DARTMOUTH, N.S. — The RCMP confirmed in a detailed timeline that last weekend’s killing rampage began with a domestic assault in Portapique on Saturday evening.
The gunman, identified as a Dartmouth denturist, assaulted a woman he was in a relationship with, Supt. Darren Campbell, officer in charge of support services for the RCMP, said at a briefing at RCMP headquarters in Dartmouth on Friday morning.
“The victim managed to escape from the gunman and she hid overnight in the woods,” Campbell said.
After the assault, police received their first 911 call of a shooting at a home in the area of the Colchester County community. Officers arrived on the scene at 10:26 p.m. and located a man leaving the area with an apparent gunshot wound, Campbell said.
The gunshot victim said he had met another vehicle on the road to the beach in Portapique and was shot as the vehicle was passing by. He described the vehicle as a car that looked like a police vehicle.
That victim was taken to hospital and survived.
Several police units responded to the scene, Campbell said, and “located several people who were deceased, some of whom were lying in the roadway.”
There were also several structures on fire.
“In total, there were seven locations where people were found deceased,” Campbell said.
Campbell said there were 13 people found dead and two others injured within a two-square-mile area around Portapique, particularly along Portapique Beach Road and Orchard Beach Drive.
The dead in the Portapique area have been identified as Lisa McCully, Greg and Jamie Blair, Jolene Oliver, Emily Tuck and Aaron Tuck, Joanne Thomas and John Zahl, Dawn and Frank Gulenchyn, Peter and Joy Bond, and Corrie Ellison.
Police tried to secure the area as they began looking for possible suspects. When the woman who was initially assaulted, a person sources say is the killer’s longtime girlfriend, emerged from the woods Sunday morning at about 6:30 a.m., she identified Wortman and told police that he had access to vehicles that looked like police cruisers and that he had a uniform that resembled an RCMP outfit.
Campbell said police quickly ascertained that the gunman owned three former police vehicles -- that can be purchased at auctions -- or vehicles that looked like a police cruiser and that he owned several firearms, including pistols and long-barrelled rifles.
Police issued a bulletin with a description of the suspect.
Police cannot account for the gunman’s actions in the early hours of Sunday morning but say he continued his swath of destruction later in the morning. He moved on toward Wentworth and Debert and eventually to Shubenacadie and Enfield, killing nine more people for a total of 22 fatal victims.
He arrived in the Hunter Road area of Wentworth, some 50 kilometres from Portapique, where he killed two men and a woman -- Tom Bagley, Sean McLeod and Alanna Jenkins -- and set a residence on fire. At least two of those three victims were known to the killer, Campbell said.
The killer then travelled to a residence on Highway 4 near Glenholme, where he knocked on the door of a home. The residents knew the killer and didn’t open the door but in a 911 call sometime past 9 a.m., they identified Wortman, who was carrying a long-barrelled gun and wearing a police-like uniform and driving a replica RCMP vehicle.
The shooter continued southbound on Highway 4, encountered Lillian Hyslop walking and shot and killed her.
The gunman then travelled on to Debert, arriving there at 10:08 a.m.
At Debert, he pulled over a vehicle and shot the driver and shot another driver who was passing by. The victims were Kristen Beaton and Heather O’Brien.
Const. Chad Morrison and Const. Heidi Stevenson were on shift Sunday morning, working out of the Enfield RCMP detachment, Campbell said. The two officers were travelling in separate cruisers and arranged by radio to meet at the intersection of Highway 2 and Highway 224, near the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park.
Morrison saw a marked police vehicle approaching and thought it was Stevenson but it was actually the gunman, who pulled up beside the officer and opened fire, hitting Morrison several times. The officer retreated from the area to seek emergency medical attention.
Stevenson, meanwhile, was driving northbound on Highway 2. The 23-year RCMP veteran engaged the gunman and she was killed, Campbell said. The killer took Stevenson’s sidearm and ammunition.
A passerby, Joey Webber, stopped to help and was killed by the gunman. The gunman set both Stevenson’s cruiser and his replica vehicle on fire. He took Webber’s silver SUV and left the scene, travelling south on Highway 224 a short distance before entering the home of an acquaintance, Gina Goulet. He shot and killed Goulet, removed his police clothing and transferred his weapons to Goulet’s vehicle, a red Mazda 3.
He then travelled south toward Enfield in Goulet’s vehicle, stopping at the Enfield Big Stop, covering 23 kilometres from the location in which he shot Morrison to Enfield.
“While he was at the gas pumps, one of our tactical resources came to the gas station to refuel their vehicle,” Campbell said. “When the officer exited the vehicle, there was an encounter and the gunman was shot and killed by police at 11:26 in the morning.”
Campbell said it was “possible that the suspect was able to leave the (Portapique) area before the initial response” by police.
Police were later told of a vehicle that resembled a police cruiser moving through a field and gaining access to the road out of Portapique. The RCMP now believe that could have been the killer.
He said the fact that the suspect looked like a police officer was a complicating factor in tracking him down.
“I’ve been a police officer for almost 30 years now and I can’t imagine any more horrific set of circumstances than when you are trying to search for someone who looks like you,” Campbell said. “The dangers that that causes, the complications that that causes. That obviously was an advantage that the suspect had on police, had on the public and had on every person he encountered through the course of his rampage.”
Campbell said the killer had owned three plated Ford Taurus vehicles that were probably former police cruisers and that are often sold at auction. Police found one of the vehicles at the killer’s primary residence in Halifax Regional Municipality and two others burning at the gunman’s residence in Portapique, along with the home and garages.
Police learned later that he had a fourth unplated RCMP replica vehicle and that is the car that he used during his rampage, Campbell said.
“The fact that there was this fourth unplated vehicle didn’t emerge until the early morning hours (Sunday) when that critical witness emerged from the woods,” Campbell said. “We had accounted for three vehicles that we believed the suspect actually possessed. I know that those were factors considered by the critical incident commander as they were going through any kind of public notification potential.”
Campbell said a full review of the response will take place but he offered a reason why an alert wasn’t sent out earlier.
“They believed that they had that area contained,” Campbell said, adding that police would have thought the suspect was still in the area or that the suspect was dead inside his burned-out residence.
Police are searching for where the killer may have had the RCMP decals that were on the car printed. Campbell said part of the uniform he discarded in Shubenacadie appears to be an old RCMP issue.
Campbell said the killer did not have access to RCMP radio communications.
Campbell cautioned that although the series of events began with an assault, that does not preclude the possibility of pre-planning. He said no hit list of names was found, as had been reported.
“We also want to ensure that there was no other involvement or knowledge of any other person that might have contributed to or led to this horrific series of events,” Campbell said.
He said the gunman’s girlfriend is co-operating fully with police.
A related shooting Sunday moring involving two RCMP officers at the Onslow-Belmont firehall in Belmont is under investigation by the Serious Incident Response Team, Campbell said.
Campbell asked anyone with further information, no matter how insignificant it may seem, to call the RCMP tip line 1-902-720-5959.
