hunter: parole board documents reveal a delusional paul bernardo
not surprisingly, the schoolgirl killer's latest bid for parole was promptly torpedoed
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convicted serial killer paul bernardo has made little headway against the demons that have plagued him during his 25 years in the joint.bernardo, 56, jailed for life and with dangerous offender status tagged on, was caged in 1996 for murdering schoolgirls leslie mahaffy and kristen french.last week, he made another bid for parole that was promptly torpedoed.but a stroll through his parole board of canada report obtained by the toronto sun is the most concrete evidence that at least one half of the barbie and ken killers should die in prison.
for starters, jailhouse headshrinkers diagnosed the scarborough rapist as carrying a tractor-trailer load of woes: “sexual sadism, voyeurism, other paraphilias, narcissistic personality disorder, and psychopathy.”the psychiatrist examining bernardo was blunt: these conditions are not treatable.and besides, after decades rotting in prison, he still refuses to take responsibility. doesn’t see it.to quote the paperwork: “(in 2000) you claimed that while you had committed the kidnappings and sexual assaults, your wife (now ex-wife karla homolka) was responsible for the killings.”well, okay, most people think that is a definite possibility.yet again, when he was smuggling smokes and booze across the niagara frontier, bernardo said the feds were the only victims.
paul bernardo, left, and karla homolka on their june 1991 wedding day.
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and no matter what was going on in the serial killer’s life, he admitted to jailhouse psychiatrists the one thing that always made him feel better was sex.on most counts, bernardo, according to the parole board, might seem an ideal candidate for release. but when you burrow down to page seven, the report states the obvious: paul bernardo is a psychopath.another problem is the convicted killer’s roaring sex drive, which remains an issue despite years in the slammer. even bernardo admits he has “problematic sexual interests.”but, again, he offers up twisted justifications and blames “male privilege sexism.”“the facilitator noted that you have difficulty accepting feedback, particularly if you disagreed, and that you viewed the majority of your problems as being caused by others,” the board wrote in its decision.by and large, bernardo’s behaviour behind bars has been good.then again, there’s those damned women. a number of jailhouse annie’s remain entranced by bernardo, only to flee when he ramps up the sexual content in their communications.
kristen french, left, and leslie mahaffy were murdered by paul bernardo.
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ultimately, the parole board said psychologists who have treated bernardo determined the sex fiend remains “heavily invested in finding an alternative explanation for your criminal behaviour, such as your belief that your offences were caused by an anxiety disorder (developed as a child).”in his 2015 assessment, a prison therapist reported that bernardo retains all the markers of a monster.more recently, a psychological risk assessment dated april 28, 2020, rated him at low risk for general recidivism.as for sexual recidivism, the verdict was high.“it is beyond debate that you are a high-risk offender,” the report stated.so, no matter bernardo’s denials, obfuscation, blame-shifting and other items in the tool kit of a psychopath, the parole board isn’t buying it.in a system frequently hammered for being hard on victims and soft on criminals, no one at the parole board or the correctional service of canada appears to be embracing any nutty notions for bernardo.for once, they have a killer’s number: paul bernardo is a stone-cold psychopath who will likely gasp his last breath behind drab prison walls.bhunter@postmedia.com@huntertosun
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