OTTAWA — None of the three women Basil Borutski is accused of killing in 2015 survived for more than a few minutes after they were attacked, and at least two of them tried to shield themselves, a forensic pathologist told an Ottawa jury Tuesday.
Dr. Christopher Milroy, director of forensic pathology at the Ottawa Hospital, was testifying in the first-degree murder trial of Borutski, 59, who is accused of killing Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk and Nathalie Warmerdam on Sept. 22, 2015.
The Crown alleges Borutski killed all three women in a murderous, revenge-fuelled rampage through the Ottawa Valley, triggered by what he characterized as lies both to him and about him, including allegations of assault that landed him in jail.
Throughout the testimony, Borutski said still and silent, his eyes often closed — including as members of the jury were seen wincing and turning away from a series of graphic autopsy photographs.
Culleton, who was 66 years old and three days into retirement when she died, was found with a length of coaxial cable wrapped around her neck and mouth, Milroy said. She also had defensive wounds on both hands — evidence, he said, of an attempt to fight off her attacker.
She would have lived no more than five minutes, and likely lost consciousness after a minute or two, he said. The cable was pulled so tightly it couldn’t have been any tighter, he added.
Kuzyk, 36, was killed in her kitchen by a shotgun blast that left a gaping wound in her right neck and upper chest. She had abrasions on her neck and cheek from the buckshot, as well as a badly damaged spinal cord.
She, too, had a wound on her hand, indicating she tried to shield herself when she saw the gun, and was likely shot from no more than two metres away, said Milroy.
Warmerdam, 48, a mother of two, was also killed with a shotgun, but unlike Kuzyk, her wounds were caused by birdshot, Milroy said.
Toxicology tests on all three women came back negative, he added.
Borutski confessed to all three killings in a five-hour videotaped interview with police the day after the deaths. In the video, Borutski is heard to say he felt sorry about the killings and knew what had happened was wrong.
The video, played in open court, shows Borutski telling provincial police Det. Sgt. Caley O’Neill that he felt empty, confused and “disorientated” in the hours after the murders.
“Do you understand that what happened to these three women is wrong?” O’Neill asks.
“Yeah,” answers Borutski, almost as if asking a question.
There is a long pause before O’Neill asks, “would you take it back if you could?’
“Of course I would,” Borutski responds, his voice soft, before going on to suggest again the women brought it upon themselves.
“Like when I asked Anastasia, ‘Why did you lie?’ Why couldn’t she have just have said, ‘I’m sorry,’ and I’m sure then I would have stopped,” he says.
“It would have stopped right there, but she still lied. And Carol lies, and I talked with her so much about being honest and the truth and positive and then she still lied.”
Borutski expresses no remorse for what occurred until O’Neill asks him near the end of the video, “Do you feel sorry about how it all ended?”
“Of course I feel sorry,” Borutski tells him, matter of factly.
He then asks O’Neill if he found “the booze,” explaining that after the third killing, he drove around and then ran into the bush with three bottles of liquor and wine, along with the shotgun.
“I planned on drinking and blowing my head off,” he says.
“But then, by that time, I started thinking about it, ‘Yeah, you can’t do that, Basil, you’re innocent. If you blow your head off you’ll never go to heaven.”’