The woman wanted to separate from her husband, but then the war started in Ukraine, and her focus was on their two sons.
Witness A, as she was identified in Saint John court because of a publication ban, was worried about the country’s mandatory military service for young men. So the family planned to seek temporary shelter in Canada.
“The idea was to protect them from being killed,” she testified, her voice barely above a whisper.
Two years later, the boys, aged 10 and 17, were stabbed to death in their own home by their father.
A jury found Roman Kamyshnyy, 46, guilty last month of two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of the boys on Jan. 29, 2025.
Judge had urged man found guilty of murdering boy, teen to plead guilty to spare ex-partner from testifying
Saint John police found their bodies inside a barricaded apartment in Millidgeville, in the north end, at 7:18 a.m. that day, responding to a 911 call from the eldest victim.
Publication bans still prohibit naming the victims, identified only as A.B. and C.D., as well as Witness A.
But CBC News can now report all of the relationships involved and tell more fully the tragic story of domestic violence the Crown described as being “driven by vengeance.”
Kamyshnyy maintained he did not remember what happened. He claimed he had started drinking wine and beer in recent months to deal with the stress of his divorce on Nov. 8, 2024, after 20 years of marriage.
According to the Crown’s case, Kamyshnyy, who continued to live in the family’s apartment until he could afford his own, used a kitchen knife to stab his 10-year-old son multiple times in bed as he slept.
He broke that knife stabbing his 17-year-old son, who briefly escaped while he grabbed a bigger knife. Kamyshnyy dragged the teen back into the apartment and killed him on the kitchen floor, the Crown asserted. Then he shot himself in the head twice with a nail gun in an attempted suicide.
Kamyshnyy denied the Crown’s contention the killings were planned for at least eight days and designed to punish his ex-wife for her alleged infidelity.
“Because for [her], what could be worse?” Crown prosecutor Elaina Campbell asked in closing arguments in the Court of King’s Bench. “A mother whose children are gone forever.”
Yet Kamyshnyy testified “all this situation” could have been prevented by his ex-wife “with two simple sentences. … ‘Roman, I’m sorry. Let’s get over it.’”
The jury also saw a “goodbye” email he wrote about “the tragic end to our story,” which he scheduled to send to her and her mother at 1 p.m. on Jan. 29 after he was already in police custody and in hospital.
It included screenshots of her private messages with another man and read in part: “I tried VERY hard to make up with you, but you don’t want that. … I KNOW in many ways this is my fault, but I can’t forgive the fact that my children have a slut for a mother.
“THAT’S why you’re dealing with all this shit right now.”
The jury also saw a handwritten signed letter police seized from the apartment, which was addressed to Canadian officials and dated Jan. 27 — two days before the killings.
“My name is Roman Kamyshnyy and I’m fully responsible for this situation,” it read in part.
“I decided to commit suicide and take my kids cause I can’t cope with the divorce recently happened in my family. We’ve been married … for 20 years and I recently got to know that I no longer needed and loved in my family,” he wrote, referring to alleged infidelity.
“I can’t see myself without my family and made this desperate step.”
His ex-wife, who testified from behind a special screen that shielded her from seeing Kamyshnyy in the prisoner’s box, although he could see her, described their life together as being “in a prison.”
Prior to leaving Ukraine, everything “looked fine,” she said.
“Two pretty, young people, beautiful kids. Right?”
They never argued in public or in front of the kids. Nothing would reveal they “had some problems.”
Behind closed doors, however, she was “all the time miserable” and anxious to separate.
The kids loved their father though, so she didn’t want to cause them trauma.
She said she hoped the relocation would improve their relationship and “maybe everything will be fine.” That didn’t happen.
Spending more time together than before because she no longer worked as a flight attendant, she realized it was easier when she saw him only one or two weeks a month, she said.
She was “absolutely not happy as a woman” and started to believe “maybe I have a right to have happiness for myself,” to “have this freedom from a person” who is “just hard to be with.”
Getting a divorce was the one thing she could do to “protect” herself.
Saint John man found guilty of two counts of 1st-degree murder in stabbing deaths of boy, teen
She told Kamyshnyy “many times” she wanted a divorce, but he told her every time that there “must be something wrong with your hormones,” or that she was depressed and would “never survive” without him.
“He didn’t listen to me” and “victimized himself all the time about everything.”
She eventually filed remotely for a divorce in Ukraine. He signed the papers but still talked about wanting to try again, she said.
She wanted him out of the apartment but they continued to live together for financial reasons, she said. Kamyshnyy owed the Canada Revenue Agency about $15,000 because of a payroll error at work, she testified.
Kamyshnyy begged her “all the time” not to tell their sons or his parents about the divorce until he was able to get his own apartment, she said. It would “destroy them,” he told her.
She did tell the children and messaged with the eldest about it the morning of Jan. 28, the day before the murders, the trial heard.
The teen told her he was angry after spending a week at home with his father and brother, while she was away on vacation in Europe and then at a work conference in Ottawa.
He accumulated “negative emotions” from Kamyshnyy, he wrote, “because all the positive ones are being drowned out by alcohol. … And as an excuse, Mom doesn’t want to make up.”
“That’s manipulation,” she replied. “I don’t understand why a grown man can’t accept the situation like an adult and move on.
“You and [your brother] are more mature and smarter in this difficult life situation than a 45-year-old man.”
“Well, let’s do this at home,” the teen wrote. “Not over the phone.”
“In his eyes, I’m to blame for everything; I’ve turned the kids against him,” she wrote to her son. “I’m not going to spend my life in a toxic and unhappy relationship.”
“Yeah. See you tomorrow,” the teen replied.
The mother reminded the teen his father would be moving out. “You’ll soon start your own independent life. … And I know you’re going to make it big in life and achieve a lot.”
Less than 24 hours later, at 7:08 a.m., Kamyshnyy messaged her in Ottawa saying, “Go home. I killed everyone,” the trial heard. He sent her a photo of the teen’s bloody body splayed on the kitchen floor, his eyes open and lifeless.
In a videotaped statement to Saint John police, which was never shown to the jury but was submitted into evidence during a pre-trial hearing, Kamyshnyy painted a different picture of their family life.
Their situation was “pretty solved” the previous year after fleeing Ukraine, he told Sgt. Tony Gilbert of the major crime unit on April 23, 2025, at the Dalhousie Regional Correctional Centre.
They had a place to live and jobs. “We had, uh, nice perspectives,” Kamyshnyy said, “until I found out … what is happening.”
He recalled a day in the summer of 2024 when he allegedly tried to talk to his wife but she was distracted by her cellphone.
He wanted to know why, so he went over to her, kissed her, then grabbed her phone and went outside, he recalled with a laugh.
He spent about 30 minutes reading through her private messages, some of which were with men, he said.
“At that moment it was completely, a million per cent sure that she’s cheating [on] me, many years,” Kamyshnyy testified. “And I was completely shocked. How it is possible?”
He returned her phone, saying, “I’m completely enraged with you,” he said, hastening to add that all he did was speak, and there were “no actions, no beatings, no scandals.”
He later hacked into her social media account and read her private messages for months until hours before the murders, the courtroom heard.
Kamyshnyy told Gilbert, the police officer, that he put a GPS tracker on the family vehicle without her knowing. So even though he was usually away five days a week for his work as a truck driver, he could see always see where she was and where she had been.
He would also call and ask where she was — to check if she was being truthful.
“After the work, she’s not going home, she’s going to friends,” Kamyshnyy alleged.
