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By Nicole Thompson The Canadian Press
Posted September 22, 2025 1:16 pm
1 min read
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Wife of N.S. mass killer tells story publicly for the first time
Lisa Banfield, the spouse of the man who perpetrated the Portapique, N.S., mass shooting, is set to publish a memoir recounting the abuse she endured in their relationship.
“The First Survivor: Life with Canada’s Deadliest Mass Shooter” is due to be published in January by Sutherland House.
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Gabriel Wortman’s rampage on April 18, 2020, began when he assaulted Banfield, his common-law wife of 19 years.
Over the next 13 hours, he killed 22 people in Portapique and the surrounding counties in Nova Scotia.
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Banfield wrote the book in collaboration with her sister Maureen Banfield and journalist Sherri Aikenhead.
Sutherland House says the book is both a personal account and a call to action to shift society’s response to victims of intimate partner violence.
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It’s set to be published Jan. 20, 2026.
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