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Canada’s worst mass shooting erupted from an argument between the gunman and his girlfriend, who survived the attack, police confirmed yesterday.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superintendent Darren Campbell said last weekend’s shooting rampage started with an assault by the suspect on his girlfriend and ended with 22 people dead in communities across central and northern Nova Scotia.
‘‘She did manage to escape. That could well have been the catalyst of events,’’ Campbell said.
Authorities are also not discounting the suspect planned some of the murders.
Campbell said the girlfriend hid overnight in the woods from the suspect, who has been identified as 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman. Police have said Wortman acted alone in the shooting spree that killed 22 people in more than 16 crime scenes in several rural communities.
Campbell said they found 13 deceased victims in Portapique, a quiet community of 100 residents where the suspect lived part time. Several homes were on fire, including the suspect’s, when police arrived.
Campbell said Wortman’s girlfriend emerged from the woods in the morning, called 911 and gave police information about the suspect including that he was driving a mock police car and was in police uniform.
Police later started receiving 911 calls more than 60 kilometres away. Campbell said the suspect killed two men and a woman and set their house on fire. He knew at least two of them. He then shot a woman on the street and pulled cars over and shot and killed people.
He later shot and injured a male police officer in his car. The officer managed to escape. Campbell then said there was a collision between a female officer’s police car and the gunman’s mock police car. He shot and killed the officer and took her gun and set fire to the cars. He also killed a passerby and took their SUV.
He then drove to a house and killed a woman he knew before removing his police uniform and stealing her car. He then drove to get fuel and was shot by a police officer who happened to be at the gas station. The suspect was shot to death at 11.26am on the Sunday morning, about 13 hours after the attacks began.
‘‘There seems to be a trail of individuals who had problems with Mr Wortman,’’ Campbell said.
John Hudson, who had known Wortman for about 18 years, said Wortman was sometimes openly controlling and jealous of his longtime girlfriend. ‘‘I didn’t see him hitting her or anything like that. But I know they fought.’’
Hudson recalled a bonfire party about 10 years ago when an argument between the two left the woman locked out of their home in rural Portapique.
‘‘I was with her, trying to get her stuff out of there,’’ Hudson said. ‘‘People had been drinking . . . and it was a crazy night . . . and he didn’t want her to leave, but he wouldn’t let her in the house.’’
Hudson said at one point, Wortman removed the tyres from the woman’s vehicle and threw them into the ditch to prevent her from leaving. ‘‘So, I went to get (her clothes) and what he said to me was: ‘I don’t want anyone in my house. If you come in my house, I’m just telling you, I’ve got guns in here’.’’
Hudson said his neighbour had been purchasing used police vehicles at auctions.
Wortman owned a denture practice in the city of Dartmouth, near Halifax. His clinic had been closed because of the coronavirus pandemic.