Paul Bernardo's Case Study

A young 17 year old girl named Karla Homolka met 23 year old Paul Bernardo at a restaurant in 1987. By late 1989 Paul and Karla were engaged as a happy couple, while Bernardo was raping numerous women in the Scarborough region with Homolka’s approval. In total, he admitted to sexually assaulting 14 women and being related to 53 charges in total. Paul wanted Karla’s younger sister’s virginity

AIDWYC lawyers James Lockyer and Joanne McLean realized what had happened to Anthony while they were reviewing another wrongful conviction case. James and Joanne discovered that Paul Bernardo had confessed to the crime for which Anthony pleaded guilty. The officers who followed up on Bernardo’s confession later wrote that “Paul Bernardo is the person responsible for committing this offence…. [He] provided accurate details of the offence, details that would only be known to the person responsible for committing [it].” (Pazzano, Toronto Sun) AIDWYC officially took Anthony’s case in early 2008.

forensic identification technique today1. It is the case of analyzing and profiling a DNA sample

The Bernardo and Homolka investigation was and continues to be one of the largest, and most influential police investigations in Ontario’s history. Between 1987 and 1992, Bernardo sexually assaulted no less than eighteen women in Scarborough, Peel, and St. Catharines. Furthermore, Bernardo and Homolka killed three women in St. Catharines and Burlington. The investigation was subject to a judicial review in 1996 by the Honourable Justice Campbell.

Based on many facts, Paul Bernardo is a true dangerous offender. He sexually assaulted many women over a period of many years and then his criminal behaviour escalated to the murders of at least three girls. “He demonstrated a pattern of repetitive behaviour of brutal sexual assaults which showed that he would, in all likelihood, continue such behaviour and so was a threat to the life, and/or well being of others. Throughout the trial Bernardo remained unmoved and showed a lack of remorse. He acknowledged his guilt in the sexual assaults and that he was unable to control his sexual urges.”(NBC. MSNBC, 21 May 2002) Bernardo denied murdering French and Mahaffy blaming

Today in the crime world, DNA evidence is strongly accepted in solving crime cases. This is all based in part by allowing a crime laboratory to have a designated unit whose main goal is to analyze DNA evidence to aid investigators with positive outcomes in crime case solving. With that being said we are going to discuss the functions of a DNA unit within a crime lab as well as address the vital role these units play in solving crime.

During a span of three days’ time they videotaped themselves raping and torturing the poor girl, forcing her to consume huge amounts of alcohol at a time and to behave submissive to Paul. On the third day, they beat her gruesomely and strangled her until she died. Kristen French’s body wasn’t discovered until April 30th, 1992, laying in a ditch naked in Burlington. After hearing these three incidents in particular I got a sense that Karla Homolka was in fact jealous of the girls they picked as victims. The girls were young, smart, beautiful, pure and intelligent. They possessed many qualities that Karla did not and that is probably why she helped choose them. Paul Bernardo in my opinion just wanted to take away purity. The girls were so young and pure that Paul looked at them as objects

Plea bargains compromise justice by allowing the guilty to receive minimal sentences for heinous crimes and instills fear in the innocent. The implication that crimes are tolerable causes criminals to only be held responsible for a small portion of the crime. Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo, known as the “Ken and Barbie killers”, raped numerous teenage girls in the Scarborough area from 1987 to 1995 when they were finally convicted. These two individuals remain one of the most notorious killers in Canada’s history because of their unjustifiable murders to three young women, including Homolka’s own little sister. Paul Bernardo, often referred to as the “Scarborough Rapist”, began raping women in the Scarborough area (MacQuarrie 239). When Homolka and Paul met each other, she encouraged his sexual fantasies and played a major role in the raping and murders of three teenage girls; Tammy Homolka, 15, Leslie Mahaffy, 14, and Kristen French, 15 (Mellor 312-318). In 1990, Homolka and Bernardo took the life of Karla’s fifteen year old sister, Tammy Homolka. Karla wanted to give Tammy’s, her younger sisters, virginity to Paul for Christmas, hence, they caused her to be highly intoxicated and slipped valium into her drink. Subsequently, they vaginally and anally raped her for about a minute until she began to vomit. Tammy choked on her own vomit and died as a result of this

DNA testing is a critical and accurate tool in linking accused and even convicted criminals for crimes, and should be widely used to assess guilt or innocence before jail sentences are imposed. It was started up by scientists Francis C. Crick and James D, Watson in 1953 as they had described the uses, structures and purpose of the DNA “deoxyribonucleic acid” genetic fingerprint that contains organism information about an individual (testing

The case of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka is one of the most profound cases in Canada. Paul Bernardo is known as a Canadian serial killer and rapist, specifically in the southern Ontario area. He came from a home of abuse and neglect. Despite his childhood, he graduated from University of Toronto in the Scarborough area with a commerce and economics degree. This proved that Paul was an intelligent intellectual who was seen as the “average” in society. In October of 1987, Paul met Karla Homolka after recently breaking up with his former girlfriend. At this point in his life he became the Scarborough rapist who is widely known today.

Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka were once seen as the perfect couple. Not only did Homolka’s family think that Bernardo was a very attractive young man, they enjoyed the fact that he was an accountant who was capable of providing for their daughter. Bernardo on the other hand was able to manipulate everyone around him into thinking he was the perfect gentleman. At one point in time he was even able to trick police officers into thinking that there was no possible way of him being the Scarborough rapist. Homolka knew the true side of Paul Bernardo, the side where he lusted over young innocent girls and tried to take advantage of them. Instead of telling people about Bernardo’s unusual and uncomfortable sexual fantasies, Homolka would actually

DNA forensics can also narrow down suspect pools, exonerate innocent suspects, and link crimes together if the same DNA is found at both scenes. However, without existing suspects, a DNA profile cannot direct an investigation because current knowledge of genotype-phenotype relation is too vague for DNA phenotyping. For example, a profile from a first time offender that has no match in any database may give the information that the criminal is a left handed male of medium stature with red hair and freckles. It would be impossible to interview every man who fits that description. However, with available suspects, DNA forensics has many advantages over other forms of evidence. One is the longevity of DNA. Although it will deteriorate if exposed to sunlight, it can remain intact for centuries under proper conditions (Sachs, 2004). Because DNA is so durable, investigators can reopen old cases to reexamine evidence.

Due to the uniqueness of DNA it has become a powerful tool in criminal investigations

DNA profiling technologies have had a considerable impact on how forensic science and criminal investigation have been understood, carried out, and regulated in the last 25 years. Current methods of forensic DNA profiling (known also as DNA fingerprinting and DNA typing), based on Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) amplifications of a varying number of Short Tandem Repeat (STR) loci found at different locations on the human genome, are regularly described as constituting the “gold standard for identification” in contemporary society. Prior to the implementation of PCR based extraction and amplification methods in the 1990’s, the initial uses of DNA fingerprinting (based on Multiple and Single Locus Probes) were largely confined to reactive

Forensic science more than often deals with DNA fingerprinting being used as a technique to identify the offender of a crime in a particular case. The DNA fingerprint maybe RFLP, VNTR or STR. RFLP stands for Restriction Length Fragment Polymorphism. VNTR stands for Variable Number of Tandem Repeats. STR stands for Short Tandem Repeats. RFLP was the first DNA fingerprinting method. STR is currently the most popular fingerprinting method. These DNA fingerprinting techniques require restriction enzymes that are obtained from the bacteria, which are used to cut the DNA into smaller fragments at different loci. We also require agarose gel obtained from seaweed and nylon membrane or sheet. Electric current is required so that it can be passed on