Content warning: This story contains graphic imagery and descriptions. Reader discretion is advised
“I’m thinking, I’ve got to get out of this car.”
That’s what was going through the mind of Lisa Banfield as she was trapped in the backseat of Gabriel Wortman’s replica police car She had just seen her common-law spouse, a man who abused and tormented her for nearly two decades, burn down their cottage in Portapique, N.S.
Now he was filling the front seat of the vehicle with guns and ammunition before going on a deadly rampage that left 22 people dead.
Nearly six years later, Banfield is now sharing what happened that night for the first time in an exclusive interview with CTV National News Chief News Anchor and Senior Editor Omar Sachedina.
April 18, 2020
In the hours before Canada’s deadliest mass shooting, Wortman and Banfield were driving through the back roads of central Nova Scotia. They were celebrating their 19th anniversary, a little more than a month after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic.
Banfield says Wortman grew increasingly paranoid about how the pandemic would affect their lives. After closing his denture clinic in Dartmouth, N.S., the couple moved to their cottage in Portapique.
On the night of the shooting, after calling some friends in the U.S., Banfield says he snapped and began yelling at her, so she decided to go to bed.
“I’m laying there, and I can hear this whooshing sound,” she said. “I’m thinking, ‘what the heck is he doing?’”
Banfield says Wortman came into the room, turned on the light and told her to get up. He smashed her iPad on the floor and crushed her phone with his foot.
“And then he’s on top of me and he’s grabbing me by the neck, choking me,” she said.
Banfield says she tried to calm him down, telling him it would be OK. But as they left the house, she knew there would be no turning back.
“He’s like ‘turn around,’ and as soon as I turned around, all I saw was this whoosh of fire,” she said. “It was gasoline he was throwing.”
As he pulled her to the warehouse that he kept the replica RCMP car in, which was one of his most prized possessions, he told her they would burn that down too, head to Dartmouth, then go to her sister’s home.
“I thought ‘kill me now,’ because if you’re going to go through my family, I don’t want to live.”
Wortman forced her into the back seat of the car and shut the door.
“All I was doing was kicking on the door to see if I could just break the glass,” Banfield said. “But it’s plexiglass, so there’s no way I could break it.”
She seized an opportunity when he went upstairs to an apartment in the warehouse and managed to get out.
Banfield then ran through the woods, but was forced to crawl after the trees and branches repeatedly hit her. She eventually found a hollowed-out tree to take cover in.
Then she heard the gunshots that marked the start of Wortman’s killing spree.
“I could hear things, and I was thinking, ‘is it fireworks?’” she said. “But clearly it wasn’t.”
Wortman killed 13 of his neighbours in Portapique. The next day, he killed nine more people in several incidents around the province. His victims included a pregnant health-care worker, a police officer with two young children and a 17-year-old girl.
Wortman outran police until they finally cornered him in a gas station in Enfield, N.S., where he was shot and killed.
From victim to suspect
Banfield left her hiding place when the sun rose, then went to a neighbour’s house. She told police who arrived at the scene about Wortman’s replica police car.
But her interactions with police would soon change.
“She went from being victim number one to public enemy number one,” Jessica Zita, Banfield’s lawyer, told CTV News.
Banfield and two of her relatives were charged with buying ammunition for Wortman. She says she did it to “get him off my back,” but didn’t know it was illegal. Crown prosecutors withdrew the charge.
The RCMP says it has taken “significant steps” when it comes to how cases of gender-based violence and intimate partner violence are handled. In a statement to CTV News, an RCMP spokesperson says the police force began work on “new training tools” last year “to help frontline members recognize and respond to coercive control, with full roll-out planned for 2026.”
Hoping to help
Banfield still carries with her a lot of questions that will never be answered.
“Part of me feels like if I didn’t get out of the car, would all those people be alive?” she asked. “I know I couldn’t do anything to change it, but that sticks with me.”
She has also written a memoir, “The First Survivor,” which will be released on Jan. 20. She says she hopes it will help others experiencing intimate partner violence.
“I want them to know that they can do it,” she said. “There’s lots of help out there. You just have to want to do it for yourself.”
“Victim 1: The Survivor” will air Sunday night on CTV following the NFL Divisional Round matchup between the Los Angeles Rams and Chicago Bears, as well as on Crave.
If you or someone you know is struggling with intimate partner violence, sexual assault or trauma, the following resources are available to support people in crisis:
- Call 911 if you are in immediate danger or fear for your safety.
- The Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres' website has a comprehensive list of sexual assault centres in Canada that offer information, advocacy and counselling.
- The Ending Violence Association of Canada‘s website has links to helplines, support services and locations across Canada that offer sexual assault kits.
- Indian Residential School Survivors Society crisis lines: +1 866 925 4419 or +1 800 721 0066 (24/7)
- Toronto Rape Crisis Centre crisis line: +1 416 597 8808 (24/7)
- Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline: +1 833 900 1010 (24/7)
- Trans Lifeline: +1 877 330 6366
- Suicide Crisis Helpline: call or text 988 (24/7)
- Sexual Misconduct Support and Resource Centre for current and former Canadian Armed Forces members: +1 844 750 1648
- Domestic violence shelters in Canada
- Read about your rights as a victim on the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime website.
