Bernardo says sexual "performance anxiety" was the motivating factor for his crimes
Sexual 'anxiety' drove me: Bernardo
Killer suggests he's not a psychopath anymore
http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/447209
Tracey Tyler
Legal Affairs Reporter
Serial killer Paul Bernardo says sexual "performance anxiety" was the motivating factor behind his deadly crime sprees that culminated in the murders of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy.
In his first interview since being imprisoned for life as a dangerous offender in 1995, Bernardo told two Toronto police detectives that while he found his "sex deviance" discouraging, he was "using sex as a vice" to combat his insecurities.
"My, my thing was not to hurt these girls at all, I just wanted the sex," he told the officers during the two-hour interview inside Kingston Penitentiary on April 13, 2006. "You know when you're a sex predator ... that's what you do, right, 'cause that's your life.
"I mean it's your vice and me I had a performance anxiety," he said. "You know you have power, control, or younger victims ... at Daytona Beach or whatever." Bernardo appeared to question whether it's fair that he should bear the label of psychopath for his entire life on the basis of the sexual assaults and murders he committed.
"When people try to say you're (a) psychopath – because you didn't care about their feelings, because you only cared about yourself, and that's very true. But are you a psychopath your entire life ...
"Or are you a psychopath at that moment and time when you're egocentric about your sex?"
In addition to killing schoolgirls French and Mahaffy, Bernardo, known as the Scarborough rapist, was convicted of almost 20 sexual assaults.
He told the officers that a rapist is usually depicted in movies as "the guy with the big thick Coke-bottle glasses.
"It's not what you look like, it's ... what's in you, you know, do you have that performance anxiety in you."
Extracts from the interview have been filed in the Ontario Court of Appeal in connection with an application by Anthony Hanemaayer, a 40-year-old roofer from London, Ont., who was convicted of a knifepoint attack on a 15-year-old Scarborough girl in 1989 to which Bernardo has now confessed to committing.
Hanemaayer, who pleaded guilty to charges of assault with a weapon and breaking-and-entering, will appear before a three-judge appeal court panel next week seeking to withdraw his guilty pleas and be acquitted on both counts. He has said that he pleaded guilty because he feared the trial was going against him and he would face a heavy prison sentence.
The victim, then a Grade 9 student, awoke at 5 a.m. on Sept. 28, 1987 to the sound of her bedroom door opening. The person in the doorway jumped on her, straddled her lower back and said "I have a knife and I'll kill you if you don't be quiet."
Bernardo also revealed that he is preparing to apply for permission to appear before a jury 15 years into his sentence – in 2010 – to seek the right to apply for parole ahead of schedule.
Sexual 'anxiety' drove me: Bernardo
Killer suggests he's not a psychopath anymore
http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/447209
Tracey Tyler
Legal Affairs Reporter
Serial killer Paul Bernardo says sexual "performance anxiety" was the motivating factor behind his deadly crime sprees that culminated in the murders of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy.
In his first interview since being imprisoned for life as a dangerous offender in 1995, Bernardo told two Toronto police detectives that while he found his "sex deviance" discouraging, he was "using sex as a vice" to combat his insecurities.
"My, my thing was not to hurt these girls at all, I just wanted the sex," he told the officers during the two-hour interview inside Kingston Penitentiary on April 13, 2006. "You know when you're a sex predator ... that's what you do, right, 'cause that's your life.
"I mean it's your vice and me I had a performance anxiety," he said. "You know you have power, control, or younger victims ... at Daytona Beach or whatever." Bernardo appeared to question whether it's fair that he should bear the label of psychopath for his entire life on the basis of the sexual assaults and murders he committed.
"When people try to say you're (a) psychopath – because you didn't care about their feelings, because you only cared about yourself, and that's very true. But are you a psychopath your entire life ...
"Or are you a psychopath at that moment and time when you're egocentric about your sex?"
In addition to killing schoolgirls French and Mahaffy, Bernardo, known as the Scarborough rapist, was convicted of almost 20 sexual assaults.
He told the officers that a rapist is usually depicted in movies as "the guy with the big thick Coke-bottle glasses.
"It's not what you look like, it's ... what's in you, you know, do you have that performance anxiety in you."
Extracts from the interview have been filed in the Ontario Court of Appeal in connection with an application by Anthony Hanemaayer, a 40-year-old roofer from London, Ont., who was convicted of a knifepoint attack on a 15-year-old Scarborough girl in 1989 to which Bernardo has now confessed to committing.
Hanemaayer, who pleaded guilty to charges of assault with a weapon and breaking-and-entering, will appear before a three-judge appeal court panel next week seeking to withdraw his guilty pleas and be acquitted on both counts. He has said that he pleaded guilty because he feared the trial was going against him and he would face a heavy prison sentence.
The victim, then a Grade 9 student, awoke at 5 a.m. on Sept. 28, 1987 to the sound of her bedroom door opening. The person in the doorway jumped on her, straddled her lower back and said "I have a knife and I'll kill you if you don't be quiet."
Bernardo also revealed that he is preparing to apply for permission to appear before a jury 15 years into his sentence – in 2010 – to seek the right to apply for parole ahead of schedule.
