Serial killer Paul Bernardo hesitated for a moment before answering a key question posed to him by police last year during a prison interview: Had he murdered Elizabeth Bain?

"That's a loaded question," he replied.

Mr. Bernardo said that responding to it would necessitate talking about "time sequences" and whether his ex-wife - Karla Homolka - had played a role.

Pressed for a direct answer, he told the officers: "The answer to that is, no. But the 800-pound gorilla in the room is - that's a life-25 sentence. It all comes down to credibility - not only credibility but the timeline, and my role and Karla's role. But my answer is no."

The fascinating video clip - suppressed under a publication ban until yesterday - was played in a Toronto courtroom last fall during a pretrial motion to decide whether Mr. Bernardo's possible involvement in the Bain murder could be used as defence evidence at Robert Baltovich's murder trial.

Mr. Baltovich has become increasingly enamoured of the idea that Mr. Bernardo's rampage of sexual violence in the Scarborough area in the early 1990s culminated in the slaying of Ms. Bain.

In an interview yesterday, defence counsel James Lockyer said that - notwithstanding the "kid gloves" treatment Mr. Bernardo was given by the police officers who interviewed him at Kingston Penitentiary - his response to their key question was "very incriminating.

"My view is that Bernardo probably committed this crime," Mr. Lockyer said. "Can I say that it could be proved beyond a reasonable doubt? No, I couldn't. But I think he probably did it."

On the surface, there is a compelling circumstantial case to be made that Mr. Bernardo - who was convicted in 1995 of murdering Ontario schoolgirls Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy - is a likely suspect.

To begin with, Mr. Bernardo perpetrated his crimes in precisely the area of Scarborough where Ms. Bain lived and went to school. In addition:
A restaurant owner told police shortly after Ms. Bain disappeared that he saw her with a blond man at a restaurant that Mr. Bernardo was known to frequent. (Mr. Bernardo had his hair dyed blond at the time.)

Another witness said that she saw Ms. Bain arguing with a blond man in a red jeep at a bar where Mr. Bernardo sometimes went to socialize.

One of Mr. Bernardo's former girlfriends also told police that he had been introduced to Ms. Bain at a campus cafeteria before her disappearance, and that he had a long-standing hatred of women with her appearance because of a girlfriend who had once jilted him.

At the end of the pretrial motion, Mr. Justice David McCombs of Ontario Superior Court ruled that the defence would be permitted to present evidence of Mr. Bernardo's convictions and the location of his sexual assaults.

"In evaluating the evidence against Mr. Baltovich, the jury should not - in my opinion - be deprived of the proven or undisputed evidence relating to Bernardo," he said.

Judge McCombs noted that one of the most violent rapes committed by Mr. Bernardo took place on May 26, 1990 - only three weeks before Ms. Bain disappeared. He also noted that store receipts found at Mr. Bernardo's home in St. Catharines, Ont., in 1993 showed that he had been in the Scarborough area on June 6, 14, 20, 21, 22, 28 and 29, 1990.

However, Judge McCombs also ruled that the defence could not use any of the evidence relating to the sightings of Ms. Bain with a blond man.

"In my opinion, if this unproven evidence were admitted, it manifestly would lead to protracted, tangential inquiries - or worse, separate trials within this trial," he said. "It would distract the jurors and lead to confusion, delay and serious prejudice to the trial process."

The prosecution received another pretrial blow when the Supreme Court of Canada issued a ruling last year in the case of Regina v. Trochym that effectively knocked out two witnesses whose memories had been enhanced by the use of hypnotism.

As a fallback position, the Crown sought to enter their evidence by way of written statements they made to police early in the investigation, before they were hypnotized.
However, Mr. Justice David Watt ruled last fall that their evidence had not been carefully recorded by police, and was generally too frail to be considered reliable.

*****
Tracking Paul Bernardo's Greater Toronto attacks
Paul Bernardo, known at the time as the "Scarborough rapist", carried out a series of sexual attacks in Toronto's east end between 1987 and late June, 1990, just three weeks before Elizabeth Bain disappeared.

1987
1-Monday, May 4
2-Thursday, May 14
3-Monday, July 27
4-Wednesday, Dec. 16
5-Wednesday, Dec. 23

1988
6-Monday, Apr. 18
7-Wednesday, Nov. 16
8-Tuesday, Dec. 27

1989
9-Tuesday, June 20
10-Monday, July 10
11-Tuesday, Aug. 15
12-Tuesday, Nov.21
13-Friday, Dec. 22

1990
14-Saturday, May 26
15-Wednesday, June 6
16-Saturday, June 16
17-Wednesday, June 20
18-Thursday, June 21
19-Thursday, June 21
20-Friday, June 22
21-Wednesday, June 27
22-Thursday, June 28
23-Thursday, June 28
24-Friday, June 29

SOURCE: TORONTO POLICE