‘I’ll be traumatized for the rest of my life’
Survivors tell of fleeing, hiding from gunman
The two sons of Greg and Jamie Blair hid in their house after a gunman shot their parents to death.
It is one of the chilling scenes of the 22 fatal shootings over a 13-hour period last weekend in Nova Scotia.
“They hid in the house until he was gone and then they took off to the neighbour’s house and hid inside with their two little kids next door until the cops came,” Tyler Blair, the half-brother of the two children, 10 and 12, said in an interview with CTV News on Wednesday.
Blair said the children are now in his care and a family friend has launched a GoFundMe page to raise money for them.
Clinton Ellison, the brother of Corrie Ellison, who was shot to death on Saturday night, said he was “hunted” by the gunman after he came upon his brother’s body.
The two brothers were chatting with their dad at his home in Portapique on Saturday night when they heard a single gunshot and Corrie Ellison spotted flames in the distance. He told his family that he was going to investigate and alert the fire department.
Clinton Ellison soon went looking for his brother when he didn’t return. He found his body on the side of the road.
“I knew from the gunshots I heard earlier, something was really wrong and I turned and ran for my life," Clinton Ellison told the CBC. “I’ll be traumatized for the rest of my life. I’m having a really hard time with it.”
Ellison told the CBC that he ran and lay in the woods for four hours “freezing to death,” after he saw a flashlight beam pursuing him on the road.
After an hour of silence, he called his father and told him Corrie was dead and warned him to stay inside.
He said if the RCMP had issued an emergency alert it would have at least given him information about what was going on while he hid.
At a news conference on Wednesday, Chris Leather, the chief superintendent for the Nova Scotia RCMP, defended the force’s use of Twitter to inform the public about the gunman rather than the emergency alert system that is broadcast directly to cellphones.
“From that initial call, our response was dynamic and fluid, with members using their training to assess what was going on while encountering the unimaginable," said Leather.
The RCMP say they are now sure that gunman Gabriel Wortman acted alone during the murders, but they are looking into whether he had an accomplice helping him prepare.
That assistance could have included the acquisition of the vehicle, complete with emergency lights and RCMP decals, and an authentic police uniform.
Police have said the mock cruiser and uniform helped the shooter escape detection as he travelled though the communities of Wentworth, Debert, Shubenacadie and Enfield.
The gunman shot people he knew, killed others at random and had planned the massacre, police said. There are 16 crime scenes spread over the northern half of Nova Scotia. A total of five structures were set on fire, though the exact sequence of events remains unclear.
Leather issued a plea on Wednesday for any information about the crime or possible accomplice, no matter how insignificant.
The police force is still unable to answer crucial questions about the murders, partly because the timeline of events still has holes in it and partly because there is a separate investigation being carried out by the Special Incident Response Team, which investigates police conduct.
“I would like nothing more than to provide the media and the public with a timeline. But it literally is still a work in progress. It would be unfair and inappropriate for us to give that out in its current state,” said Leather, who told reporters they are still “piecing together the movements” of the gunman.
Leather said he was unable to answer questions about the guns used by the killer and the tactics used by RCMP members while detaining him due to the investigation by SIRT, which has “locked up” some parts of the inquiry from them.
Whether the gunman had a licence and where he obtained his firearms “is very much a part of the ongoing investigation,” said Leather. National Post, with files from