Sex killer Paul Bernardo is serving an indeterminate sentence for the slayings of two schoolgirls, a dozen rapes and more than two dozen other sex offenses — but there are still women who reportedly want to marry him.

The latest is reported to be a 30-year-old university graduate from London, Ont., who began corresponding with him last fall, according to QMI news agency.

Tim Danson, a lawyer for the families of murdered schoolgirls, reacted sharply to the report.

“He should not be given any privileges,” Danson told the Star on Thursday.

He also said the woman who considers herself to be Bernardo’s fiancée needs plenty of help.

“People close to her have to reach out to her and save her from herself,” Danson said. “Just the thought of it is disturbing.”

Danson said he highly doubts Bernardo will ever get out of prison, even though he’s reportedly eligible for parole in 2018.

Still, there are plenty of women who struggle to make contact with him through letters.

One website for prisoners’ families features a hot discussion on whether it’s right to try to make contact with Bernardo.

“I write to Paul all the time, I send him cards and no I dont have a fetish for concrete!” a woman who identified herself as “shoes” wrote. “I have read many books on his crimes and for some reason i hold compassion for him. Its deep in my bones and i cant let it go.”

Another woman, who identified herself as “brandy99,” wrote that she can see a difference between Bernardo the man and Bernardo the criminal.

“His crimes arent what intriques me it’s him,” she wrote.

The Correctional Service of Canada declines to comment on individual cases.

Speaking in general terms, spokesperson Mélissa Hart said an inmate’s “behaviour, accountability and risks” are assessed before a decision is made on whether an inmate can marry.

“Once an inmate makes a request to marry while incarcerated, the institutional management along with the inmate’s case management team will assess the request to make sure it would not pose a risk to the security of the institution, staff and public,” Hart said in an email.

Jason Tamming, a spokeman for Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, said while he could not comment on specific cases, the government “always puts the rights of victims ahead of the rights of criminals.

“We continue to examine ways to ensure that the worst of the worst stay behind bars where they belong, without needless perks that these dangerous and violent criminals certainly never afforded to their victims,” Tamming added in an email.

In a report published on Thursday, The Quebecor-owned QMI report does not name the 30-year-old bride-to-be. It says that even her family doesn’t believe the ceremony behind bars will ever take place.

According to the QMI report, the couple first met last fall after she wrote him.

The QMI report says that his fiancée believes he is innocent even though he made videos of his victims in captivity.

“He has convinced her that he didn’t do this (rapes or murders),” her father told QMI.

Danson said Bernardo’s trial left no doubt that he is a sadistic psychopath.

“That’s well beyond the pale, given what was proven at trial and on the videotapes,” Danson said.

The QMI report says the bride-to-be has a tattoo on her ankle that says “Paul’s girl.”

The QMI report also says the engagement has caused tensions within her family.

If the marriage did take place, Corrections Canada could determine is she would be allowed to meet with her behind bars.

Prisoners are permitted private visits of up to 72 hours duration once every two months. A former Millhaven inmate told The Star said that prisoners often are able to increase that visiting time in swaps with other inmates.

Bernardo made the news last summer, Steven Blaney, the federal minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, said he would not be enjoying a transfer from ancient Kingston Penitentiary to a more comfortable medium security prison.

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Blaney went to pains to state that Bernardo couldn’t expect soft prison time.

“Paul Bernardo was convicted of heinous and despicable crimes,” he had said then, in a prepared statement. “While I do not control the security classification of individual prisoners, I have received assurances that there are no plans to move this inmate to a medium security institution.

“Our thoughts and prayers remain with the families of Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French, whose lives were taken too soon.”

Blaney could not be reached for comment on Thursday.

Bernardo is now believed to be housed in Millhaven Penitentiary in Kingston.

Kingston Penitentiary was closed late last year. Bernardo spent 18 years there housed 23 hours a day in a cell that’s roughly 1.5 metres by 3 metres.

For the remaining hour, he was allowed to watch television or exercise.

For a time, a prisoner in the adjoining cell was convicted murderer and former Toronto police officer Richard Wills.

Wills was transferred out of Kingston to a maximum-security B.C. prison because his behaviour disgusted Kingston Penitentiary staff and inmates, including Bernardo.

Exactly what Wills did to disgust them remains a mystery.

Bernardo’s other neighbours in the same segregated range of the Kingston Penitentiary included Russell Williams, former commander of CFB Trenton, who was sentenced in 2010 to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years for two sadistic sex murders.

Wills was transferred to a maximum-security facility in B.C. late last month for a fresh start, the sources said. Suzanne Leclerc, of Corrections Canada in Ottawa, said she is prevented by the Privacy Act from saying where federal inmates are housed.

Bernardo’s first wife, Karla Homolka, was convicted of manslaughter for her role in the slayings of French and Mahaffey and served 12 years in prison.

She wasn’t charged in the 1990 Christmas Eve drug-rape death of her sister, Tammy Homolka, but her sentence took the incident into account.

Toronto journalist Paula Todd tracked down Bernardo’s former wife, Karla Homolka, two years ago and made her the topic of her e-book: Finding Karla: How I tracked Down a Serial Child Killer and Discovered a Mother of Three.

She found Homolka lived in Guadeloupe in the Caribbean.

In April 2011, Michelle Erstikaitis, a woman who had professed admiration for Bernardo, was named a dangerous offender herself.

Erstikaitis, then 31, had a lengthy criminal record that included threatening in 1999 to kill Debbie Mahaffy, the mother of Leslie Mahaffy.

At the time, Erstikaitis said she believed Bernardo was innocent.