A Small Town Tragedy, A Universal Event

Mourners hold a candlelight vigil in remembrance of Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk and Natalie Warmardam in Wilno on Friday, Sept. 25, 2015. Justin Tang / The Canadian Press

"She [Mary Ann] states that the marriage and Sahra's conception were Basil's strategies to manipulate the court."
"His mission was to marry and conceive another child, thinking that no judge would send a married, expectant father to jail -- particularly when the wife was in support. Mary Ann's mantra throughout her testimony was that she did what she was told because the underlying message was that no one would believe her and the threat that if she disappointed, he would take the children."
Justice Rick Leroy, December 2011 judgement

"I've tried to take the children from him [Borutski], not allowing any access whatsoever. I have made false statements about him to convince authorities he should not have custody. I have destroyed the children's lives unknowingly ..."
"I want to make sure my husband has the right to take care of the children and all financial decisions. I believe he's the only person that I can trust to do what is right and fair for everyone concerned. I am doing this on my own free will and I am not being coerced or threatened."
Mary Ann Mask, 1994 marriage contract

Mary Ann Mask informed a judge in 2011 when she was obtaining a divorce from her husband Basil Joseph Borutski, now 57 and facing three charges of first-degree murder, that the man "destroyed her spirit by relentless threats and abuse". It's beyond difficult for onlookers to understand how and why it is that any woman would commit to a relationship that is horribly abusive. But that this is a commonplace occurrence is beyond dispute.

Whether it is love that inspires women to stand by men who have challenged those women's determined belief of respect and equality and tender love in an intimate relationship, or the fantasy that the quality of their own love and their patient personalities will be ample to the task of persuading the men to become better human beings, is beyond anyone's ken. Women seem, to begin with, to be all too often attracted to men whose characters are of a dubious, black nature.

Clearly, Mary Ann Mask was attracted to the man who later abused her dreadfully over the 26 years that they had such an intimate relationship that after he had been charged by her with brutality, they were reconciled three times, were later married and conceived and raised two children together. Until the final break came when it was no longer possible to live with a man whose degrading violence, threats and psychotic control destroyed the love that was present, leaving only fear.

Mary Ann Mask sought legal defence for domestic assault for the first time in 1985. At that time Basil Borutski defended himself successfully at the cost of $20,000 in legal fees. Despite that history of co-habiting dysfunction the common-law couple moved back together to a home, separating in 1993 when he was once again charged with assaulting Mary Ann Mask. Yet she was persuaded and bullied once again to reconcile with the man, marry him in 1994, and have a second child with him.

After the acrimonious divorce Borutski continued the fiction of his innocence the victim of false allegations by a mentally ill, vindictive woman. He'd had her copy out and sign a marriage contract in 1994 wherein she 'admitted' fault, and authorized his complete custody of their children and all their finances All charges of assault and uttering death threats were withdrawn time and again, with Borutski informing court that his wife's injuries had been self-inflicted.

This week, three women with whom Basil Borutski had had intimate relations were found murdered in the span of a few hours, in and close to the community of Wilno, some few hours' distance from the nation's capital, Ottawa. Carol Culleton, 66, had been strangled in her cottage on Kamaniskeg Lake Road, Anastasia Kuzyk, 36, had been shot dead at her home on Szezipior Road, and Nathalie Warmerdam, 48, was shot dead as well at her farmhouse on Foymount Road, on Tuesday.

Basil Borutsky is in custody. A man whose long predation on women and violence toward them had gone unpunished and unchecked.