13 Hours Inside the Nova Scotia Massacre
Canada’s worst shooting spree in modern history has left us with far more questions than answers. Journey inside every single hour of this tragedy as it happened with Global News Halifax reporter Sarah Ritchie. This 13-part true crime series will try to piece together exactly what happened and what could or should have been done to prevent it.
Episodes
July 13, 2021 • 30 mins
The 13 Hours team brings you an update on what’s happened since the series wrapped in April. A local magazine has been publishing leaked information that some say may have come from a source inside the RCMP. That includes audio of 911 calls made by some of the first victims of the killing spree, who told dispatchers that a man driving a police car was murdering people in Portapique on the night of April 18, 2020.
Meanwhile the pub...
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June 22, 2021 • 35 mins
Introducing Episode 1 of China Rising - Hostage Diplomacy
On the first episode of China Rising, we examine the Chinese government's practice of detaining political prisoners, by hearing directly from Canadians who've become caught in the crossfire. Christian aid workers Julia and Kevin Garratt lived in China for 30 years before their arrest in 2014, when they were suddenly cast as pawns in a geopolitical chess match. The Garratts...
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April 12, 2021 • 77 mins
In this final episode, the gunman is killed in a chance encounter with police at a gas station, ending 13 hours of horror in Nova Scotia.
But this story begins decades before April 18, 2020. Family members describe a pattern of abuse in the Wortman family going back generations. And experts say there are links between childhood maltreatment and violence.
In fact, a history of childhood abuse and neglect is very common among mass...
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March 29, 2021 • 51 mins
Episode 12 begins with the story of the final hour of the killing spree, and the gunman’s final victim. A mysterious phone call alerted Gina Goulet’s daughter that something was wrong on the morning of April 19, 2020.
In this episode, we explore how the families of the victims are fighting for transparency and accountability, nearly a year after the shootings happened. They’re planning to sue the gunman’s estate, the government and...
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March 15, 2021 • 68 mins
This episode picks up the gunman’s movements through central Nova Scotia on the morning of April 19, 2020, as he drove toward Halifax.
A chance encounter put him in the paths of two RCMP officers. Constables Chad Morrison and Heidi Stevenson were planning to meet on the side of the road near Shubenacadie, unaware the gunman was nearby.
The gunman shot Chad, and then collided with Heidi’s car. He shot and killed her before murdering...
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March 3, 2021 • 13 mins
Nova Scotia’s independent police watchdog, the Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT), has concluded two RCMP officers who shot at the fire hall in Lower Onslow, N.S., during the manhunt for Gabriel Wortman should not face criminal charges.
The SIRT report said the two officers who fired their weapons did so believing the person they were shooting at was the gunman. This is because he was dressed similarly to the gunman — wearing a...
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March 1, 2021 • 52 mins
On the morning of April 19, 2020, Greg Muise and Darrell Currie were preparing the Onslow Belmont Fire Brigade to help evacuees from Portapique, N.S. Suddenly, shots rang out and bullets sprayed the building, forcing them and others to run for cover.
They thought they were going to die at the hands of the gunman.
But it was the police who were shooting.
In this episode we break down what happened, second by second, as we describe w...
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February 15, 2021 • 64 mins
At 8:02 AM, Nova Scotia RCMP Tweeted that they were responding to an “active shooter situation” in Portapique. Five minutes later, they told other police forces they were searching for Gabriel Wortman, who was wanted for homicide and considered armed and dangerous. The police bulletin said he may be driving a fully marked RCMP cruiser and “could be anywhere in the province.”
But the public did not get that information until hours l...
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February 1, 2021 • 56 mins
In this episode, we hear from police on scene in Portapique for the first time through recently uncovered recordings of their radio communications. The recordings show police were having communication issues and navigation issues as they searched for the gunman in the early morning on April 19, 2020.
We also hear from Leon Joudrey, the first person to speak with the gunman’s common-law partner after she emerged from the woods. RCMP...
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January 18, 2021 • 59 mins
This episode begins more than a decade before the events of April 18 and 19, 2020, when the gunman travelled to Fredericton, New Brunswick to clean out the apartment of his "dear friend," Tom Evans.
People who knew them say their business relationship had a darker side; they had been smuggling cigarettes and alcohol into Canada from the United States for years.
After settling his friend’s estate, the gunman took home more than $2...
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January 4, 2021 • 51 mins
Overnight on April 18 and 19, 2020, Nova Scotia RCMP were searching for a gunman who had murdered 13 people and lit buildings on fire in Portapique.
It turns out that police had been warned about the gunman nearly a decade earlier, when an officer from a nearby police force was told that he had a collection of guns and wanted to "kill a cop."
Police now say they had no record of that warning on the weekend of the shooting because...
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December 21, 2020 • 59 mins
On June 4, 2020, Nova Scotia RCMP said that a psychological autopsy of Gabriel Wortman found that he was an injustice collector, "one who held onto conflict or differences with others, turning them inward until they boiled over in rage."
Police say they believe revenge was a motivating factor in the killing spree on April 18 and 19, 2020, but they also say some of the gunman's victims were targeted at random.
In this episode, we ...
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December 7, 2020 • 62 mins
Overnight on April 18, 2020, Gabriel Wortman was hiding out in an industrial area in the town of Debert, N.S.
According to surveillance footage, he arrived at 11:12 p.m., 27 minutes after police said he left Portapique.
But this is the point where the timeline of events becomes less clear; we don't know what he was doing in those overnight hours.
In this episode, we dig into aspects of Wortman's behaviour and personality that...
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November 23, 2020 • 48 mins
On April 18, 2020, police respond to several 911 calls from Portapique, N.S.
Gabriel Wortman has killed several of his neighbours and set some of their homes on fire.
The first police officers who arrive find several people dead and a massive response gets underway. Officers start setting up perimeters and call in specialized resources to find the gunman, but he gets away.
How and when does this happen?
And why don't police real...
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November 9, 2020 • 34 mins
The first sign from the outside that something was horribly wrong in Portapique, Nova Scotia, was rush of 911 calls around 10 p.m.
Saturday, April 18, 2020 was an otherwise quiet night across the province. Much of the world was deep into the COVID-19 pandemic, sheltering in place to stop the spread of the virus. But the tiny community of Portapique on the Bay of Fundy became a waking nightmare as 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman began ...
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November 9, 2020 • 45 mins
On Saturday, April 18, 2020 communities everywhere were on lock down to stop the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the quiet, coastal town of Portapique, Nova Scotia, Canada.
But a 51-year-old denturist with a violent past named Gabriel Wortman was about to shatter that peace. On that night, he began a 13-hour shooting spree that would leave 22 innocent people dead at 16 different crime scenes across the province.
What s...
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October 14, 2020 • 4 mins
The deadliest shooting spree in Canada’s modern history left us with far more questions than answers. Join Sarah Ritchie, a reporter for Global News in Halifax, as she tries to unravel how something like this could happen there.
Sarah will take you through every hour, as it unfolded and together you’ll try and piece together what happened, what could or should’ve been done to prevent it and what we can learn to make sure a tragedy...
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