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.
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.”
Blames ex-wife
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.”
Relationship like ‘a prison’
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.
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.
Mom’s final messages to teen
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.
Details of police statement the jury didn’t see
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.
Used GPS to track ex-wife
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. “When she is invited by friends, she, ‘Yeah, I can go.’ No matter about kids, no matter about [buying or cooking] food.”
The boys “didn’t notice” because she would buy them fast food or do nice things for them, he said.
He thought she should stick to her work and family. “It would be much better,” he said.
It wasn’t easy living together after the divorce, he admitted. When he’d come home after days on the road, “she wasn’t, uh, flexible.”
She didn’t cook for him and say, “You were at work, here’s some food. Relax.” Instead it was, “Do it yourself,” he said.
Ex-wife was due back after trip with man
He knew her trip to Europe on Jan. 21 was with another man, he said. It was the man’s birthday gift to her. They flew business class, “drinking champagne.”
“It was a high life,” he said. “And he’s 38 years, I guess, or 37, this guy. And now she’s 42.
“He was nice, he was smart, he did everything.”
She told him about the trip a couple of months prior, he said.
I’m not gonna do something wrong to you or anything.– Roman Kamyshnyy
“I said, ‘OK, you are not my wife. OK, you can go. I don’t mind. And I’m not gonna do something wrong to you or anything.’”
He took a week off work to stay with the kids so she could travel, he said.
She was scheduled to return the day the boys were killed, the trial heard.
‘That was the beginning of the end’
“Do you think Roman … that what happened with your boys was to get at [her] for all that she did to you?” Gilbert asked.
“She was taking everything from you, and she was rubbing [it] in your face by going on trips and being with other men. … Do you think that would’ve drove you … to do that?”
“Yeah, for sure,” he replied without emotion.
“It’s not about, you know, some difficult situation with less of money, or something less that can be improved or something. Something redone, or do something. No. That was the beginning of the end.”
“Yeah. And you knew that at the time?” Gilbert asked.
“Yeah, sure. I knew it half a year ago.”
Sentencing next month
Kamyshnyy is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 13 at 11 a.m. to allow time for victim impact statements to be submitted.
That could include statements from first responders, said Crown prosecutor Chris Ryan.
First-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence with no possibility of parole for 25 years.
