Warrant shows Nova Scotia mass killer’s violent nature

Outlines brutality against dad, history of suspicious financial transactions

HALIFAX — Court documents released Monday describe the violence a Nova Scotia mass killer inflicted on his father years before his rampage as well as the gunman’s paranoia and suspicious financial transactions ahead of the killings.

Gabriel Wortman, 51, took 22 lives April 18-19 before police killed him at a service station in Enfield, N.S.

In documents a media consortium went before a provincial court judge to obtain, Wortman’s spouse and cousin both describe how in 2016 he smashed his father’s head against the pool at a family vacation in the Caribbean, causing blood to flow in the water.

The cousin, an ex-RCMP officer, said as Wortman was growing up he was a “strange little guy” who later became a career criminal who financed his way through university with illegal alcohol and tobacco smuggling.

The document says the witness told police he’d believed Wortman was capable of perhaps killing his parents but hadn’t imagined he would go on a mass shooting rampage.

The accounts of Wortman’s tensions with neighbours are also discussed in the documents, with one witness describing how the 51-year-old denturist had once argued with Aaron Tuck — a Portapique neighbour he would later murder during the rampage — over the price Tuck was asking for his home.

The spouse told investigators Wortman disliked police officers and even once mentioned they would be easy to murder.

Yet, there is also a description from her of a calm period on the morning of April 18, as the couple drove around the countryside in the area of Debert, N.S., hours before he began his rampage.

“We were making plans,” she’s quoted as saying about the night of April 18.

“It’s like he snapped. I don’t know.”

The documents contain a chilling description of the gunman’s attempt to kill RCMP Const. Chad Morrison in Shubenacadie, N.S., on April 19, when the officer was shot and wounded by Wortman.

Morrison said as he awaited his partner, Const. Heidi Stevenson, he hadn’t been expecting Wortman’s arrival, believing the gunman was still 22 kilometres to the northwest.

The constable realized Wortman’s intent as he pulled alongside him in the replica police cruiser he drove for much of his rampage.

The documents released by Judge Laurel Halfpenny MacQuarrie include an account of a federal Finance Department agency looking into allegedly suspicious financial transactions by Wortman and Northumberland Investments Inc., a firm he owned.

Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, or FINTRAC, told the RCMP it learned that “Gabriel Wortman used his account to make purchases of vehicle accessories commonly used by police, including items explicitly labelled as being intended for police use via eBay.”