Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo met in 1987, when he was 23 and she was 17. They married in 1991, six months after they raped and killed Karla’s little sister, Tammy, and two weeks after abducting, raping and killing 14- year-old Leslie Mahaffy. The following year in April of 1992, 15-year-old Kristen French was the next young lady unlucky enough to cross paths with the Bernardos, and her fate would be the same as that of Tammy Lyn Homolka, and Ms. Mahaffy.

Three months after Paul and Karla met, a series of brutal rapes began in Scarborough, Toronto, a large suburban area where Paul Bernardo lived. The DNA evidence which would link Bernardo to these crimes sat untested on a shelf in a Toronto lab for over two years; finally on February 1, 1993, The Toronto Metro police got three positive DNA matches to Paul Bernardo for the Scarborough rapes.

Bernardo and Homolka videotaped themselves sexually assaulting Ms. Mahaffy and Ms. French, and Karla’s sister, Tammy, but a months-long evidence search of Paul and Karla's home would fail to produce those tapes. Nothing tied Bernardo to the murders except Homolka's word, and the persistent myth about this case is that the highly unpopular plea bargain arrangement sentencing Karla Homolka to the sum total of two concurrent twelve year sentences for manslaughter in exchange for testifying against her partner-in-crime, would never have been approved—if only the police had been able to find the couples' private video stash when they searched their home.

After a two year investigation beginning with the death of Leslie Mahaffy, and the addition of a large and costly task force, Inspector Vince Bevan, the man whose job it was to apprehend the perpetrators of the French/Mahaffy murders, had clues he could not decipher and little else. An officer of Bevan’s rank should know that eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable; nevertheless, based on the statements of a few eyewitnesses who reported seeing two men in a cream-colored Camaro near the site of Kristen French’s abduction, the Inspector threw all his efforts and the bulk of the task force resources into a futile search for a just such a car.

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.

But police Inspectors don't have the authority to arrange highly unpopular plea-bargain deals. For that you need someone of the highly unpopular lawyer profession.

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. One of 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.”

As of mid-to-late December 1992, while Paul Bernardo is busy womping his wife Karla in the head with a flashlight, not too many miles away RCMP criminal profiler Ron Mackay is perusing a paper which explains how some nasty men the FBI dubs “sexual sadists” sometimes force their itty-bitty wives and/or girlfriends to assist them in their heinous deeds. Additionally, this paper is an assessment of the psychological factors which predispose these women to seek out these men, and this is the material Ron Mackay just happens to be reading when he is called upon to help explain the curious dynamic that turned big, mean Paul Bernardo and his pretty little wifelet Karla Homolka into a rape-and-murder-team.

Given his reading habits, it all makes perfect sense to Ron Mackay—by the way, Ron Mackay will not actually meet Karla Homolka until a year after Paul Bernardo's trial has ended. Ron Mackay will never meet with Paul Bernardo, but still, he's certain he's got a handle on this thing, so Ron Mackay contacts Inspector Bevan and tells him all about “Compliant Victims of the Sexual Sadist”—catchy title, hunh ?

It’s good enough for the Inspector, who has been steadily going through the coffers of a tax-payer funded task force with nothing to show for it. Enter Karla Homolka. And Ron Mackay, and even our old friend Michael Code, and just in time too, as Bevan comes that close to losing an on-again, off-again pissing contest with the Toronto Metro police, 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 a multi-million dollar investigation and potential prosecution straight into the crapper by prematurely “popping” a man like Paul Bernardo.

However, once Bernardo was properly 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.

It was Michael Code's position, and by extension the Management Committee's, that the murders must be dealt with first and since you seem like a reasonable sort you're probably wondering, why? Paul Bernardo's not going anywhere, so why not prosecute the crimes for which there is actual, physical evidence, win convictions on those charges and then proceed from there, hmmm ?

Well there is a reason, it's not a good reason but we need to press on so for the moment let's just say that while Bevan was short on actual evidence against Paul Bernardo for murder, 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 delivering her to Michael Code and the Management Committee.

Of course, Bevan also had the word of Dr. Stephen Hucker.

Dr. Stephen Hucker, a forensic psychologist who works primarily with those incarcerated in the Canadian prison system, 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 "Issues in the Diagnosis of Sexual Sadism", a paper written by Dr. Hucker and Dr. William Marshall in 2006, Dr. Hucker states:

"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 some of you are just making stuff up as you go along. And what was that thing you said 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.

Based on Dr. Hucker's word he met the necessary criterion to be diagnosed as a sexual sadist, shortly after his trial Paul Bernardo was declared a "Dangerous Offender", a designation which allows the Crown to indefinitely extend his original 25-year prison term. And in case you were wondering, Paul Bernardo was indeed, one of the subjects included in Dr. Hucker's study.

Dr. Stephen J. Hucker provided the expert testimony which closed the deal that Michael Code and the Management Committee initiated because 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.

But prior to the study from which would come the "Issues in the Diagnosis of Sexual Sadism" paper where Dr. Hucker appears to be recanting everything he said in 1995—before the study he himself conducted, and from which he concluded that the diagnosis of sexual sadism as it was being applied in the Canadian prison system was likely a violation of an offender's rights—before then, that Dr. Stephen J. Hucker-—never met Paul Bernardo before in his life.

From Feb. 17, 1993 to the present, Paul Bernardo's had no counseling, therapy, etc, whatsoever; if the sexual sadist diagnosis by forensic psychologist Dr. Stephen Hucker led to the Dangerous Offender status that put him in solitary confinement for life, was and/or is, suspect--unless I'm wrong, and some people are disposable--then somebody should be looking at this again.