(BRENDAN KERGIN / iNFOnews.ca)

Luc Joseph Borduas had a strange fascination with minerals and spirituality and that’s what led him to The Artful Hand store in Kelowna’s Orchard Park Mall.

But it was his “delusional fixation” on a young female worker there and perhaps other staff members as well that seemed to feed an undiagnosed mental illness.

Borduas came by the store often. He was known to get a piece of pizza, sit on a bench and watch the store. If staff knew something was wrong with him, no one in Kelowna Provincial Court Wednesday, May 15, said so, but one store worker said Borduas had followed him to his vehicle several times before his intentions became clear.

On June 14, 2023, Borduas, then 58, hid behind an electrical transformer box at a bus stop at the mall and watched as Marisa Mathews and manager Caleb Rosenthal made their way to work.

When the time came, Borduas grabbed Mathews and while she struggled, he stabbed at her seven times, hitting her with five of them. Several were in the chest, but the worst were on her left arm. He hit an artery, producing a lot of blood, and the tip of her finger on her left hand was nearly sheared off.

Borduas was then tackled by two bystanders who held him until police arrived.

They were considered “non-life-threatening injuries” but Mathews had every reason to believe she would die. She spent three days in hospital and months recuperating, physically, mentally and emotionally.

“I had to think about the fact my life could have ended, that what happened was how I might die, that someone else was trying to take my life and that they could have succeeded,” she said in a victim impact statement describing long term impacts on her and her family and coworkers.

“I’ve had to face the fact someone wanted to kill me and I live with that everyday.”

Borduas originally faced three charges, reduced to one charge of aggravated assault in exchange for a guilty plea. A slight bald man wearing red coveralls, Borduas watched from a video feed at Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre where he has been since he committed the crime.

“I am very extremely sorry for what I did to you last summer, the pain I inflicted on you, the trauma I caused you and the consequences I have added to your life. It was totally wrong, unnecessary,” Borduas read with a French accent from an apology letter he wrote. “I will repent forever for this act. It left a dark stain on my consciousness that is very difficult to live with and will require serious work on myself. I wish you well in your recovery.”

Borduas is now 59. He has no criminal record or any pattern of behaviour that might have explained what he did. While the judge was given a psychiatric report, it wasn’t shared with the courtroom. His lawyer, Jim Heller, said the likelihood of Borduas being found not criminally responsible was a plausible outcome.

He said Borduas found both Jesus and medical help while in prison and wanted to plead guilty, and even considered asking for a longer sentence to get better help in federal prison.

But Heller and prosecutor Catherine Gagnon presented Judge Clarke Burnett with a joint submission they all agreed was a lighter-than-usual sentence of three years in prison followed by two years on probation.

The lighter sentence was because of the unusual circumstances: It’s rare to see a nearly 60-year-old man commit an offence like this for the first time and the unknown illness he suffered at the time significantly reduced his moral culpability.

Burnett accepted it, as the law says he must.

“It is without question this was a very significant event not only for Miss Mathews but for many others on that day. It has impacted Miss Mathews emotionally and physically and impacted her other coworkers as well as their family members. The ripple effects of what Mr. Borduas did that day are significant,” he said.

With time already served, Borduas has roughly one year and seven months to serve. When he is released, he is to go nowhere near Orchard Park Mall or Mathews.

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