Stephen Williams

A definitive true-crime account unravels the facade behind the unsettling case of Paul and Karla Bernardo and the couple's seemingly storybook marriage, which involved kidnapping, imprisonment, and the murder of high-school girls to satisfy their sexual cravings. Reprint.

The Strange Case of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka

Invisible Darkness

Perfect for fans of Making a Murderer and The People v. O. J. Simpson, Invisible Darkness is the story of one of the more bizarre cases in recent memory—killings so sensational that they prompted the Canadian government, in the interests of justice, to silence its national press and to lock foreign journalists out of the courts. To all appearances, Paul and Karla Bernardo had a fairytale marriage: beautiful working-class girl weds bright upper-middle-class guy and they buy a fashionable dream house in the suburbs. But, bored with his straight, prestigious accounting job, Paul soon went freelance as an international smuggler. He also revealed his boredom with conventional sex—enough so that, one Christmas Eve, he persuaded his wife to drug her own sister and engage in a menage a trois, during which the sister died (a bungling coroner ruled her death accidental). The couple then upped the ante, kidnapping and imprisoning several high school girls for sexual marathons, which they videotaped before savagely murdering their captives. When the girls’ bodies were found, the police were stymied (although Paul had been accused of rape and given a DNA test that vanished for two years and only recently was linked to some fifty sexual-assault cases) until Karla tried to have her husband arrested for wife beating. During questioning, she confessed to the crimes and is now serving two concurrent twelve-year sentences for manslaughter in exchange for testifying against her husband, who was jailed for life.

The Strange Case Of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka

** spoiler alert **
           Oh my lord. I like to boast about America doing things bigger and better but you aren't playing around with your serial killers, Canada. I first heard about Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka from my husband who gave me the basics of the story which of course led to a wikipedia rabbit hole situation and eventually led to me reading Stephen Williams's classic work about the couple, the crimes, and all that those involve. The book is a narrative written in HIGHLY GRAPHIC play by play detail from accounts, letters, and the infamous videotapes; I read parts of the book out loud to my husband when I was extra grossed out only to see him almost gag in horror. 

Go away if you don't want to be spoiled.

Further.


Keep going.


OK. These puppies are sick. Like. HER OWN SISTER? I am horrified just thinking about it. And just everything. I mean, I sent my husband a text that was slightly in jest but honestly, I knew that Paul Bernardo was a fucking monster when I read that the person he looked up to and wanted to most be like was Vanilla Ice. Yes. Vanilla Ice. Like, you can't make this shit up.

And Karla, well, yeah. I knew she was sick as soon as she began "encouraging" her boyfriend to rape women. Oh and when she offered up her 15 year old virgin sister as a "wedding present" to Paul. Oh and like a bunch of other girls she did this to. Oh and the fact that the thing most upsetting about one of the rape/murders was that Paul and one of their victims drank from the couple's "special champagne glasses." I mean. I am spinning off the planet here. 

In conclusion, actual monsters in Niagara here, people. Oh and in case you were wondering the cops are as useless as ever.

Invisible Darkness The Strange Case of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka