3 women murdered. The score for the killer's probation officer? 'Target met'

“Target met: 95% - 100%.”

That’s the score a manager gave Basil Borutski’s probation officer, two days after Borutski murdered two ex-partners he was on probation for abusing — Anastasia Kuzyk and Nathalie Warmerdam — as well as Carol Culleton on Sept. 22, 2015.

For nearly three years leading up to the slayings in the Ottawa Valley, Borutski’s probation officers in Renfrew and Pembroke, Ont., were tasked with making sure the repeat domestic violence offender followed court orders after serving jail time for threatening Warmerdam’s family, and choking and assaulting Kuzyk.

They were also responsible for liaising with partner agencies including victim advocate organizations, police and the Crown to help keep Kuzyk, Warmerdam and Borutski’s ex-wife safe. (CBC News is not naming his ex-wife because she was a victim of intimate partner violence and is still living.)

A few weeks after the local manager’s “target met” assessment, a death review conducted by probation and parole managers elsewhere in Ontario found that multiple opportunities for probation officers to intervene had been missed.

But two days after the murders, as headlines were still blasting the news of one of the worst instances of intimate partner violence in Canadian history, the only thing the local manager felt needed to be addressed was that Kuzyk should have been contacted monthly.

The "target met" score is the highest that can be given.

“It's just baffling, honestly,” said one of Warmerdam’s sons, Malcolm, in an interview at his home.

Kirsten Mercer, a lawyer who represented victim advocacy groups at a 2022 inquest into the murders, was also dismayed.

“If you can look at the events that unfolded in Renfrew County and say, 'Yeah, we did just about everything right here,' you are clearly measuring the wrong things,” Mercer said.

“And it tells me that the level of service — what Ontarians can expect from probation in terms of [supervising perpetrators] in the community — is quite low, even when someone is a fairly high-risk.”

The same area manager performed two other case reviews well ahead of the murders, in November 2013 and January 2014, CBC News has also learned.

Both were opportunities to charge Borutski with breach of probation for failing to attend programming for domestic violence offenders. He had been ordered to attend before he choked and beat Kuzyk, and after he served time for the assault on her he was once again ordered by a judge to attend.

His probation officer sent his forms to the program and notified Borutski of his intake appointment, but he failed to show up just three months before the murders.