N.S. RCMP reveal details on shootings

As police closed in on a killer who had already murdered more than a dozen people in a rural corner of Nova Scotia, the suspect narrowly escaped by driving a replica police car through a field under cover of darkness, the RCMP revealed Tuesday.

RCMP Supt. Darren Campbell said the first 911 call on April 18 came from the tiny village of Portapique just after 10 p.m. and officers arrived at the scene on Portapique Beach Road at 10:26 p.m.

The road provides the only access to the main highway, which is why police believed they had the assailant cornered.

However, Campbell confirmed Tuesday the gunman was spotted leaving the area only nine minutes later.

“There was a witness that saw a vehicle that was travelling through a field, which was not very common,” Campbell told a news conference at RCMP headquarters in Halifax.

He said Gabriel Wortman, who killed 22 people over a span of about 13 hours, then drove east to Debert, N.S., where he arrived at 11:12 p.m. and spent the night in an industrial park.

Campbell said the replica police car the gunman used to escape and later surprise victims was obtained in the fall of 2019, and was one of four former police vehicles he bought at auctions in the last few years.

He said 51-year-old Halifax-based denturist outfitted the vehicle with an emergency light bar and decals that made the late-model Ford Taurus look almost identical to a genuine RCMP vehicle.

“The gunman was a collector of many things, including police memorabilia,” Campbell told reporters. “He was in possession of multiple pieces of police uniforms from a variety of agencies .... How he obtained the decals and how they were produced is an investigative detail that I can’t get into.”