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Hundreds gathered Friday night at the Wilno Heritage Park to remember three women slain in the span of a few hours this week in a tragedy that changed the history of the town and the surrounding area.
Carol Culleton, 66, was strangled in her cottage on Kamaniskeg Lake Road, Anastasia Kuzyk, 36, was shot dead at her home on Szczipior Road and Nathalie Warmerdam, 48, was also shot in her farmhouse on Foymount Road on Tuesday. A former boyfriend of all three women, 57-year-old Basil Borutski, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder in what police allege was a premeditated rampage that targeted women in his life.
Townspeople gathered “to comfort one another and support this community,” said Julie Keon, addressing the crowd at the park Friday evening as the sun began to set. Wilno is the country’s first Polish settlement and the park is next to the town’s Heritage Society and Museum. It’s also across the street from the Wilno Tavern, where Kuzyk worked. For those who live in the community, Tuesday’s events are raw and devastating, Keon said.
Families huddled together for warmth, couples comforted each other and friends embraced as they remembered three women “whose vibrant lives came to a tragic end.”
As friends of the fallen women read aloud their memories of each of them, the crowd began lighting candles until the surrounding darkness had been lit.
Helen Mandy described Kuzyk as “kindness itself”.
Mourners hold a candlelit vigil in remembrance of Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk and Natalie Warmardam in Wilno on Friday, Sept. 25, 2015.
“She could only find the good in everyone,” Mandy said. “We’ll keep her in our hearts forever.” And then a vow in front of so many looking for justice: “We will get our answers for her because we are here to speak for her now.”
Genevieve Way, who worked with Nathalie Warmerdam at a policing coalition and previously described her friend as a “target” who had first tried to get help for the struggling Borutski, woke up this morning in a fog.
“And then I remembered,” she nearly whispered into a microphone.
“We lost these women,” Way said. Three holes had been punched into the web of their community, she said. “And we’re reeling.”
Jim Jones, speaking on behalf of two of his friends who knew Carol Culleton, described a woman who enjoyed pints with new friends she was so happy to make. Culleton was a widow who had long supported her husband before he died of cancer. She was starting a new chapter in her life after his death and had just retired days before she was killed.
“She loved dragonflies and good country music,” Jones said.
A moment of silence was held and was broken by song lyrics that hit at the heart of a community’s conviction: “I will heed my own cries and I will a fierce warrior be ’til not another woman dies. I can and will fight.”
“Our lives have been forever changed,” Keon said. “And the memory of this day will be forever etched in the history of Wilno and Madawaska Valley.
“May we always remember our raw pain so that it will be transformed into action and we will never see history repeating itself.”
syogaretnam@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/shaaminiwhy
Mourners hold a candlelit vigil in remembrance of Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk and Natalie Warmerdam in Wilno on Friday, Sept. 25, 2015.
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Carol Culleton, 66, was strangled in her cottage on Kamaniskeg Lake Road, Anastasia Kuzyk, 36, was shot dead at her home on Szczipior Road and Nathalie Warmerdam, 48, was also shot in her farmhouse on Foymount Road on Tuesday. A former boyfriend of all three women, 57-year-old Basil Borutski, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder in what police allege was a premeditated rampage that targeted women in his life.
Townspeople gathered “to comfort one another and support this community,” said Julie Keon, addressing the crowd at the park Friday evening as the sun began to set. Wilno is the country’s first Polish settlement and the park is next to the town’s Heritage Society and Museum. It’s also across the street from the Wilno Tavern, where Kuzyk worked. For those who live in the community, Tuesday’s events are raw and devastating, Keon said.
Families huddled together for warmth, couples comforted each other and friends embraced as they remembered three women “whose vibrant lives came to a tragic end.”
As friends of the fallen women read aloud their memories of each of them, the crowd began lighting candles until the surrounding darkness had been lit.
Helen Mandy described Kuzyk as “kindness itself”.
Mourners hold a candlelit vigil in remembrance of Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk and Natalie Warmardam in Wilno on Friday, Sept. 25, 2015.
“She could only find the good in everyone,” Mandy said. “We’ll keep her in our hearts forever.” And then a vow in front of so many looking for justice: “We will get our answers for her because we are here to speak for her now.”
Genevieve Way, who worked with Nathalie Warmerdam at a policing coalition and previously described her friend as a “target” who had first tried to get help for the struggling Borutski, woke up this morning in a fog.
“And then I remembered,” she nearly whispered into a microphone.
“We lost these women,” Way said. Three holes had been punched into the web of their community, she said. “And we’re reeling.”
Jim Jones, speaking on behalf of two of his friends who knew Carol Culleton, described a woman who enjoyed pints with new friends she was so happy to make. Culleton was a widow who had long supported her husband before he died of cancer. She was starting a new chapter in her life after his death and had just retired days before she was killed.
“She loved dragonflies and good country music,” Jones said.
A moment of silence was held and was broken by song lyrics that hit at the heart of a community’s conviction: “I will heed my own cries and I will a fierce warrior be ’til not another woman dies. I can and will fight.”
“Our lives have been forever changed,” Keon said. “And the memory of this day will be forever etched in the history of Wilno and Madawaska Valley.
“May we always remember our raw pain so that it will be transformed into action and we will never see history repeating itself.”
syogaretnam@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/shaaminiwhy
Mourners hold a candlelit vigil in remembrance of Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk and Natalie Warmerdam in Wilno on Friday, Sept. 25, 2015.
查看原文...
