Mountie recalls killer looked at him as he aimed pistol to end N.S. rampage

HALIFAX -

A Nova Scotia Mountie has testified that a single glance from the bloodied driver of a Mazda hatchback was the final confirmation that he had a mass killer lined up in his pistol sights.

Const. Craig Hubley, a dog handler, joined Const. Ben MacLeod, an emergency response officer, on Thursday to tell a public inquiry how they ended the 13-hour rampage by a gunman who killed 22 people on April 18-19, 2020.

Hubley testified that when he joined the hunt for the killer on the morning of April 19, he carefully studied the photographs of the wanted denturist Gabriel Wortman at a command post and attempted to "burn them into my mind's eye."

Over three hours later, when he and MacLeod pulled into an Enfield, N.S., gas station at 11:24 a.m. to refuel, Hubley said he noticed a man wearing a white T-shirt in a grey Mazda at a pump across from his police SUV.

He told the inquiry that as he emerged from his vehicle, his suspicions were particularly aroused by the man seeming to be unaware that blood was running from a bump on his head.

"What struck me the most in that quarter of a second was that he had a wound that he wasn't addressing," said Hubley, answering questions from commission lawyer Roger Burrill.

"It was enough of a concern for me that I began to draw my pistol and realize it was him. I remember yelling 'Benny, it's him,' bringing (the gun) to threat-ready position and then lining up my sights on him.

"He made a jerking motion to the left. When I yelled `Benny, it's him,' (the perpetrator) looked at me.

"I was already 100 per cent certain it was him, but it just confirmed for me that it was. He matched the pictures I had seen at the command post earlier that morning. They weren't the exact same, but it was enough for me," he said.

Both Hubley and MacLeod testified they started shooting when they saw Wortman raise a gun with his right hand. It was the pistol that belonged to Const. Heidi Stevenson, who had been killed by the gunman in Shubenacadie, N.S., earlier that morning.

The inquiry heard that in the seconds that followed, Hubley fired 12 bullets through the passenger window, while MacLeod, who came out of the SUV just moments after Hubley, fired 11 rounds with his carbine.

Burrill asked at the conclusion of the officers' testimony if there's anything they would have done differently that day, and both replied, "No."

In the afternoon, Michael Scott, a lawyer representing families of 14 of the 22 victims, asked the officers what motivated them to proceed down the highway from Truro to Halifax, sometimes driving at speeds Hubley estimated at 180 kilometres per hour.

Hubley said there hadn't been specific instructions from incident commanders, but rather they had decided, "we wanted to get ahead of him (the killer)."

Both officers said their experiences earlier in the day had demonstrated that Wortman was exceptionally dangerous, and this affected how they reacted at the gas station.

Hubley became emotional when he recalled going to the home of Jamie and Greg Blair, where he saw several bodies, and found the family's dog had been shot as well. The shooting of the pet struck the officer as a sign of a killer who was "vindictive."

"That animal for me was poignant, because I'd been to other murder scenes ... but never where somebody would vent rage like that," he testified.

Hubley, answering questions from Scott, said if Wortman had raised his hands and there had been no pistol in them, the killer might have simply been arrested.

"I know there's going to be a lot of people who are going to ask ... 'Why didn't we give him the opportunity (to surrender).' It's not so much we didn't give him an opportunity. There was none," said Hubley.

Before adjourning until April 25, the commission held a moment of silence to recall the 22 victims, including a woman who was pregnant, noting the second anniversary of the killings will be on Monday and Tuesday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 14, 2022.