N.S. mass shooter drew police attention 10 years before killings
A new document shows that the gunman who killed 22 people in rural Nova Scotia had been on the radar of police a decade before his twoday rampage in April 2020.
The report tabled Tuesday by the public inquiry into the killings says Gabriel Wortman was the subject of police investigations on at least two occasions.
The first occurred in June 2010 when RCMP in Moncton, N.B., were contacted by the gunman’s uncle. Glynn Wortman told RCMP Const. Len Vickers that his nephew, who lived in the Halifax area, had threatened to kill his parents. Later that day, Vickers informed Sgt. Cordell Poirier of Halifax Regional Police that he had also received a complaint from Wortman’s father, Paul, about a death threat from his son.
Poirier’s report on the incident says he and another officer went to the killer’s home in Dartmouth, N.S., where they spoke to his spouse, Lisa Banfield, at 3:25 a.m.
The document says Banfield told the officers Wortman was asleep. She said he had been upset over a letter he received the day before related to a lengthy legal battle with his parents over property. Poirier asked Banfield if there were any weapons in the home and she said no.
Poirier later checked with the Canadian Firearms Registry for any possible weapons and reported that “If [the perpetrator] has any weapons they are not registered.” The document states that Wortman had never applied for a firearms licence.
Poirier’s report said he eventually spoke with Gabriel Wortman, who told him over the phone that he had a pellet gun and two inoperable antique muskets hanging on the wall of his cottage in Portapique, N.S.
The Halifax sergeant reported that he contacted RCMP Const. Greg Wiley, who said he was a friend of Wortman’s and would attempt to meet him to discuss the complaint. The document states that Wiley, who worked out of the Bible Hill detachment near Portapique, had struck up a rapport with the killer after responding to a report of a tool theft from his cottage around 2007 or 2008.
However, Poirier reported closing the file on Aug. 26, 2010, after he couldn’t get in touch with Wortman’s father. Meanwhile, the inquiry said Wiley told the inquiry’s investigators he couldn’t recall speaking with Poirier in 2010, and RCMP lawyers later advised that Wiley couldn’t find relevant notes after a search of his home following the mass shooting.
In an interview with two RCMP officers on May 8, 2020, Paul Wortman suggested the Mounties had failed to properly investigate the 2010 death threat. He said nothing came of it because his son simply denied the allegation and denied owning weapons aside from the pellet gun and muskets.
A second threat, this one against police, prompted a warning from the Truro, N.S., police department nearly a year later. On May 4, 2011, the Criminal Intelligence Service of Nova Scotia issued an officer safety bulletin to police agencies about Wortman written by Cpl. Greg Densmore, who warned that Wortman “wants to kill a cop.”
The bulletin was based on information from an unnamed person who told police that Wortman was in possession of at least one handgun and several long rifles that were stored in a compartment behind the flue in his Portapique cottage.
Poirier took note of the bulletin which he thought represented a “viable threat.”
He reported that he spoke to Densmore, the author of the bulletin, and to Wortman’s father before contacting Bible Hill RCMP, where Const. John McMinn, the on-duty supervisor, said he was unaware of the bulletin. Poirier said he provided McMinn with his report from 2010, including information about Wortman’s personal vehicle.
The document says McMinn conducted a database search, but it adds no further details.