Paul and Karla were the picture of love and youth - and they were the essence of the darkest evil!
Invisible Darkness is not only a must read for anyone interested in law and disorder, crime and punishment: a riveting page-turner, it is the tragic story of love gone mad. Together, the Ken-and-Barbie killers kidnapped, raped and murdered three teenage schoolgirls, beginning with Karla's own sister.
Expertly drawn, "Invisible Darkness" rises far above the average true crime tale, chronicling the couple's descent from love and marriage to rape and murder. It relies on voluminous research, police notebooks, medical and psychiatric records, inaccessible court documents and in-depth interviews. The author details the unbelievable series of coincidences and police and forensic lab blunders that allowed Paul and Karla to elude detection for six years.
If only Bernardo’s DNA had been tested when he was first questioned as a suspect in a series of brutal rapes committed in and around the Toronto suburb where he then lived, he would have been caught before he had a chance to move to a small town minutes away from Niagara Falls and marry Karla Homolka.
Together they looked to be the embodiment of the American dream: Young, well to do beautiful and in love. But the front door of their quaint pink Cape Cod -style house on the shore of Lake Ontario was the Gate to Hell. It was there, they drugged and raped a half-dozen schoolgirls while meticulously making videotaped records of the attacks. In the end, there was over 300 hours of videotape and hundreds and still photographs in evidence at his trial.
Everything was documented including their storybook wedding; the horse and buggy ride through picturesque Niagara-on-the-Lake to their reception and sit-down dinner for a 100 of their closest friends at the posh Queen's Landing Hotel as well as virtually everything they did behind closed doors.
In the case of 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffy they not only kidnapped, tortured and raped her. Over three days she was dismembered in the basement, her body parts encased in homemade cement casings and, under cover of darkness, dumped in nearby Lake Gibson. In one of those unholy coincidences, some of the parts were discovered the very afternoon Paul and Karla were married. As Paul and Karla exchanged vows police were dragging the lake.
A year later they took Kristen French in broad daylight while walking home from school on Easter weekend. They did the same to her as they did to Mahaffy. Before they went to Karla's parents for Sunday dinner, Karla decided that Kristen had to die. Later, they dumped her naked body on side road next to the cemetery where Leslie was buried. Their marriage did not survive. Finally, the Toronto police matched Bernardo's DNA to three rape victim's in Toronto. Bernardo is now rotting away in a maximum-security prison whereas Karla has remarried and has three small children. It has to read to be believed.
WHAT THE REVIEWERS SAID ABOUT INVISIBLE DARKNESS:
“The True Crime genre is, in the hands of artists like Truman Capote and Stephen Williams, a kind of poetry, a kind of austere grand guignol, exuding gaudy horror.”George Elliott Clarke
“By far the most intelligent and subversive of the Bernardo triptych.”
Lynn Crosbie
"Williams has performed a remarkable, if unconventional, feat in the annals of true crime"
Judge Lynn King
“I found Invisible Darkness a superior example of a dying breed – the straight, un-hyped, literate work of true-crime.”
Jack Olsen, Edgar-Award winning author of SON and DOC
"You may think you've heard enough but you haven't heard the half of it. It's a must read ....Based on court documents....as well as countless interviews with police, lawyers, psychiatrists and friends of Paul and Karla, it is well-researched and thought-provoking."
Bart Johnson
"This book lets it all hang out....You can't help but be drawn in by this tale of sex, death, lies and videotape..
Invisible Darkness is not only a must read for anyone interested in law and disorder, crime and punishment: a riveting page-turner, it is the tragic story of love gone mad. Together, the Ken-and-Barbie killers kidnapped, raped and murdered three teenage schoolgirls, beginning with Karla's own sister.
Expertly drawn, "Invisible Darkness" rises far above the average true crime tale, chronicling the couple's descent from love and marriage to rape and murder. It relies on voluminous research, police notebooks, medical and psychiatric records, inaccessible court documents and in-depth interviews. The author details the unbelievable series of coincidences and police and forensic lab blunders that allowed Paul and Karla to elude detection for six years.
If only Bernardo’s DNA had been tested when he was first questioned as a suspect in a series of brutal rapes committed in and around the Toronto suburb where he then lived, he would have been caught before he had a chance to move to a small town minutes away from Niagara Falls and marry Karla Homolka.
Together they looked to be the embodiment of the American dream: Young, well to do beautiful and in love. But the front door of their quaint pink Cape Cod -style house on the shore of Lake Ontario was the Gate to Hell. It was there, they drugged and raped a half-dozen schoolgirls while meticulously making videotaped records of the attacks. In the end, there was over 300 hours of videotape and hundreds and still photographs in evidence at his trial.
Everything was documented including their storybook wedding; the horse and buggy ride through picturesque Niagara-on-the-Lake to their reception and sit-down dinner for a 100 of their closest friends at the posh Queen's Landing Hotel as well as virtually everything they did behind closed doors.
In the case of 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffy they not only kidnapped, tortured and raped her. Over three days she was dismembered in the basement, her body parts encased in homemade cement casings and, under cover of darkness, dumped in nearby Lake Gibson. In one of those unholy coincidences, some of the parts were discovered the very afternoon Paul and Karla were married. As Paul and Karla exchanged vows police were dragging the lake.
A year later they took Kristen French in broad daylight while walking home from school on Easter weekend. They did the same to her as they did to Mahaffy. Before they went to Karla's parents for Sunday dinner, Karla decided that Kristen had to die. Later, they dumped her naked body on side road next to the cemetery where Leslie was buried. Their marriage did not survive. Finally, the Toronto police matched Bernardo's DNA to three rape victim's in Toronto. Bernardo is now rotting away in a maximum-security prison whereas Karla has remarried and has three small children. It has to read to be believed.
WHAT THE REVIEWERS SAID ABOUT INVISIBLE DARKNESS:
“The True Crime genre is, in the hands of artists like Truman Capote and Stephen Williams, a kind of poetry, a kind of austere grand guignol, exuding gaudy horror.”George Elliott Clarke
“By far the most intelligent and subversive of the Bernardo triptych.”
Lynn Crosbie
"Williams has performed a remarkable, if unconventional, feat in the annals of true crime"
Judge Lynn King
“I found Invisible Darkness a superior example of a dying breed – the straight, un-hyped, literate work of true-crime.”
Jack Olsen, Edgar-Award winning author of SON and DOC
"You may think you've heard enough but you haven't heard the half of it. It's a must read ....Based on court documents....as well as countless interviews with police, lawyers, psychiatrists and friends of Paul and Karla, it is well-researched and thought-provoking."
Bart Johnson
"This book lets it all hang out....You can't help but be drawn in by this tale of sex, death, lies and videotape..
