...it was money and politics and egos...

Enter Inspector Bevan.

At the time of Kristin French's disappearance in 1992, Inspector Vince Bevan was a 20-year veteran of the police force in Niagara, which only goes to prove that nepotism and ambition often have a way of eclipsing talent:  in spite of the fact he had comparatively little field experience and was generally viewed among the rank and file as inept and incompetent when it came to actual criminal investigation, because his father had been a senior member of the Niagara Regional force and because he was something of an unoriginal thinker who took orders well, Vince Bevan was promoted to the position of Inspector; kids, be sure to tell your parents about Inspector Bevan the next time they say you need to study harder.

Enter Michael Code.

In Karla: Pact With the Devil, author Stephen Williams writes: "Just before he joined the Ministry of the Attorney General in 1992, (Michael) Code had established himself as one of the finest criminal lawyers in the country.  Although many of the lawyers at Code's law firm could be described as left-leaning, liberals, or social democrats, in Michael Code's case he was a card-carrying member of the New Democratic Party.  In early 1992, he did the unthinkable for an accomplished criminal defense lawyer and went over to the other side. One of Michael Code's first official acts was the approval of a million dollars to facilitate the formation of Inspector Bevan's nascent Green Ribbon Task Force. Intermittently, between May, 1992, and February, 1993, when Paul Bernardo was arrested, Inspector Bevan returned to the trough.  Code approved numerous subsequent requests for millions upon millions of dollars to support what had become the largest police task force in Canadian law enforcement history."

Okay, if you're keeping score at home, so far we have a blowhard nincompoop of an Inspector officiating not only the largest criminal investigation and task force ever assembled on Canadian soil, but also the most heavily tax-payer funded. And we have a new, overly-ambitious Assistant Deputy Minister of the Attorney General; having in effect deserted every honorable inclination he ever had in service of political ambition, when Karla Homolka comes into his life in 1993, it's fair to say Michael Code has something to prove.

Enter FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood.

Roy Hazelwood is a clean-cut, Bible-carrying Texan with 20 plus years experience in law enforcement; when we meet Mr. Hazelwood he is working in the Behavioral Sciences Unit at FBI headquarters in Quantico, VA, made famous in the Jonathan Demme movie "Silence of the Lambs".  Agent Hazelwood's boss is his old friend and fellow profiler John Douglas, at that time Unit Chief of the BSU, and Chief Douglas also has recently been made famous by this film--the character of Clarice Starling's boss, Jack Crawford, is based on John Douglas. With the overwhelming success of "Silence of the Lambs", profiling is suddenly very hot; from the early 1990's on, profiling is becoming a billion dollar industry, and suddenly all the former comrades at the ol' BSU are now in competition for a chunk of that billion-dollar change.  

Douglas, unwittingly perhaps, set the standard, and now Robert Ressler, Gregg McCrary, and Roy Hazelwood are scrambling to become equally well-known for their profiling contributions. Ressler distinguished himself through his work studying John Wayne Gacy, Ed Kemper, and Jeffrey Dahmer, and Gregg McCrary is working directly under then Unit-Chief Douglas when he is consulted about the Scarborough Rapist, and later, specifically about Paul Bernardo; he is also, at this time, being groomed to take over the Unit Chief of the BSU position, since John Douglas is retiring soon. And small wonder, as Douglas can probably afford to retire, what with the numerous requests for well-paid speaking engagements and lectures he's receiving.  Now the once laidback, easy-going Roy Hazelwood has something to prove, but not to worry, he's been a busy bee studying a new criminal character he dubs the "Sexual Sadist", of whom he makes the boast that "they (his sexual sadists) have killed a lot more people than your big names, like Gacy or Dahmer".   

As it turns out, a few of Hazelwood's sexual sadists had female partners whom he also "studies", and while the Toronto Metro Police are getting positive DNA samples back on Paul Bernardo in connection with a number of rapes he's suspected of committing—and while Toronto Metro is embroiled in an on-again, off-again pissing contest with Niagara Regional and Inspector Bevan over who gets the golden Paul Bernardo "collar"—enter Ron Mackay, criminal profiler for the RCMP and coincidentally, former devoted pupil of mentor Roy Hazelwood. Tired ? Then let's press on.

As of mid-to-late December 1992, things are heating up in the Bernardo household: Paul Bernardo has just womped his wife Karla in the noggin with a flashlight and after the release of the famous "raccoon-eyes" photo taken of Homolka at the hospital, not too many miles away, Ron Mackay is perusing a first-run draft of a survey written by his profiling guru Roy Hazelwood, when suddenly he finds himself called upon to help explain the curious dynamic which seems to have turned big, mean Paul Bernardo and his pretty little wifelet Karla Homolka into a rape-and-murder-team.  You can almost see the light-bulb popping on in Ron Mackay's head: as a pupil doesn't serve a mentor well by remaining a pupil, from Canada Ron Mackay telephones his old profiling instructor Roy Hazelwood in TN, briefly—and proudly I imagine—giving him the rundown on what will come to be known as the case of the Ken and Barbie Killers.

Of this, Hazelwood will later state that perhaps now he can quit the BSU, go on the college lecture circuit, and "make some real money".

Which he does, and for 90 bucks a pop, former FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood will be happy to sign you up for a weekend seminar full of glossy graphics and complicated charts; naturally, you will also receive an autographed copy of his book, The Evil That Men Do, which includes his stunning insights into the mind of Karla Homolka--doesn't that sound like fun?

So—Ron Mackay tells Papa Hazelwood all, or as much as he knows, about Paul and Karla; you can almost see the light bulb popping on for Roy Hazelwood...that John Douglas thinks he knows so much...you understand, of course, Ron Mackay has never met Karla Homolka. Or Paul Bernardo. He's not even talking with Roy Hazelwood in person, they're on the telephone, for gosh sakes. Well it all sounds hunky-dory to Hazelwood, who then calls Dr. Stephen J. Hucker, one of the leading forensic psychiatrists in Canada, and a specialist in sex offender research and treatment, just to talk about compliant victims and sexual sadists and whatnot, like we all do—more on Dr. Stephen Hucker in a moment. Now having heard the Ol' Man say "Yup", (or whatever they say in Texas) Ron Mackay contacts Inspector Bevan and informs him of a then little-known unpublished draft of a survey called "Compliant Victims of the Sexual Sadist"—catchy title, hunh ?

It's good enough for the Inspector, whatever it is, because while all this has been going on, flashlight-womping and profiling-by-telephone and all, Bevan has been going through the coffers of the tax-payer funded Green Ribbon Task Force with nothing to show for it.  Enter Karla Homolka. And Ron Mackay and Roy Hazelwood, and even our old friend Michael Code, and just in time too, as Bevan comes that close to losing the on-again, off-again pissing contest with Toronto Metro for the golden Bernardo collar by prematurely arresting Paul Bernardo. Arresting the citizenry without proper evidentiary back-up is a law enforcement no-no; it's especially distressing to men like Michael Code when men like Inspector Bevan come just that close to sending an investigation and potential prosecution which has by now cost the taxpayers almost 11 million dollars straight into the crapper by prematurely "popping" a man like Paul Bernardo, essentially because a blonde, leggy member of the media called the Inspector "chicken". 

Enter the Management Committee.

With Bernardo finally behind bars and womped upside the head with a slew of charges for some rather nasty non-bailable offenses, Michael Code went about forming what was called the "Management Committee"; that 3-member panel, plus Michael Code, made the decision to separate the prosecution of the Scarborough rapes, which was Toronto Metro's purview and for which there was better evidence, from the prosecution of the Mahaffy/French murders which was Inspector Bevan's territory, and which had essentially no evidence on which to detain Paul Bernardo on murder or any other charges. But he did have Karla Homolka, the Inspector did, and "Compliant Victims of the Sexual Sadist" was the whitewash he used to spiff her up a bit before sheepishly delivering her to Michael Code and the Management Committee.

Now, I could tell you about Dr. Stephen Hucker and his contributions to this rich tapestry, and, I believe I will.  If you've made it this far, you'd want to know this anyway.

Enter Dr. Stephen Hucker.

Dr. Stephen Hucker is a forensic psychiatrist who works primarily with those incarcerated in the Canadian prison system.  He is best known and well  respected for his work in the field of sex offender treatment and research.  On September 16th and October 3rd, 1994, Dr. Hucker interviewed Karla Homolka for a total of ten hours.  In 1995, Dr. Hucker took the stand and said that Paul Bernardo suffered from multiple sexual and personality disorders, most notably, sexual sadism. "Sexual sadism", said Dr. Hucker, "is a particularly onerous diagnoses. It is at the extreme end. I would suggest it is extremely difficult to treat. I would think, in the present state of knowledge, his conditions are irremediable." Dr. Hucker also testified as to Karla Homolka's compliant victim status, and it is in large part because Dr. Hucker gave the compliant victim/sexual sadist theory his blessing in 1995 that both Bernardo and Homolka are where they are today.

Which makes it all the more interesting that by 2006, still working in the Canadian prison system and specifically at Kingston Prison where Paul Bernardo is housed--Dr. Stephen Hucker has changed his mind.

In a paper written by Dr. Hucker and Dr. William Marshall in 2006, "Issues in the Diagnosis of Sexual Sadism", Dr. Hucker states:

"Failure by clinicians to identify a true sadist might result in the offender's release from custody when he is in fact a real threat to the community. On the other hand, diagnosing a sexual offender as a sadist when he is not might result in continued or extended incarceration thereby jeopardizing the offender's rights. It is clear from these considerations that the diagnosis of sexual sadist (or the finding that an offender is not a sadist) has serious implications for both the proper protection of the community and for the rights of identified offenders."

Hmm.

Wait, there's more.

"As a result of our concerns about these matters, we took the first step of reviewing the extent literature. Unfortunately this review raised more concerns than it solved. We found that while most authors indicated they used the criteria specified by either the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM), or the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases (ICD), to diagnose their subjects, in fact the criteria they actually specified did not comply with either of these systems. Each researcher chose an idiosyncratic list of criteria which typically included some features from both DSM and ICD, but also included other features not mentioned in either of these texts."

Hmm? Oh, I see...wait...no, I don't see, I'm actually very confused, please go on, Dr. Hucker:

"As a result of the confusion we noted in our literature review regarding the criteria used to diagnose sexual sadists, we decided that further research was required. Our first step was to determine how effectively the diagnosis was applied in federal prisons in Canada. We examined the records in three prisons of all sexual offenders for whom a psychiatric appraisal was made over the period 1989-1998. From these records we identified evaluations of 59 sexual offenders with 41 being diagnosed as sexual sadists while the remaining 18 were given other diagnoses. It is important to note that the clinicians, whose diagnoses we examined in this study, were all respected and experienced forensic psychiatrists. We then compared those diagnosed as sadists with those who were identified as nonsadists, on the features we derived from our literature review.

We found that it was the nonsadists who displayed the so-called sadistic features."

Uh...okey-dokey...so what are ya saying there, Doc ?

"The results from this study revealed that the diagnosis of sexual sadism was not being applied in the Canadian prison service in a way that matched any of the criteria identified in the literature. When we examined each diagnostician's application of the criteria, it was evident that there was not only disagreement across diagnosticians in the criteria they considered relevant, there was no evident consistency within diagnosticians in the criteria they used."

Okay. So none of you guys agree on anything and I take it "idiosyncratic" means some of you are just making stuff up as you go along.  And what was that thing you were saying about...

"...diagnosing a sexual offender as a sadist when he is not might result in continued or extended incarceration thereby jeopardizing the offender's rights."

Yeah, that's it.

In case you were wondering, Paul Bernardo was indeed, one of the subjects included in this study.

But prior to that, Dr. Stephen J. Hucker, who provided the expert testimony which closed the deal that Michael Code and the Management Committee initiated because Roy Hazelwood and Ron Mackay assured them Karla Homolka was the compliant victim of sexual sadist Paul Bernardo which thereby allowed everyone to breathe a sigh of relief that Inspector Bevan's bungling hadn't brought the whole thing crashing to the ground—that Dr. Stephen J. Hucker, who spent ten hours at the Kingston Prison for Women interviewing Karla Homolka prior to Bernardo's trial, and who now appears to be recanting everything he said in 1995— 

Prior to Bernardo's inclusion in the study from which would come the "Issues in the Diagnosis of Sexual Sadism" paper, the paper written by the man whose opinions helped ensure Bernardo's conviction and Homolka's eventual release, until then, that Dr. Stephen J. Hucker—had never met Paul Bernardo before in his life.

***

Many people still believe that "if only" Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka's infamous sex tapes had been found when the police searched their home, the much decried plea bargain with Homolka, "the deal with the devil" as it's called, would not have been necessary.

Enter Justice Galligan.

Faced with protests and petitions, the Ontario government ordered an inquiry in late 1995; retired Ontario judge Patrick Galligan, whose official ruling deemed the plea bargain both necessary and proper, embraces the "if only" theory in his inquiry into the Homolka deal.

"We all know that had the videotapes been available to the authorities on May 14, 1993, the Crown would never have made this resolution agreement with Karla Homolka", says Galligan.

But that wasn't the case, according to the people who hammered out the deal.

Michael Code said so at the time.

In May 1995, Code wrote a memo in which he says the videos would have made little difference to the outcome. Homolka co-operated with police, telling them about the existence of the videos and describing their contents. Had they been found earlier, wrote Code, "instead of 12 years, the sentence might have been 14 or 15 years."

Author Stephen Williams says it is in the government's interest to perpetrate the myth of the videotapes.

"It confuses the public and takes the onus off the ministry of the attorney-general for making the deal with Homolka" he says. "But it is absolute and utter bull."

"There was another overwhelming concern as Justice Galligan duly records in his report. Huge weight was given to the idea that the murders had to be dealt with before the Scarborough rapes. Although I have no idea exactly why, it was an opinion that Michael Code firmly held and holds to this day."

"Even though the authorities had all the videotape evidence, eight months in advance of the beginning of Paul Bernardo's trial--and therefore no longer needed Karla's testimony to convict him--Karla's "credibility" as a witness was paramount, something that Code also steadfastly maintains."

Clear as mud, right ? Probably, it will only become muddier until it becomes clear, but evil prevails when good men do nothing, so let's have a crack at it.

Okay, first: the charges against Paul Bernardo were "preferred", which if I understand correctly, would be the American equivalent of sending someone to trial without a grand jury indictment, something more akin to the way our country shuttled detainees into Gitmo. Then there's the matter of Code's insistence the murder charges had to be dealt with first, and although they don't need her by this time, Michael Code maintains Karla's testimony is not merely important to the Crown's case but "paramount."

From a political point of view, perhaps to satisfy the public, it looks as though they need  Paul Bernardo tried and convicted and in the pokey ASAP; given the crimes, that's understandable, to a degree. But if that's so, then Karla's testimony being "paramount" makes no sense, as it resulted in Paul Bernardo's trial lasting far longer than it would've otherwise;  remember, time is money, and thanks to Inspector Bevan's bungling, too much money's been wasted already—by Michael Code.

So if they don't need Karla Homolka in order to convict Paul Bernardo, and they've moved heaven and earth and spent untold millions to bring Bernardo to trial, exactly what does Homolka bring to the table that they wouldn't have without her ?  

Enter Marc Lepine.

For 45 minutes on December 6, 1989 an enraged gunman roamed the corridors of Montreal's École Polytechnique; for reasons which may never be fully understood, Marc Lepine, aged 25, separated the men from the women and before opening fire on the classroom of female engineering students he screamed, "I hate feminists."  Lepine killed 14 women before turning the gun on himself; almost immediately, the Montreal Massacre became a galvanizing moment in which mourning turned into outrage about all violence against women.

Think of it as Canada's 9/11, and you begin to get an idea of just how far-reaching, and how far-removed, the effects of such an event might have been and might still be.

Journalist Christie Blatchford, who covered the Bernardo trial, writes, "It is interesting to remember that Homolka's kissy-face deal came under an Ontario attorney-general, Marion Boyd of the New Democratic government, of  whom it is probably fair to say she was on a self-appointed mission to educate the world about battered women, and that it was implemented and fine-tuned by a group of boys, the lawyers of the Crown law office."

The New Democrats, the ruling party at the time and the party Michael Code hitched the star of his legal ambitions to, was a feminist-controlled one. Feminism is more literally a political matter in Canada than it is in the United States, which means more tax dollars are funding the causes and programs it supports.  Naturally, one of those causes would be domestic violence programs, for which Karla Homolka looked like the poster-girl, for a little while, anyway. At the time there was quite a strong contingent of women who Michael Code would have answered to politically and officially, who insisted on the image of Homolka as a victim. And Michael Code, and by extension the Management Committee, certainly knew on which side their bread was buttered.

Karla Homolka is a woman. That's what she brings to the table. And everyone else involved wanted to protect their phoney-baloney jobs; that's what they bring.  I wish it were more mysterious than that, but it isn't.

Most people believe there was only one Deal with the Devil;  that may be technically correct in terms of Homolka's plea bargain in May 1993 but, in truth, there were two.

A second pivotal decision by Michael Code and the Management Committee on May 18, 1995, essentially gave Homolka the blanket immunity she sought from the outset, and this decision was made not so coincidentally on the eve of Bernardo's trial, with Homolka slated to be star witness for the prosecution.

Professor Alan Young of Osgoode Hall wrote in his 1996 legal opinion that the Crown acted "imprudently to strike a deal because the Green Ribbon Task Force  arrested Bernardo and charged him for the murders before they had a solid case. The deal struck was an act of desperation fuelled by the press release of the police indicating that they had caught the murderer."

That would be our old friend Inpector Bevan, there, issuing that press release. And it would be deal-with-the-devil architect Michael Code who rode in to his rescue, with child-killer Karla Homolka, in tow.

...it was money and politics and egos...

At the time of Karla Homolka's release from prison in 2005, Dalton McGuinty's Liberal Party was in power; Michael Code returned to private practice as defense counsel, but now spends his days molding young minds in the ways of Canadian jurisprudence.

In 2007, University of Toronto law professor Michael Code said, of the practice of plea-bargaining, ""It is the hidden underbelly of the justice system, and it does need to be talked about and dragged into the open."

He also says, it was and still is his belief that it wasn't in the public interest to prosecute Karla Homolka.

These days, Professor Code teaches ethics at the University of Toronto Law School. 

Insert your own punchline here.