Killers like Bernardo continue to ‘haunt communities’ says U of T sociologist

Growing up in a Niagara Falls suburb, I enjoyed an idyllic childhood filled with unfettered outdoor playtime and long, meandering walks to and from school, often alone. Parental supervision was limited in my neighbourhood. We played outside with our friends until the street lights came on or you heard your mother calling your name from a pried window.

This period of blissful freedom was halted by Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, although it would be years before their names would ring with infamy.

On Friday, Bernardo was back in the news after applying for day parole.

But twenty-five years ago, his horrific crimes rattled us from the Niagara Region to the Greater Toronto Area.

On June 1991, on the same day that Bernardo and Homolka were married in Niagara-On-The-Lake, the body parts of one of their victims, Leslie Mahaffy, were found encased in cement in a small lake near St. Catharines. She was just 14.

In April 1992, Bernardo and Homolka kidnapped 15-year-old Kristen French in St. Catharines. Her body was discovered in north Burlington a few weeks later.

With the culprits still at large, my neighbourhood changed.

Accustomed to walking to school, we were now ushered to and from by our parents in cars. They waited out front to ensure we entered school safely.

Police at the time said they were seeking a cream-coloured Camaro in connection to French’s abduction; anyone with a car resembling that make and model became an instant suspect, eyed suspiciously by neighbours once considered friends.

At the same time, police in Scarborough were searching for the “Scarborough Rapist”, even interviewing Bernardo at one point for the crimes he would later confess to.

My experience was not unique. Earlier today, CityNews asked viewers to share how the case impacted their lives on Facebook.

Donna Dee was 12 at the height of the investigation and living in Hamilton. “I remember all of our parents and teachers freaking out and telling us girls to walk in groups, never walk home alone from school, and look out for a cream-coloured Camaro. The memories are still vivid in my mind. I’m almost 36 now.”

Summer was in her 30s and working in Scarborough when the serial rapist was at large.

“There was total fear if you were a female walking alone, walking to your car alone, every male you saw fitting his description would make your nape hairs stand up!”

Rebecca Shier had to take the subway home alone at night from her job in Toronto. She called it a “terrifying time to be a woman … I carried a knife and jumped at shadows.”

It wouldn’t be until May 1993 that Bernardo and Homolka were charged, but the psychological damage was done.

Their eventual convictions would change the way police and the courts handled sexual assault cases. And for many families in quiet subdivisions throughout southern Ontario, it changed their worlds.

Jooyoung Lee, an assistant professor with the University of Toronto’s Department of Sociology, studies the impact violent crimes and murders can have on families and communities.

“One of the things that happens in the wake of violent crimes and murders is that people become folk detectives and there is a veil of suspicion that kind of eats away at the trust and the neighbourly relations in a community,” he told CityNews.ca.

“For these periods of time you have friends and family members and community members and co-workers and people who kind of know each other as acquaintances, who begin to look at each other differently because there’s a sense that there’s a killer among us.”

“It really has a lasting kind of impact in planting seeds of distrust.”

Parents also change, safeguarding their children at all costs.

“It definitely increases their vigilance and makes them less likely to trust. Even people who are considered friends and neighbours are cast in a new light,” Lee said. “It kind of underscores every parent’s worst nightmare.”

The toll extends to children who can often be confused by the sudden vigilance, and even more frightened by the realization that they too are potential victims of horrible crimes.

“Children when confronted with murder, their sense of immortality is shattered,” Lee said. “And so up until a certain age, young people don’t really think about death and dying and they don’t contemplate that they can become a victim of violence.”

Lee says Bernardo’s application for day parole not only traumatizes the family members of victims, but entire communities.

“When people appeal a case or they are up for parole, what ends up happening is the community is re-traumatized and they experience some of the same lingering grief anew, and it’s sort of like a deep wound that has had time to kind of heal over time, but then the scab kind of gets ripped off again.

“Family members and parents never get over this sort of thing. These are scars that are permanent.”

Convicted killers like Bernardo most likely won’t see the light of day again. But in some ways, they still walk among us, Lee says.

“They are like ghosts that continue to haunt communities. People have memories of these vicious crimes and these memories get passed on over generations.”

Hundreds of people have shared their painful memories about the case and how it shaped their lives. Join the conversation here.