The morning after a gunman killed 13 people in northern Nova Scotia, the RCMP was unaware that he had shot people again until frantic calls to 911 began shortly after 9:30 a.m. By that time, on April 19, 2020, four more people had been shot to death and the killer was still at large. The investigation into the murder blast released a key document Wednesday that provided gruesome details about the chaos that followed as the Mounties tried to locate a suspect driving a replica of an RCMP cruiser. “It’s the period when the perpetrator reactivated his flush after a short break overnight,” investigating attorney Roger Burrill told the hearing during a presentation based on the so-called fundamental document. “There is an additional level of difficulty with this presentation, as the information is sparse.” The document shows that after spending the night of April 18, 2020 parked in Debert, NS, the shooter left before sunrise and drove about 40 miles without being spotted at a house in West Wentworth, NS Surveillance video shows the killer arriving at Sean McLeod and Alanna Jenkins Farmhouse on Hunter Road at 6:35 p.m. Neighbors said they heard gunshots at various times, but it remains unclear what exactly happened to the isolated property between 6:35 a.m. and 9 a.m. Political and police investigators believe the two were fatally shot inside their home before being set on fire. “It’s hard to know exactly what happened in this house,” Burrill said. “This is a source of frustration with the information we have.” The investigation found the couple, who both worked as prison guards in northern Nova Scotia, knew the killer, whom police had identified the night before as 51-year-old Gabriel Vortman. The document makes no guesswork about the motive, but the RCMP has said the killer was most likely a “collector of injustice” intended to settle old grudges. Investigators believe neighbor Tom Bagley, a retired firefighter, was out for a morning walk shortly after 8:50 p.m. when he noticed the burning house and tried to offer help. He was shot just outside the house before the killer left at around 9:20 a.m., the document said. In a later interview with his wife, Patsy, investigators learned that Bagley had checked Facebook and the news before leaving for his walk, but there was no indication that he or his wife learned anything about the killings the night before. in rural Portapique, NS. The RCMP has come under fire for the way it communicated with the public during its April 2020 survey. shooter. The system can be used to transmit urgent messages to TV, radio and wireless devices. Some critics, including relatives of some of the victims, said the Mounties’ use of Twitter to warn the public did not make sense, as people in rural areas rarely use this form of social media. There were also speculations that the RCMP did not step up its warnings on the night of April 18, 2020, due to the belief that the threat had passed as soon as the shooting at Portapique stopped. The investigation, which began hearings on February 22, found that some Mountians assumed the perpetrator had committed suicide in one of the community’s wooded areas the first night. Just after 7:30 the next morning, police learned from Wortman’s community husband that he had escaped arrest in a vehicle that had been modified to look exactly like an RCMP-marked patrol car. At 8:02 a.m., the Mounties posted a brief warning on Twitter, saying for the first time that they were looking for an active sniper in the Portapique area. Residents were called to stay at their homes but no report was made of the killer’s vehicle. Meanwhile, a Hunter Street resident, April Dares, later told police she had spotted a “police cruiser” fleeing the neighborhood. When he turned to Facebook to ask about the shots he had heard earlier that day, he learned about what happened at Portapique. Call 911 at 9:32 a.m. to indicate a possible connection. Minutes later, another neighbor, Carlyle Brown, called 911 to report the growing house fire on the street and the sound of gunfire. Other neighbors called. In the chaos, the RCMP sent two broadcasts to all police radios in the area at 9:42 a.m. showing that a woman, Lillian Campbell, was killed on Highway 4 in the village of Wendworth, about 15 miles south of Hunter Street. The show also alerted officers to the fact that a “police vehicle” had been spotted in the area. Campbell, a retiree, was out for her morning walk when she was shot and killed on the side of the road. The suspect killed five other people, including a mountaineer and a pregnant woman, before being fatally shot shortly before 11:30 a.m. by an RCMP officer who spotted him refueling a stolen car at a gas station 30 miles north of Halifax. This Canadian Press report was first published on March 30, 2022.
