GUNMAN BEGAN SPREE WITH ASSAULT ON HIS GIRLFRIEND

Canada’s worst mass shooting erupted from an argument between the gunman and his girlfriend, who survived the attack, police confirmed Friday.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superintendent Darren Campbell said the weekend 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 51year-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 the rural community of Portapique, a quiet community of 100 residents where the suspect lived part time. He said when police arrived, they discovered a man shot. The man reported he was driving when someone in what looked like a police car shot him. He survived and was transported to hospital.

They were several homes on fire, including the suspect’s, when police arrived in the community. Campbell said the suspect had a pistol that was acquired in Canada and several long barreled guns that were obtained in the United States. Police found “several people who were deceased, some of which were lying in the roadway.”

Authorities initially thought the suspect might have committed suicide and was in one of the homes that was on fire, he said.

Campbell said at about 6:30 a.m., Wortman’s girlfriend emerged from hiding in the woods, called 911 and gave police detailed information about the suspect.

The suspect was shot to death by police at 11:26 on Sunday morning, about 13 hours after the attacks began.