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After Nova Scotia Shooting, Families Mourn as Police Seek a Motive Police Seek Motive for Canada Killing Spree by Amiable Denture Fitter, as Dumbstruck Families Mourn
(32 minutes later)
The authorities on the east coast of Canada were searching for a motive on Monday after a gunman who appeared to be dressed as a police officer and was driving a vehicle that looked exactly like a genuine police car killed at least 19 people in one of the country’s worst mass shootings. He appeared obsessed with the police and owned eerily realistic copies of police uniforms and a homemade replica squad car. He fitted dentures for customers, many of them elderly admirers of his comforting bedside manner. He had a childhood fascination with air guns.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada implored his nation, which like many others is reeling from the coronavirus pandemic, to stand together despite this new trauma, “no matter how evil, how thoughtless or how destructive.” The day after a deadly rampage in a small and sleepy seaside community in Nova Scotia, a picture began to emerge of the killer, Gabriel Wortman, the soft-spoken, seemingly amiable 51-year-old denture specialist behind the worst mass shooting in Canadian history. The death toll totaled at least 19 including Mr. Wortman.
The gunman, Gabriel Wortman, 51, who ran a denture clinic in Nova Scotia, began the massacre in the town of Portapique on Saturday night and did not stop until he died 12 hours later at a gas station in Enfield, about 55 miles away, the authorities said. The police have not said how he died, which is the subject of a separate investigation by a an oversight body. Mr. Wortman, who ran two denture clinics in Nova Scotia, began the massacre late Saturday night in the town of Portapique, a close-knit beachside village of about 100 residents on the Bay of Fundy. It ended 12 hours later at a gas station in Enfield, 55 miles away, with the gunman dead, bodies strewn across a more than 30 mile area, five houses smoldering in flames and 16 crime scenes.
Chief Superintendent Chris Leather of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Nova Scotia said on Monday that the force believes that it will find additional victims in the remains of five burned out buildings, most of them homes. All the known victims, he said, are adults. Among the dead were a police officer, two nurses and an elementary schoolteacher. Stephen McNeil, the premier of Nova Scotia, described the massacre as “one of the most senseless acts of violence in our province’s history.”
Aside from a Mountie, who was at home recovering from a gunshot wound on Monday, the police force said it remains unclear how many other people were wounded in the rampage. The killings have deeply shaken Canada, a country with a relatively low level of gun violence, as it grapples with the Coronavirus pandemic. The tragedy has also traumatized Portapique, the kind of picturesque rural summer getaway familiar to many Canadians, where local residents are known to leave their doors unlocked and where everyone knows everyone.
The killings shocked Canada, which is already grappling with how to stop the coronavirus, and while there was no immediate motive given, the police said one line of investigation would be whether it had played a role. Lenore Zann, the local member of Parliament for the area where the killer struck, said that the lockdown to prevent the spread of Covid-19, the disease caused by the pandemic, had exacerbated the horrors of the violence at a time when people were already feeling isolated and disoriented.
Heather O’Brien, a nurse, was one of the victims of the shooting. Her daughter, Darcy Dobson, wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday that “a monster murdered my mother today.” “Know this whole thing is just crazy. We feel like we’re in a strange movie and we just can’t seem to get out of it,” she said.
“She drove down the same street in the same town she drives through every single day,” Ms. Dobson wrote, saying her mother had texted their family group at 9:59 a.m. Sunday. “By 10:15 she was gone,” she said. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada said on Monday that the coronavirus crisis meant the country had to forego vigils in favor of a virtual commemoration on Friday. And he implored his nation to stand together despite the tragedy, “no matter how evil, how thoughtless or how destructive.”
The Victorian Order of Nurses for Canada, Ms. O’Brien’s employer, said Kristen Beaton, a continuing care assistant, was also killed. A police officer and an elementary schoolteacher were also among the victims of the attack, which was described by Stephen McNeil, the premier of Nova Scotia, as “one of the most senseless acts of violence in our province’s history.” One line of investigation will be whether and how Covid-19 may have played a role. Among the many unanswered questions the police were examining on Monday were whether Mr. Wortman had been self-isolating or had been with family and if that could have affected his state of mind. Did the rampage start as a domestic squabble that spiraled? How many guns was he carrying? And where was he trying to escape to when he died after police gave chase?
Mr. Wortman was a denturist, a licensed dental health professional who works with dentists and provides denture care directly to customers. Denturists examine patients who are missing teeth and can design, construct and repair removable dentures. On Monday, police officers were combing crime scenes, interviewing witnesses and searching for bodies in the five properties burned during the killings. Chief Superintendent Chris Leather, of the Nova Scotia Royal Canadian Mounted Police, would not say how Mr. Wortman died, though witnesses said they had heard shooting.
In 2014, Mr. Wortman was in the news in Canada for a different reason: He was creating a new set of dentures, free of charge, for a cancer survivor who had lost all her teeth. The police said they did not know the motive for the killing spree and had not found a note from the shooter. But they said that dead bodies had been found inside and outside a private residence, where the shooting began, and that Mr. Wortman had known at least some of the victims.
“My heart went out to her,” he told a Canadian TV network at the time. She had cried tears of happiness, speaking of the “angels” who came to her aid. At least part of the spree appeared planned, the police said, given that Mr. Wortman had been wearing a real or fake police uniform and was driving a bogus police cruiser that appeared virtually identical to a Mounties car. The cruiser had allowed him to camouflage himself as he sped away. Later it burst into flames and the police said Mr. Wortman switched to a large sport vehicle he apparently had commandeered from a member of the public.
Much remains unknown about the killing spree. Chief Supt. Leather said that there are 16 crime scenes. During the manhunt, which spanned 12 hours, the police warned residents that Mr. Wortman was armed and dangerous. Already confined, residents said they locked their doors and hid in their basements, petrified that Mr. Wortman could invade.
The suspect, he said, had been able to elude the police for almost 12 hours largely because he was traveling in a homemade version of a Royal Canadian Mounted Police cruiser, which Chief Supt. Leather said “looked identical in every way” to a real one. He was also wearing R.C.M.P. clothing that, Chief Supt. Leather said, “were either actual uniforms or very good facsimiles.” Mr. Wortman’s acquaintances described him as having been “a little different,” but they were nonetheless stupefied that he had been identified by the authorities as the attacker.
After the bogus police cruiser was eventually engulfed in fire, Mr. Wortman switched to a large sport utility vehicle he apparently took by force from a member of the public. “Gabriel always had a sadness about him, but I was so shocked to hear that he’d hurt other people,” Candy Palmater, a university friend and Canadian comedian, told the Halifax Chronicle Herald. “I don’t know what his later adult life was like, but I can tell you that at university, people weren’t nice to him.”
The killing spree began in the cottage community of Portapique where Mr. Wortman owned several properties. At first, Chief Supt. Leather said, the shootings appeared to be targeted and involved victims known to Mr. Wortman. They then became random and his victims were apparently strangers. Mr. Wortman grew up as an only child in a working-class household in the suburban town of Riverview in New Brunswick, just across the Petitcodiac River from Moncton, one of the province’s largest cities.Friends said his father was absent.
But Chief Supt. Leather declined to say if the rampage started at one of Mr. Wortman’s properties or if the victims include his family members. He went to the University of New Brunswick. According to The Globe and Mail, he had studied to be a mortician before settling on becoming a denturist, a licensed dental health professional who provides dentures and can design, construct and repair removable dentures.
Commissioner Brenda Lucki, the head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said in Ottawa that Mr. Wortman “was not well known to police.” He became very wealthy, said people who knew him, owning a denture clinic in the city of Dartmouth with a branch in Halifax, the provincial capital of Nova Scotia. Portapique residents said he was a commuter who owned three properties including an old cedar log cottage.
She added that no note or other communication by Mr. Wortman had been found. She declined to identify the types of weapons he used. Nor would she say if Mr. Wortman held a firearms license. Pierre Little, a former friend and publisher of a Maine newspaper, remembered Mr. Wortman from school. Together, they used to “shoot his machine gun air pellet or BB gun, I can’t remember which, behind his house in Bridgedale. Quite a rare airgun for the eighties,” he wrote on Twitter.
Jenny Kierstead, whose sister, Lisa McCully, was the schoolteacher who died in the attack, said “our hearts are broken today as we attempt to accept the loss.” Mr. Wortman’s high school girlfriend said she was shocked by the news, as the man she had grown up with was kind and “always looking out for the underdog.”
Another victim was Heidi Stevenson, an officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with 23 years of experience on the force and a mother of two. She died after she responded to the shooting. “He was always so happy — just never angry,” said the former girlfriend, who identified herself as Lisa but asked that her last name not be used, citing her fear of being stigmatized by the association.
“Heidi answered the call of duty and lost her life while protecting those she served,” the police said in a statement. Another officer was injured. During high school, Mr. Wortman was known as the “Wheelie King” for the wheelies he would do on his dirt bike, racing past the school, she said.
Mr. Trudeau called for unity at a news conference on Monday. Loretta Parlee, who attended high school with Mr. Wortman, posted a photo from his yearbook on Facebook, dating from 1986 and showing a smiling young man with long hair. His entry said that he liked to cruise around on one wheel on his dirt bike and listed his likes as “good skiing and time spent with friends.” It said his pet peeves were “cold weather” and English. “Gabe’s future may include being an RCMP officer,” the entry ended.
“No one man’s action can build a wall between us and a better day, no matter how evil, how thoughtless or how destructive,” Mr. Trudeau said. “As families grieve the loss of a loved one all Canadians are standing with them.” High school friends said that Mr. Wortman could be generous. In 2014, he gave free dentures to a cancer survivor who could not afford dentures and had lost all her teeth from medication.
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, Mr. Trudeau said that a national vigil for the victims will be held online Friday. “My heart went out to her,” Mr. Wortman told CTV, a national broadcaster, which covered his act of generosity. “There’s so many ways for people to get dentures, but it seems like the people who really need them are the people who are getting left behind.”
Those who knew Mr. Wortman described him as having been “a little different,” but they were nonetheless shocked to hear he had been identified by the authorities as the perpetrator of such a bloody attack. Now, families of victims are trying to make sense of the tragedy.
“Gabriel always had a sadness about him, but I was so shocked to hear that he’d hurt other people,” Candy Palmater, a university friend, told local news outlets on Sunday. “I don’t know what his later adult life was like, but I can tell you that at university, people weren’t nice to him.” Darcy Dobson, the daughter of Heather O’Brien, the nurse who was killed, wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday that “a monster murdered my mother today.”
She said she couldn’t reconcile what he had done with the man she knew. “She drove down the same street in the same town she drives through every single day,” Ms. Dobson wrote, saying that her mother had texted their family group at 9:59 a.m. Sunday. “By 10:15 she was gone,” she said.
Scott Balser, a former high school friend, said Mr. Wortman “was a very nice guy who liked to help others,” according to The Chronicle Herald, a newspaper in Nova Scotia. Also killed was Heidi Stevenson, a veteran R.C.M.P. officer and mother of two with 23 years experience on the force. Another police officer was wounded.
Sophie LeBlanc, a woman who wrote on Twitter that her mother went to high school with Mr. Wortman, posted a photo of his yearbook entry. “Gabe’s future may include being an R.C.M.P. officer,” it said. Ms. Zann, the local member of Parliament where the killings took place, said it would take a long time for the area to recover.
“The majority of people right now are just in a state of shock that this would happen in such a sleepy little area as ours.”