New book coming from spouse of Nova Scotia's mass killer

A new book penned partially by the spouse of the Nova Scotia denturist who dressed up like a cop and murdered 22 people during the pandemic is coming out early next year.

The First Survivor: Life with Canada’s Deadliest Mass Shooter by Lisa Banfield is slated to appear in North American bookstores on Jan. 20, 2026.

Gabriel Wortman killed 22 people over a 13-hour period in April 2020 after a dispute with Banfield, his common-law spouse, turned violent. She ran into the woods to hide after he torched their cottage in Portapique and fired shots at her.

“On April 18, 2020, Lisa Banfield’s life shattered,” said a press release from the book’s publisher, Sutherland House.

“After nineteen years in a controlling and often abusive relationship, she escaped a violent assault by her partner, Gabriel Wortman — unaware he was about to carry out the deadliest mass shooting in Canadian history in Portapique and the surrounding counties of Nova Scotia.”

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Wortman, 51, drove a replica RCMP cruiser and wore a police uniform for much of his killing spree, which began in Portapique, Colchester County, on the night of April 18, 2020. He murdered 22 people, including a pregnant woman, before a Mountie dog handler shot him dead at the Irving Big Stop in Enfield the next morning.

Sutherland House turned down interview requests Monday.

The book, written by Banfield in collaboration with her sister Maureen Banfield and veteran journalist Sherri Aikenhead, “tells Lisa’s story for the first time,” said the publisher’s press release.

“She recounts surviving years of intimate partner violence and the horrific night she fled barefoot into the freezing woods as Wortman began a murderous rampage that left twenty-two people and an unborn child dead.”

According to the publisher, “Banfield’s memoir is more than a personal account – it is a call to action. With intimate reflections and her own transformation, she exposes the failures in how society sees, supports, and judges survivors of domestic abuse. The First Survivor is a powerful story of trauma, survival, and one woman’s journey reclaiming her voice and redefining her life.”

Sutherland House President Kenneth Whyte said in the press release that the book “changes the way we understand both the tragedy of April 2020 and the private realities of intimate partner violence.”

Criminal charges were eventually dismissed against Banfield, her brother and brother-in-law for providing Wortman with ammunition after all three opted to have their charges dealt with through restorative justice.

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