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Doug french: if anybody s seen my daughter, kristen french, i d like to phone the niagara police as quickly as possible. the abduction of kristen french was a major case in canada. this is broad daylight. she s walking home from school. it s in the afternoon in a populated area. we had eyewitnesses. kenzora: a witness came forward to say she had been driving by the church parking lot, looked over her shoulder, and saw what she thought were kids fooling around, and they were kind of pushing back and forth, and someone got pushed into the car, but she thought about it for a second, like, oh, that s odd. then she said, oh, it s probably just teenagers goofing around, and she kept going. and it s just so tragic that no one knew what was really happening. kenzora: so as soon as she had heard that kristen was missing, the woman who had seen the incident at the car called police. shlosberg: when police were searching for clues regarding the disappearance of kristen french, ....
That led her to try and keep him happy. paul knew that karla was willing to do anything for him, and so he could still have both worlds. he could have this façade of stability, and he could have his violent secret life. bernardo: you look great. hawaiian wife. ooh, yeah, hawaiian wife. shlosberg: i don t know if she kept it quiet because she was fearful of him or she was fearful of losing him. reporter: things finally started unraveling when paul began beating karla. she couldn t take it. she left him. karla is the only evidence they have against paul bernardo at this point. she knew she was in trouble, so she gets herself a lawyer, george walker, and he says, okay, we ll make a plea deal. reporter: karla, sensing her own legal jeopardy, made a deal with police. she d testify against her husband. in return, she d get 12 years maximum in prison. ....
Sacks: it would seem to occur to most people that maybe you don t celebrate with a lavish wedding when your younger sister has just died. but not to karla. kenzora: she was selfish and self-centered, and it was about her, and at a certain point, i believe her parents had said to her, like, can we tone this down a little bit? the wedding is gonna cost a fortune. and karla wrote to friends and in her diary that she couldn t believe that her parents were not willing to spend all this money on the wedding. you know, tammy was dead. it s not her fault, and that they had to spend all this money on the funeral, and she was really, really miffed about it, so much so that her and paul actually moved out before the wedding. shlosberg: and they moved into a sweet, charming pink home in port dalhousie. karla says, i m gonna have this big wedding. i m gonna have it all. and nothing was gonna stand in her way. [ bridal march playing ] ....
Reporter: how s your family coping? as well as can be expected. hemsworth: it seemed like an unlikely perpetrator. he appeared to be an accomplished person. he was married to an attractive wife and lived in a nice subdivision in st. catharines. reporter: karla homolka was ravishingly blonde and beautiful, and her husband was the clean-cut, handsome boy with a glittering career ahead of him. kenzora: karla homolka grew up in st. catharines with her parents and two sisters. shlosberg: karla was the oldest sister. she had a younger sister, lori, and then she also had tammy, who was her baby sister. kenzora: karla loved animals, worked at pet stores, and then at a vet clinic, and, you know, she was pretty focused on getting a boyfriend and getting married. shlosberg: when karla met paul bernardo, she thought her fairy tale was finally coming true. ....
shlosberg: these are two people that really cared about what other people thought of them. hemsworth: they had a fancy wedding and reception in niagara-on-the-lake. and this is the big wedding that karla has demanded. and to them, that had the kind of markings of success. pron: it seemed like they were the perfect couple. the ken and barbie, you know, the dream marriage. but in the wedding party, one of the bridesmaids said, it felt like i was going to a funeral. hemsworth: you can t see genuine happiness in their faces. pron: their friends just assumed it was just, you know, a little nerves and all that on the wedding day. they knew something was wrong, but they just couldn t put their finger on, you know, what exactly it was. garofalo: they are almost mannequin-like. the smiles were fake, because they knew this life they were leading was a fraud. ....