The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Mass killer ‘poisoned from the beginning’
The Nova Scotia mass killer’s biological brother told police he could have grown up to be a murderer as well if he was raised in the same environment as Gabriel Wortman.
Jeff Samuelson, Wortman’s younger brother, was given up for adoption by Paul and Evelyn Wortman in the United States more than half a century ago.
“The old man is as dark as Gabriel um, the apples don’t fall far from the tree,” Samuelson told RCMP Const. Colin Shaw in an April 27, 2020, interview just released by the Mass Casualty Commission.
“Thank God this apple fell in a different country because this – this could have been me up there if ah, you know, I had (grown) up in an environment like Gabriel did.”
Samuelson, who was living in central Massachusetts when he spoke to Shaw, said his wife got “infatuated” with finding out more about his biological parents when he turned 21.
“I was like, honey, go ahead ah, have at it,” he said.
But courthouse records “were inaccurate, embellished,” and contained lies, Samuelson said.
‘FLOORED’
They left a note with the adoption agency in the early to mid-1990s with their contact information, should his biological mother come looking to meet her second son.
Then in 2010, he was “floored” when they got a response.
“You cannot imagine after … 40 years um, and now you’re gonna meet your biological mother,” Samuelson said.
“I had no idea that I was going to meet ah, you know a fully intact family still.”
They went forward with the “colourful” reunion, he said, noting there was even a newspaper article written about it.
‘LOVE DRUNK’
“Nobody gives up their second born. There’s something up with that. So, at that point I was so love drunk I didn’t think anything of it.”
The Wortmans travelled from Canada to the U.S. for the reunion. Their eldest son, who would go on to murder 22 people in Nova Scotia in April 2020, had not been informed before that about his sibling’s existence.
“That’s one issue in his life that was a major bombshell,” Samuelson said.
The Dartmouth denturist had a “horrendous upbringing. Just no role model in the home,” said the killer’s little brother.
“His parents in my mind had a 13-year-old adolescent maturity, both of them. Um, obviously they were grown adults and socially they could interact and things like that fine but I think behind closed doors it was a maturity level that, ah, just didn’t develop.”
‘TOTALLY DIFFERENT’ WORLDS
Gabriel Wortman was 40 when he learned from his parents that he had a little brother. “It pretty much severed their relationship,” Samuelson said. “Obviously, I was just a bystander ah, to the whole thing so he had no grudge against me.”
Samuelson said he visited his brother at his cottage in Portapique in August of 2010, where the killings started nearly a decade later.
“We’re pretty close to the same age but our worlds were totally different,” he said. “Like, Gabriel made dentures, you know I’m a … selfemployed carpenter.”
Samuelson and his wife had fun and went out to eat with his newfound sibling, he said, noting they also met Lisa Banfield, his brother’s common law spouse. “Gabriel and Lisa both put a wig on to go out for dinner,” he said. “Apparently she wanted to look like someone else.”
Wortman was upset with his parents, said his brother, noting they had talked on the phone a few times before the visit.
“He unloaded a mountain of information about his upbringing and the old man and his mother,” Samuelson said.
“He just wanted to explode on his childhood and how bad it was.”
‘NO REAL SCREAMING RED FLAGS’
There were “no real screaming red flags,” at the time about what was to come, he said.
“He did show off all of his weapons but I’m not impressed by weapons.”
Wortman also showed him a hand grenade, Samuelson said.
He couldn’t understand why his older brother kept guns hidden in his cottage and nearby garage. “The guy had some type of a paranoia.”
Samuelson said he learned his biological father had a police uniform, as did his son, who wore one during the killings years later while driving a fake RCMP car.
“The parallels are so – so similar,” he said. “The old man had a fetish about wearing a police uniform as I understand it. Um, he used to – the old man used to ah, put a uniform on and go harass people.”
That’s the kind of upbringing Gabriel Wortman had, said his brother. “If your old man has a police uniform that is as – as perverted as I can imagine.”
‘FORCED TO SHOOT HIS OWN DOG’
Samuelson told police “Gabriel was forced to shoot his own dog as punishment one time” because he hadn’t fed the animal or cleaned up its waste.
“The punishment from the old man was (he) made his kid shoot his dog.”
Incidentally, Wortman shot several dogs during his April 2020 killing spree.
Paul Wortman told Samuelson that his oldest son didn’t need a blanket anymore around the age of three. “So he burnt the friggin’ thing in front of him.”
‘MONKEY SEE MONKEY DO’
Samuelson said he also learned his biological father physically abused his mother. “Kid grew up watching his mother get beat. So, you know it’s just monkey see monkey do. This kid was poisoned from the beginning as far as I can see.”
Gabriel Wortman was known to physically abuse Banfield, his spouse. She told police the April 2020 killings were precipitated by an argument between them that turned violent.
Samuelson told investigators his biological brother got in a dispute over some properties that he’d put in his father’s name, including at least one in Portapique. He described a meeting in Moncton where “I twisted his father’s arms to sign that over,” and that “Gabriel was grateful” for his help.
Gabriel Wortman “hated his father,” Samuelson said. “I do believe he said he wanted to kill him at one point.”
Samuelson felt bad for his brother who was raised as an only child, and he wanted to get to know him better. But that never happened. “I wasn’t looking for a brother and neither was he.”
The two biological brothers “just drifted apart” after that.
“I always say that we got wired at the same factory but I went down a different assembly line,” Samuelson said.