The public inquiry into the mass shootings examines what happened on April 18-19, 2020, when Gabriel Wortman destroyed many houses and killed neighbors and strangers throughout the province – including a pregnant woman – while driving a fake police car.
Documents released by the investigation include accounts by his wife, Lisa Banfield, of his many years of emotional and physical abuse and women who had sex with the gunman or met him briefly while having a party in his garage.
Kaitlin Geiger-Bardswich, a spokeswoman for Women’s Shelters Canada, said one of these interviews, by a woman named EE in the research report, caught her eye.
The EU was staying close to the gunman’s Portapique cottage and first met him around 2014. He told police he would do strange work on the gunman’s property, clean his cottage and help build the large garage that would eventually house the police station. of tools.
Kaitlin Geiger-Bardswich represents Women’s Shelters Canada, which is involved in the research in a coalition with the Transition Houses Association of Nova Scotia and the Be the Peace Institute. (CBC)
It had a small place without running water. The EU said it relied on guns for everything from firewood in the winter to food and drink, as it had no car or job at the time.
“He would take me to his house and run to my bathtub and take out all the nice warm towels and he always had a little special soap for me, everything was ready beautifully and a lot and then he would feed me. “the EU told police.
“At that point in my life, it was like a miracle to me.”
The EU he said they were always good friends and also had a constant sexual relationship.
Geiger-Bardswich said the situation was worrying and coincided with a broader trend of armed robbery of women.
“He was a smart man. He knew there was this dynamic of power. He knew he could use and exploit women’s vulnerabilities and their needs, their basic needs to get what he wanted,” Geiger-Bardswich said.
The EU described once when she and the gunman had group sex with a young woman who was ill at his dental clinic in Dartmouth, NS
The gunman focused on patients receiving social assistance or living “on the streets”, the EU said, bringing them back to their holiday home and “treating them like queens”.
The former Atlantic Denture Clinic in downtown Dartmouth, NS, was owned by gunman Gabriel Wortman. The photo was taken on April 20, 2020. (Craig Paisley / CBC)
The Community Services Department has confirmed that the Atlantic denture clinic, to which the gunman belonged, has received provincial funds to provide services to clients receiving Employment Support and Income Assistance, as well as those participating in the Disability Support Program.
Between 2015 and 2020, it received $ 434,406 from the province for these services.
Linda MacDonald and Jeanne Sarson, two Truro nurses who defend women’s rights, heard other stories about the dentist clinic. They have successfully pushed for research to look at gender-based violence in its mandate.
Following the release of the gunman’s name and face, McDonald and Sarson said they received a call from a woman who had once been his patient. She was so “terrified” of what he did to her while he was in his clinic that he did not complete her treatment.
“She felt he had brought her to the room alone in the chair and sexually assaulted her,” MacDonald said. “This woman no longer wanted to make this journey around his office.”
Jeanne Sarson (left) and Linda MacDonald are women’s rights advocates from Truro, NS and involved in the public investigation into the mass murder in Nova Scotia in 2020. (CBC)
A Portapique neighbor, Brenda Forbes, said no one believed her when she told RCMP in 2013 that Wortman had abused Banfield. Nothing came of her complaint.
Then, on April 18, 2020, the excitement began when the gunman attacked Banfield and threw it into the virtual cruiser. He told police he managed to escape from the compartment of the car and hid in the woods overnight.
It was not the first time. Banfield said there have been at least 10 other physical attacks over the years and the gunman was checking where he was going. Banfield said she did not like talking to her siblings every day because she wanted all her attention.
He once described two of the gunman’s friends in the Portapique cottage as the gunman strangled and punched Banfield in a bed. The men asked the gunman to “leave her alone” but never intervened, he said.
Continuous abuse
Banfield told police the gunman often blamed her after the attacks.
“He always said, ‘Why did you make me do this? It’s your fault. Like, I knew it wasn’t my fault, I’m not stupid. But you know, why I put up with it.
George and Brenda Forbes tried to tell police about the abuse of their partner by Gabriel Wortman and that he had illegal weapons in his home, but say police did not investigate. (CBC)
Sarson said there was still a long way to go in today’s society to change beliefs and attitudes about violence between close partners, which she said is often still considered a “family affair”.
“It still is – ‘well, that’s their relationship, it’s not our job,’ but it’s our business. I think we have to do it our job,” Sarson said.
Another woman said she wanted to report the fake police car and the gunman’s strange behavior – but she was too scared to take that step.
The daughter of the EU, who also had a party in the gunman’s garage, told police after the mass shooting that the fully marked RCMP car and the gunman’s uniforms frightened her. She was convinced that he was either an officer or had a party with “dirty cops”.
The DD later revealed to the committee that it believed the report of the gunman would make things worse or they would not believe it.
“You can’t just go to a police station … because we didn’t know it and we probably don’t know how deep it goes in the police. I could have been in danger,” DD said.
One of the Portapique gunman’s acquaintances, Rob Doucette, said the gunman would make aggressive advances to women in the area at parties, sometimes entering a hot tub naked. Doucette once said that he and another man were seen chasing Lisa McCully and “had to take his hands off her”.
McCully was one of the first people killed by gunmen on April 18.
Twenty-two people died on April 18 and 19, 2020. Top row from left: Gina Gulett, Down Gulencin, Joulen Oliver, Frank Gulencin, Sean McLeod, Alana Jenkins. Second row: John Zahl, Lisa McCully, Joey Webber, Heidi Stevenson, Heather O’Brien and Jamie Blair. Third row from the top: Kristen Beaton, Lillian Campbell, Joanne Thomas, Peter Bond, Tom Bagley and Greg Blair. Bottom row: Emily Tuck, Joy Bond, Corrie Ellison and Aaron Tuck. (CBC)
Doucette said he would see the gunman get angry if a woman rejected him – “he would like to start calling them prostitutes and this and that”.
One expert report on research He said many mass murderers have been violent with women in their lives – and their partners are usually the first victims of such attacks.
A twelve-year analysis of mass shootings in the United States between 2009 and 2020 concluded that mass shootings are often “mixed with acts of domestic violence.” Based on reports of 262 incidents, it was found that in at least 53 percent of the mass shootings, the perpetrator shot a current or former close partner or family member during the attack.
A photo of the 2017 decommissioned Ford Taurus gunman made in a cruiser replica and used during the NS mass shootings on April 18-19, 2022. (Mass Loss Committee)
Women’s Shelters Canada is participating in the research, represented by a legal adviser, in alliance with the Transition Houses Association of Nova Scotia and the Be the Peace Institute. Sarson and MacDonald are also participants but self-representing.
The inquiry is expected to hear more from Banfield in the coming weeks, but no decision has yet been made on when and how to file.
The next phase of the investigation, which is expected to last until the summer, will also delve into a number of issues, including how the partner and gender-based violence played a role in the mass murder.
