A look at how the Nova Scotia massacre unfolded
FROM A PARTY QUARREL TO A HIGHWAY STOP TAKEDOWN, A LOOK AT HOW THE RAMPAGE UNFOLDED
The rampage that left 22 dead started on Saturday night in Portapique, a rural community on the banks of Cobequid Bay. It spanned more than 12 hours, 16 crime scenes and 90 kilometres as Gabriel Wortman shot neighbours and strangers and then set some of their homes on fire. For much of it he was dressed as a Mountie and driving an almost exact replica of an RCMP cruiser.
Several 911 calls just before 10:30 p.m. brought police officers to a home in the area of Portapique Beach Road. They found “multiple casualties” both inside and outside of the home, but no sign of the shooter, RCMP Chief Supt. Chris Leather would later say. A first Twitter message went out, asking the public to stay inside.
A search of the area revealed “additional victims and several structure fires.”
Audio recordings of first responders provide a glimpse of their frantic attempts to help the victims found amid the burning homes.
On one of the recordings, stored on the Broadcastify website, a first responder dispatched to the scene tells the dispatcher they can see something burning in the distance. As police locate victims, calls for ambulances begin to multiply.
“It’s very vague what’s going on down there but there is for sure multiple patients down there,” says a paramedic. In an 11:20 p.m. call, the dispatcher says of the suspect: “No, they don’t know if they’ve caught him.”
Wortman, a 51-year-old denturist who owned clinics in Halifax and Dartmouth, had at least one property in Portapique.
He had a home at 136 Orchard Beach Dr., according to a Halifax Chronicle-herald report on Wortman’s financial dealings.
As well, he was previously involved with a property across the street: 135 Orchard Beach Dr. That home belonged to Lisa Mccully, a 49-year-old teacher at Debert Elementary School. She rushed her two young children to the basement and went to help a neighbour whose house was on fire, her sister, Jenny Kierstead, told CBC.
Mccully was killed in the rampage.
Global News, citing sources, reported Thursday that the killing spree began with an argument between Wortman and his girlfriend at a nearby party. They left the party and the fight got more intense at home. He tied her up but she managed to escape and hide in the woods, Global said.
Global reported that sources said Wortman returned to the house party and began his killing spree.
When police arrived at the site of the 911 call in Portapique Saturday night — the address is as-yet unknown — 12 minutes after the reports of gunshots, according to a CBC News report, they found several victims, inside and outside the home. They also found buildings on fire.
It’s unknown who those first victims were, or how many were found dead.
In addition to Mccully, there are 11 other known Portapique victims. Greg and Jamie Blair ran a natural gas and propane sales and installation business. Their two young children managed to survive by fleeing to a neighbour’s home.
John Zahl and Elizabeth Joanne Thomas had retired to Portapique. Their house was burned down.
Joy and Peter Bond are among the Portapique victims, as are Dawn and Frank Gulenchyn.
Among the early victims were Wortman’s neighbours, Jolene Oliver, who was turning 40 this year, her husband Aaron Tuck, 45, and their 17-year-old daughter Emily.
Oliver’s sister, Tammy Oliver-mccurdie, said she learned Sunday evening that the family had been found dead in their Portapique home. She said it was a small comfort to know that the close trio died together.
“No matter how much they went through in life they always stayed together, and there was times that they had nothing,” she said in a phone call from Alberta.
Clinton Ellison, who described himself as in a “state of shock,” when he spoke to CBC News, said he and his brother, Corrie Ellison, had heard a gunshot and saw a fire sometime after 10 p.m. The two were in Portapique visiting their father.
Corrie went to investigate. When he didn’t come back,
Clinton grabbed a flashlight and went out to look for him.
“I could see a body laying on the side of the road,” Clinton Ellison said. “As I got closer, I could see it was my brother. I got one more step closer and I could see blood and he wasn’t moving.
“I shut my flashlight off, I turned around and I ran for my life in the dark. I went up the first cottage road . ... I turned around and looked down towards the road I had just run from to see a little flashlight flashing around looking for me.”
Clinton hid in the woods for four hours.
Wortman’s path through Portapique isn’t altogether clear. What is clear is that by Sunday morning, he had moved on.
WENTWORTH
At around the same time that the RCMP tweeted the identity of the suspect, a house fire was reported on
Hunter Road in Wentworth, some 50 kilometres away, according to a report in the Halifax Examiner.
CBC News reported that Lisa Owen, a neighbour, called 911, reporting an explosion and gunfire.
The house fire was at the home of two more victims: Alanna Jenkins and Sean Mcleod. Both were Corrections Canada employees.
Tom Bagley, 70, a retired firefighter, was their neighbour. When he saw the flames he walked over to help. He was shot and killed.
There was one more victim in Wentworth: Lillian Hyslop died while out for a walk Sunday morning.
GLENHOLME
The next sighting of the suspect was at the Hidden
Hilltop Family Campground, some 25 km south of Wentworth along Highway 4.
There were no known victims here.
DEBERT Shortly after the sighting and tweet from the RCMP, there was a report of a car crash at 1760 Plains Rd. in Debert. The crash site was about 10 kilometres from the campground.
It was around this time that the police announced Wortman was in a car that looked like a police cruiser. Leather would later tell the media that a witness told officers between 7 and 8 a.m. Sunday that Wortman would be driving what looked like an RCMP car and possibly dressed in uniform.
At some point Sunday morning, Heather O’brien and Kristen Beaton, who worked for the Victorian Order of Nurses, were killed as they each drove to work.
Beaton’s husband Nick told CTV News that Wortman “cowardly, extremely cowardly, took my wife’s life and our unborn baby.”
MILFORD, SHUBENACADIE AND BROOKFIELD AREA Around this point, the timeline gets unclear.
The RCMP tweeted that Wortman was in a silver SUV along Highway 102 in the Brookfield area.
Brookfield is just shy of 30 kilometres away from the scene in Debert and about 20 kilometres north of Shubenacadie.
Then, 20 minutes later, they tweeted it was confirmed as a silver Chevrolet Tracker and that Wortman had last been seen in Milford.
Wortman got the Chevrolet SUV from another of his victims, Joey Webber.
Webber lived in Wyses Corner; he had gone out to buy furnace oil. He may have headed north to the Milford gas station; he may have headed to the Shubenacadie area.
The sequence of events, in terms of when and where Wortman got the Chevrolet Tracker and where he drove, gets slightly unclear at this point.
SHUBENACADIE What is known is that in Shubenacadie, two RCMP officers caught up with Wortman.
Eric Fisher, a Shubenacadie resident, told CBC he heard gunshots. Looking out onto Highway 2, he saw what looked like two police cars that had crashed.
Const. Heidi Stevenson, a 23-year veteran of the RCMP and mother of two, was shot dead at the scene. Another RCMP officer, Chad Morrison, was injured.
Fisher said he saw another car arrive and he went to call 911. When he got back, the third vehicle was gone and the two police cars were on fire.
It seems that the third vehicle belonged to Webber. Halifax Coun. Steve Streatch told the Halifax Examiner that Webber’s father told him his son had driven up to the police cars on fire.
“He just left the service station to come up around, and he met the face of evil,” Streatch said.
It’s not clear when Shubenacadie resident Gina Goulet, a 54-year-old cancer survivor who worked as a denturist, was killed.
I TURNED AROUND AND I RAN FOR MY LIFE IN THE DARK.
ENFIELD
Soon after the confrontation with the two Mounties, Wortman, now driving the silver SUV, was heading through Milford.
Police caught up with him at the Irving Big Stop gas station in Enfield, at around 11:25 a.m.
Wortman was shot dead.