Joe Warmington

He’s paying for his heinous crimes in a prison cell and now, the Toronto Sun has learned, Killer Colonel Russell Williams will be paying cash to one of his victims.

Justice may not come swiftly. But, for Laurie Massicotte, it did come.

Russell — a former CFB Trenton base commander — and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Harriman, have settled with his second victim of sexual assault and forcible confinement.

“Relieved! Hopeful and humbled,” Massicotte told me in a text message.

The amount has not been disclosed. But the principle is being both noted and celebrated.

“It has not been easy for her but I think Laurie is satisfied with the outcome,” her lawyer, Phillip Healey, said. “It has been a long road for her.”

"It's been a long ordeal for Laurie and her family but we're happy that the litigation has come to an end and that they can now move forward with a fuller life."

A treacherous one, too.

The latest development comes a year after she agreed to settle with the OPP, who did not handle her part of the investigation very well: One officer even suggested she made the whole thing up, despite the fact there was a similar attack on the same street 10 days before.

Her $7.6-million breach-of-duty-of-care lawsuit was settled — again, for an amount that was not disclosed.

You want to talk about post-traumatic stress disorder and what it’s like going through it? Meet Laurie, a mother of three, who has the rare distinction of surviving one of Williams’s attacks.

Others didn’t.

“I think of them every day,” Massicotte says of two women who were not as fortunate.

Massicotte was attacked in her Tweed home, two houses down from Williams’ cottage, in September 2009.

Just two months later, Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 38, was found murdered in her Brighton home. Two months after that, Jessica Lloyd, 27, disappeared from her Hwy. 37 home.

Her body was found off a rural road after Williams confessed his crimes to OPP and provided an amazing profiler, Staff-Sgt. Jim Smyth, with an exact location on a map.

Massicotte thinks none of it would have happened if investigators had taken her ordeal more seriously. And what happened to her was horrific.

“It was like a horror movie,” she said.

Williams broke into her home, put a knife to her throat, hit her on the head with a flashlight, and tied her up. He tried to smother her with a blanket, removed her clothing, sexually assaulted her, and photographed it.

“I was sure I was going to die,” she said. “It was the worst time of my life but there were police who came to my house who did not quite believe me.”

She was forced to wait for a forensics team while still tied up and was never taken to hospital.

Further nonsense came later when Williams and his wife apparently attempted to shield assets from potential litigants by transferring all properties and holdings to Harriman.

After the OPP settlement, highly skilled Healey commented that he was satisfied the police handled their missteps honourably.

For Massicotte, it’s the end of a dark chapter in her life. Money is not going to repair what was taken from her or bring back the murdered victims.

It is true she has to drive by Williams’s cottage every day and sit in the same rooms where he held her captive.

But, she added, unlike Comeau and Lloyd, she has the opportunity to heal — something this settlement will help her do.

“It’s over,” she said. “After seven years, it’s finally over.”