Return to Portapique

My partner murdered 22 people in a shooting rampage. Months later, I went back to our home to show police how I escaped

- BY LISA BANFIELD PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ADAM MAIDA

On April 18, 2020, Gabriel Wortman murdered thirteen of his neighbours in Portapique, Nova Scotia. He hid in a nearby field overnight and killed nine more people the following day, including a pregnant woman. He died later that morning, after RCMP officers fired on him at a gas station.

Lisa Banfield, Wortman’s common-law partner, endured years of violence from Wortman. She escaped with her life the night his shooting rampage began. Six months following the murders, Banfield went back to Portapique and walked officers through her last moments with Wortman. Her account of that fraught return is excerpted below from her book The First Survivor: Life with Canada’s Deadliest Mass Shooter. She wrote the book hoping to inspire greater compassion for women in abusive relationships, including among women who are themselves experiencing abuse.

I WAS DETERMINED to return to Portapique before the snow fell. Anyone who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder will understand why returning to the scene would trigger and heighten the flashbacks, nightmares, and panic attacks I experienced that summer. I knew it would be gruelling and awful, but I felt I needed to go. My sisters Janice and Maureen questioned if I was ready, concerned it would be too much for me. My clinical therapist warned it was risky for my mental health. Despite their cautions, I desperately wanted to find proof of my experience.