When a girl became too ill, such as by being injured by repeat rape, or even as little as having lost their “prettiness,” they would be killed. They were known to kill any visitors who had large amounts of cash.
On suspicion of kidnapping young girls in the Guanajuato area, the police picked up a woman named Josefina Gutierrez, a procuress, and it is believed that she gave up the sisters. Upon searching the compound, police officers found the bodies of eleven males, eighty women and many fetuses, a total of ninety-one.
Investigations exposed that they would recruit prostitutes through help-wanted ads and then force them to work. The Gonzalez sisters were each sentenced to forty years in prison in 1964.
In prison, Delfina died due to an accident. Maria finished her sentence and dropped out of sight after her release. Although they are often cited as the killers, there were also two other sisters who helped in their crimes, Carmen and Maria Luisa. Carmen died in jail due to cancer. Maria Luisa went mad because she feared that she would be killed by angry protesters.
“As this happened almost fifty years ago and in a foreign country, it is unbelievably hard to obtain information about the crimes, considering almost 100 people were killed.”
Karla Homolka and
Paul Bernardo (Husband and Wife)
Karla Homolka, the eldest of three daughters, was born on May 4, 1970 in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, to Karel and Dorothy Homolka. Paul Bernardo was born on August 27, 1964 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to Marilyn and Kenneth Bernardo. Paul and Karla met in 1987 and married in 1991. Shortly after they married, it was all downhill from there. Author Note: I am not proud to say that this lovely couple is from my country.
Before they started their team rape and killings in 1991, Bernardo already had quite the history of rape, although he was not known to the authorities at that time. Between May 1987 and July 1990, he had raped eighteen young girls between the ages of fifteen and twenty-two.
His first murder victim was Tammy Homolka, Karla’s younger sister. Bernardo encouraged Karla to drug her sister. When she did, Bernardo raped her before she woke up. Several months later they drugged Tammy again and both of them raped her, but this time Tammy died after choking on her own vomit. The police ruled it an accidental death, not knowing that before they called 911, Bernardo and Homolka had redressed Tammy and removed any incriminating evidence. Tammy Homolka died at the tender age of fifteen on December 23, 1990.
Meet Leslie Mahaffy, a young girl, only fifteen, born on July 5, 1976, and murdered on June 16, 1991. Two day before her death, Leslie went out for an evening with a few friends. Her curfew was 10 p.m. as the Scarborough rapist was active and like many parents, Leslie’s were afraid. Unfortunately, Leslie was having fun with the girls and ignored the ground rules set up by her parents. Her parents anticipated that she would break curfew and decided to teach her a lesson which they would forever regret. Leslie arrived home after 2 a.m. to find herself locked out of the house. She did not know what to do so she called a friend to see if she could stay over, but her friend’s mom told her to go home and face the consequences.
Bernardo was crouched behind a car when Leslie came strolling by. Carrying a hunting knife, he forced her into his car and drove her to his house where he undressed her, blindfolded her, and videotaped her naked. He was going to have vaginal intercourse with Leslie but he ejaculated prematurely. When Karla woke up, he gave her instructions on how he wanted her to have sex with Leslie while he videotaped. This done, he instructed the submissive Karla to film him while he sodomized Leslie. The brute power of his anal penetration caused Leslie to cry hysterically. After twenty-four hours of disgusting rape and torture, the couple killed Leslie and, later that night, Bernardo used a circular saw to dismember her body and place her in cement.
On June 29, 1991, a couple enjoying canoeing trip on Lake Gibson spotted a concrete block in the water. The cement block had what looked like animal flesh coming out of the cracks. There were anglers on the bank; they were asked to help retrieve the cement block. After splitting it with a crowbar, they were devastated when they saw a foot and the calf of a human crawling with maggots.
Enter Kristen French, born May 10, 1976, a beautiful fifteen year old young girl. On April 16, 1992, one month shy of her 16 birthday, she was walking home from school when Homolka lured her over to her car on the pretense of asking for directions. As Kristen was giving directions on the map, Bernardo, brandishing a knife, attacked her from behind and forced her into the car. This hostage-taking was observed by several witnesses. A BOLO was sent out to all units and a sketch was prepared of Bernardo by a witness. Kristen was kept for three days, being raped and tortured while the couple videotaped it all, and was forced to drink large quantities of alcohol before she was killed by Bernardo and Homolka. She was found in a ditch on April 30, but as she was not dismembered, the investigators did not believe it was the same person who had killed Leslie Mahaffy.
The Green Ribbon Task Force was set up by the police with Superintendent Vincent Bevan taking the lead. The F.B.I. in the U.S. was consulted in an effort to profile the rapist. Citizens were concerned and kept their children at home. In the meantime, after the death of Kristen French, the newlywed-killing-duet moved to the Niagara Falls area.
As the drawing sketch of the rapist was plastered on TV, in post offices, in stores, and sidewalks, the police received calls saying that the man they were looking for resembled a man named Paul Bernardo. The investigators went to Bernardo’s home where he claimed he was not the rapist/killer but admitted that, yes, the picture did resemble him, which he said was embarrassing.
While the detectives were there, they noted that the car in the driveway looked nothing like the Capri which witnesses had seen, but instead was a Nissan. Paul Bernardo, therefore, was not considered a suspect. Police were no further ahead and Bernardo continued his spree of rape and murder of teenage girls.
By February, 1993, Bernardo made a mistake that would put him in the limelight as a suspect. After he blackened both eyes of Homolka and knocked out several of her teeth, she called 911. The police in Niagara Falls took her to the hospital and began investigating the matter. Karla was admitted to hospital and her uncle came to visit her. She whispered to him that Bernardo had killed Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French and went on to tell her uncle that he was indeed the Scarborough Rapist.
The next day, on February 11, 1993, Homolka’s lawyer, George Walker, met with Director, Murray Segal, of the Crown Criminal Law Office. Walker told Segal that they had videotapes of the rapes, and Segal advised Walker that, considering Homolka's involvement in the crimes, full immunity was unlikely.
Paul was arrested and charged with the murders of Mahaffy and French and the rapes of several young girls. It was not until the 19 of February that police were granted a warrant to search Benardo’s and Homolka’s house. They did not, however, find any videotapes as Homolka had claimed. They did find a complete register in Bernardo’s
