In an exclusive and harrowing account, Lisa Banfield, the common-law spouse of the man responsible for Canada's deadliest mass shooting, details the night of terror that preceded the murder of 22 people in Nova Scotia. Her forthcoming memoir, The First Survivor: Life with Canada's Deadliest Mass Shooter, provides a chilling first-person narrative of the violence she endured on April 18, 2020.
The Night the Violence Began
On what would have been their 19th anniversary, the evening of Saturday, April 18, 2020, began with a sense of dread for Lisa Banfield. She was in bed at the cottage she shared with denturist Gabriel Wortman at 200 Portapique Beach Road in Portapique, Nova Scotia, when she heard him return. His mood was volatile and escalated rapidly.
Without warning, Wortman smashed her laptop and cellphone. He then grabbed Banfield by the hair, forced her to the floor, and began choking her. When she tried to calm him, he kicked her in the stomach, sending her backward into a solid bedpost. She felt and heard her lower back crack, an injury later confirmed by hospital X-rays to be fractures in her ribs and lumbar spine.
After forcing her to get dressed, Wortman tied a soft material, possibly a bathrobe belt, around her wrist. In a calm, eerie tone, he mentioned needing his gun. He then dragged her through the house, past an open safe containing $60,000, which he ignored. He retrieved a black handgun and a jerry can of gasoline.
Escape into the Freezing Woods
At the front door landing, Wortman threw the gasoline into their sunken living room and set it ablaze. He told Banfield, "At the end of the night, I'm gonna die. You won't die, as long as you don't run away from me." He then doused their vehicles with gas but did not ignite them, instead dragging her, now barefoot, toward a path leading to their warehouse.
On that path, a surge of adrenaline gave Banfield the chance to slip out of her coat and flee into the dark woods. She tripped and was quickly found by Wortman, who had a flashlight. He confirmed her worst fear, telling her he was going to kill her family. He forced her to the warehouse.
Inside, he retrieved a set of handcuffs. When Banfield begged him not to and refused to give her other wrist, he fired two shots into the cement floor beside her. Terrified the next shot would be at her head, she was pushed into the back seat of his decommissioned replica police cruiser, where he had placed several guns in the front.
A Desperate Bid for Survival
Alone in the car, Banfield managed, through desperate struggle and prayer, to free her left wrist from the handcuff, clawing her skin raw and leaving permanent scars. She found a way to crawl through an opening in the Plexiglas divider into the front seat and escaped the vehicle.
Knowing Wortman was still in the warehouse loft, she ran for her life into the woods. Freezing, barefoot, and in severe pain, she eventually found shelter in the hollow of a large fallen tree trunk. From her hiding place, she witnessed another house burning in the distance and heard gunshots and voices, including what she believed was Wortman's voice saying, "Hey boys," followed by two more shots.
She spent the entire night there, hiding from what she thought could be Wortman taunting her with a megaphone, terrified of both her partner and the wilderness. She tied her yoga pants around her feet to ward off frostbite and clutched a rock for a sense of protection.
Rescue and the Aftermath
At sunrise, Banfield emerged and made her way to a neighbour's house, belonging to Leon Joudrey. From there, she called 911. The RCMP, who had initially assumed she perished in the fire, quickly arrived. She was found to be moderately hypothermic and in a state of profound terror.
At the hospital, she was treated for her injuries, which included the spinal and rib fractures, bruising, and abrasions. An RCMP officer was posted outside her room. Throughout the day, she repeatedly warned police about Wortman's replica police car, emphasizing it looked identical to an RCMP cruiser, complete with stickers and roof lights.
She also expressed her fear that he was headed to her sister Maureen's home after burning his Dartmouth clinic. It was only later she would learn the full, horrific scale of Wortman's 13-hour rampage, which claimed 22 lives before he was killed by police.
Her sisters, Maureen and Janice, provided critical assistance to the RCMP investigation from the earliest hours, supplying photos of Wortman and his vehicles and sharing insights into his behaviour and gun collection. Lisa Banfield's testimony and that of her family became a cornerstone of the subsequent Mass Casualty Commission inquiry into the tragedy.
Her memoir, set for release on January 20, 2026, by Sutherland House Books, stands as a testament to her survival and a crucial firsthand account of the events that precipitated one of Canada's darkest days.
