, and more frivolous issues.