TORONTO—The female victims of a triple homicide in eastern Ontario died despite their efforts to protect themselves and a legal system that took pains to address their alleged killer’s long history of domestic violence.

Shelter workers in eastern Ontario were familiar with Basil Borutski’s name years before it surfaced in the headlines following an alleged killing spree that culminated in three charges of first-degree murder.

Court documents reveal that two of his alleged victims, 36-year-old Anastasia Kuzyk and Nathalie Warmerdam, 48, used to date Borutski, 57, and had both pressed assault charges against him. Media reports have identified the third victim, 66-year-old Carol Culleton, as Borutski’s most recent partner.

The three women died on Tuesday morning in and around the tiny village of Wilno, Ont., about 180 kilometres west of Ottawa. But Borutski’s long criminal history had given him a reputation well beyond the town’s boundaries.

Leigh Sweeney, executive director of the Bernadette McCann House for Women, a shelter in Pembroke, Ont., about 70 kilometres northeast of Wilno, said Borutski’s name was known to staff.

“Renfrew County is maybe the largest county in Ontario, but it’s small,” she said. “People know people. We’re very connected.”

Sweeney said the tragedy highlights the complex, insidious nature of domestic violence, a crime that too often goes unreported.

In this case, however, Borutski did not fly under the radar, Sweeney said.

Court documents reveal allegations that the one-time millwright assaulted Kuzyk, Warmerdam, and his ex-wife, Mary Ann Borutski.

Borutski “successfully defended” an assault charge filed by Mary Ann Borutski in 1985, but his own daughters described him as a “violent, easily agitated and tyrannical,” according to an Ontario Superior Court judgment that granted a divorce to Basil and Mary Ann Borutski in 2011 and ordered him to pay his ex-wife almost $93,000.

In 2012, he was convicted of making threats and breaking a door while he lived with Warmerdam. A charge that he assaulted Warmerdam, however, was stayed by the Crown.

Two years later, and Borutski had moved on to a new girlfriend — and a new assault charge, after Kuzyk accused Borutski of choking her.

He was also accused of burning some of Kuzyk’s possessions and of stealing a car from a member of her family, as well as violating a probation order that required him to keep the peace. He was convicted and served time in prison last year.

Domestic violence experts said Borutski’s repeat history of violence, coupled with the increasingly serious nature of his attacks, would have raised every conceivable red flag.

“If you were to go through our risk assessment list, you can check off every one 10 times over for this person,” Sweeney said.

Less typical, she said, was the fact that the system designed to protect both men and women from chronic abusers appears to have worked as intended. The victims spoke up, ended their relationships and followed through on pressing charges. For the most part, the legal system took their claims seriously, ultimately imposing jail time on Borutski in 2014.

But Amanda Dale, executive director of Toronto’s Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic that supports women survivors of violence, said the traditional legal system is not equipped to deal with domestic violence cases properly.

Courts tend to treat each case as an isolated incident without considering past patterns of behaviour, but Dale said it is those very patterns that can most reliably flag repeat offenders.

Victims who press charges are usually warned when their attacker is released from jail, but Dale said such warnings need to be spread beyond people connected with the case at hand.

“Even if it didn’t meet the threshold of a criminal charge, if there was a record of other domestic violence, those women should be warned because we know these guys can be lethal as we see that progression over time.”

Rosalie Wilcox, Bernadette McCann House’s residential manager, said poverty and isolation can make domestic violence situations even more dire for women living in rural communities, as Tuesday’s three triple homicide victims did.

The recent slayings, she said, highlight the need for people beyond the traditional channels to be vigilant and speak up if they believe someone could be in danger.

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“As a community we know abuse is happening, and as a community, everybody — men and women — needs to be part of the solution in order to stop it.”

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