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- [00:00]
A
My name is Shannon Maldonado. I'm the founder of Yaoi, a gift shop from the lens of artists and handmade objects. I chose Shopify because when I was testing other platforms, it was definitely one of the most user friendly. It was important to me to think about where we would be in the future. All of the tools for reading your sales, like planning inventory, they're just right there on your dashboard. For anyone starting a small business, the biggest thing I can tell you is it doesn't have to be perfect. Shopify can help you build upon it. Start your free trial on shopify.com Insurance
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isn't one size fits all, and shopping for it shouldn't feel like squeezing into something that just doesn't fit. That's why drivers have enjoyed Progressive's name your price tool for years. With the Name youe Price Tool, you tell them what you want to pay and they show you options that fit your budget enough. Hunting for discounts, trying to calculate rates, and tinkering with coverages. Maybe you're picking out your very first policy. Or maybe you're just looking for something that works better for you and your family.
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A
You.
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B
Either way, they make it simple to see your options. No guesswork, no surprises. Ready to see how easy and fun shopping for car insurance can be? Visit progressive.com and give the name your price Tool a try. Take the stress out of shopping and find the coverage that fits your life on your terms. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and Coverage Match limited By state law he gave me a book on art forgery. I found myself drawn to these old masters. How did these artists take paint from a palette, arrange it on a canvas? I began to unlock the secrets. I was a storehouse of knowledge of
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A
how to create an illusion, present it
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B
to a experienced expert, manipulate his mind and convince him, and bring him to the inevitable conclusion that the painting is we flooded the market with my paintings and I couldn't believe what I did. I couldn't believe it. Then the dominoes started falling and eventually the FBI were led to my door. They uncovered a mountain of evidence against me, but they never actually got you.
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A
At this point, you've sold a lot.
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B
You've got like a million dollars in cash.
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A
You sold one painting for 717,000.
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B
Why did it go away? Why did you never get indicted? And how are we having this conversation? I guess that's the greatest story of all. To hear how Ken Parenti made millions in art forgery, dodged the Mafia and the FBI. Subscribe to the Jordan Harbinger show and check out episode 282 in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening now. Foreign. I'm brett.
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A
And I'm alice.
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B
And we are the prosecutors. Today on the Prosecutors, a lone gunman held the entire province of Nova Scotia in fear as he went on a 13 hour killing spree, claiming the lives of 22 victims. How could something like this happen? Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of the Prosecutors. I'm Brett and I'm joined as always by my Scancilli co host, Alice.
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A
I don't know what that means, but it sounds delicious.
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B
You know, I'm not really sure how close that was. That was from Arpy or Arpa. I don't even know how to pronounce Arpy's name. Sorry. Arpy. He is Armenian and that means admirable.
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A
Oh, it's a beautiful word.
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B
So not too many Armenian speakers probably listening to the podcast, so I'm probably pretty safe. But I think. I think I got it really wrong. But that's fine.
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A
You know what, it's kind of like if a tree falls in a forest. Did it fall if no one hears it. Same with Armenian. It does. It matters. It always matters. That's why we mispronounce everything.
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B
We really are bad.
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A
We are so bad. But it's really not out of malice. It's out of sheer stupidity. It's true.
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B
It's true. It's funny because every now and then I'll read someone, they'll be like, hey, you know, I'm looking for new podcasts. I was listening to this one. I didn't like the fact they kept mispronouncing things. And I was like, oh, you're not gonna like us. You're not gonna recommend us? Then that's. That's a bad one.
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A
We get a free pass because of your accent. They'll be like, that guy doesn't know even how to say penguins.
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B
Exactly. Exactly. That's what I get anyway.
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A
Well, that's the last time you're gonna laugh today.
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B
It's true. It's true. This is a brutal case we're gonna talk about. I feel like we've been saying that more and more. At the beginning of cases, we just need to stop, you know how terrible the cases are gonna be.
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A
And every time we talk about the podcast or what we do, one of the most asked questions is like, how do you decide what to do next? Or, you know, do you ever run out of cases? And the answer is no, because you crazy people keep committing crazy crimes and When I say you people, I obviously don't mean you. Unless it. In which case, turn yourself in now.
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B
Exactly. And I'll say this. This one was recommended to us. It's been recommended to us several times. But we were talking a few episodes ago about how it's fairly rare for someone to fake being a police officer. And people recommended this case. They're like, hey, there's one where exactly that happened. We're going to talk about that. Canada. We're going back to Canada. Nova Scotia, which I hear is beautiful. I've never been. I would love to. To go to Nova Scotia. And normally when you think about Nova Scotia, you're thinking beautiful, right? Anne of Green Gables is from Nova Scotia. Right. In this case, we're gonna talk about today. Completely out of character in this part of Canada. And one of those things that I think people know about this case, but it happened right in the heart of COVID 19 and the COVID pandemic. And I think as awful as this is, it almost got not swept under the rug. It's nothing nefarious like that, but overshadowed by international events.
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A
And let me just set the stage. If you haven't been to Nova Scotia, it really is probably one of my favorite places on earth, because it is. It's not so much remote, but it just seems utterly peaceful. There are just these vast open spaces. It's not overcrowded. It's air is fresh and clean. There's greenery everywhere. Like Brett said, one of my favorite childhood books, Anne of Green Gables, is set in Prince Edward island of Nova Scotia. You can drive along the coast and it feels otherworldly because it's so peaceful, which is why this story is just so immensely striking, because it is in stark contrast to what most people think of when they think of Nova Scotia, which is peace and beauty.
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B
And I promise, Canadians out there, second largest group of people who listen to podcast, we don't pick these cases just because we want to attack the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I grew up with, like, Dudley do right and other Mountie stuff. And I like Mounties, and they're cool, and they got the cool red uniforms and the. And the horses and everything. But, man, it seems like every case we talk about in Canada, the RCMP just comes off terribly. And you're gonna see that again in this case. I mean, this is a horrific case, but one thing that is so striking about it is how long it lasted and how poorly the threat was communicated to the people of Nova Scotia and Canada. So that is one thing we're definitely going to talk about.
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A
So Canadians don't get mad at us. Yes, Prince Edward island is the province bordering Nova Scotia. But one of the most famous stories is right there. So you can. They are literally touching each other. For the rest of us Americans who haven't been up there, we know they're different provinces. But to put you in this otherworldly place, because Prince Edward island is described in so much detail in Anne of Green Gables that it should give you an idea of where we are here.
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B
You people made Prince Edward island an entire province unto itself. It's kind of wild.
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A
It's the smallest province. It's the smallest. It's like.
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B
I think they got 11, maybe 11. I don't know.
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A
Anyways, I did.
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B
Anyways.
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A
I was like an asterisk before you give us a one star review. We know, but we're also living in literary land.
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B
They're always like coming after us. It's fine though, because we love Canadians.
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A
We love you guys. That's true. I mean all your crazy cases.
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B
We cover Canadian cases almost as much as we do American cases. And we're back again. So let's talk a little bit about where we're going. The small oceanside province of Nova Scotia. It's known for its picturesque views, delicious seafood, focus on maritime life. Beautiful place. One should visit it. I would love to go. Maybe one day I can come visit in Nova Scotia. Been to Canada before, but never Nova Scotia. But as we were saying, in April of 2020, this really wonderful place would become known for something much darker. The deadliest mass killing in modern Canadian history. This all began on April 18, 2020, when a man named Gabriel Wortman would leave his home in Porto Pique. I don't know if that's right, but sounds right, sounds good. And begin a 13 hour killing spree that would span 155 kilometers. That's 96.3 miles for the Americans out there. And claim the lives of 22 people. Though his motive for the attacks has never been made clear. And we'll talk about that more as we get into the details. The 51 year old denturist had a long history of violent behavior and troubling beliefs. Wortman grew up in an abusive household with an angry and violent father, which is something we so often see in cases like this. And he continued this pattern of behavior in his adult life and he was known as a paranoid and abusive man. And in fact, in 2000 he actually beat his father until he was unconscious. Though it doesn't Appear that any charges were filed in this matter. He wasn't done. Two years later, he would plead guilty to assaulting a teenager. In 2013, he was in trouble again for saying he wanted to kill a cop. That same year, a neighbor reported to the RCMP that Wortman was harassing him, that he was abusive to his common law wife, and he was in possession of illegal guns. So he was someone who was on the RCMP radar for a very long time and had exhibited a lot of violent behavior and had access to firearms.
- [11:23]
A
So Wortman's troubling behavior didn't end with violence. He was also a survivalist and believed that no one in authority could be trusted and that society's institutions were collapsing. So this sounds not unlike we've covered in other cases in the United States. Brett and I have dealt with sovereign citizens, slightly different, but essentially they do not recognize the power of any sort of government. They are their own entity, which ends up being very dangerous, especially when mixed with violent tendencies. So Wortman doesn't acknowledge basically any government authority because in his mind, it's all collapsing. Now, this is obviously made worse because April 2020, what are we in? We're just one month into utter shutdown from the COVID 19 pandemic, when there was a lot of unease, A distrust of the government, distrust of medicine, distrust of all sorts of things. And it did feel like the world was ending. Now, this pandemic strengthened this belief for him, and it served as evidence that he was right about the world, that everything was in fact crumbling, and it was survive or be ended. So there were several red flags leading up to the April 2020 massacre. In the weeks prior, Wortman bought and stockpiled food, water, weapons, ammunition, and gasoline. To be totally clear, I think a lot of people were doing this in 2020. And so in hindsight, we see this as incredibly troubling because what he did. But, I mean, I bought a lot of toilet paper, for example. I didn't buy gasoline. I also didn't buy ammunition. But there was a lot of talk of the markets are going to crash. It's not clear what our mode of currency is going to be. And so you can see that this is almost a perfect storm, because normally if your neighbor stockpiling food and water and weapons, you'd say, like, whoa, dude, what's going on? But we were in the middle of the pandemic, and there was a run on different types of supplies.
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B
I basically did all these things.
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A
I know. I mean. I mean, I remember the two of us. I actually remember we bought freezers during this time to freeze a bunch of food. I remember this because we were both like, hey, Costco has these freezers on sale and we both got freezers and I bought half a cow. Now, to be totally fair, I continue to buy half cows because my children eat so much food. But I remember you said in your basement you had like buckets of rice and stuff like that. We all did.
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B
Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. This was, I don't know, I say it's unfortunate in timing, but it may. This could be part of the trigger, like you said. I mean, he's always been on edge, he's always been paranoid. He's always been somebody who's prone to do something like this. And then Covid happens. And whereas many of us went a little overboard, you know, I bought like buckets of freeze dried food and I did get another gun. I got more ammunition, just in case, got the water, you know, took out a bunch of money from the bank. At least have some cash if it's worth anything, if everything collapses. So, yeah, I mean, a lot of us did this and a lot of us freaked out a little bit, but we were not primed to think, wow, this is the end of the world. He obviously took this to an extreme.
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A
Yeah. And honestly, like Brett, he even liquidated many of his assets. He took out funds from the bank and he put almost half a million dollars, $475,000 in cash in fireproof containers at one of his properties. But even with these red flags, no one could have predicted the atrocities that would follow. I mean, Brett's case in point, Brett did all of those things. He did not go on to massacre dozens of people.
- [15:06]
B
Yeah. And I mean, it's one of those. And we're going to talk about this a lot, what drives someone to do something like this and the fact that it goes on for so long. I struggle with these cases and, and I do the same thing all of you do, which is try and figure out why and ask questions about what could drive somebody do this and what could the possible motive be and all those things. And we always tell you that's a fool's errand. It's really hard though, not to think about these things. And as we're going to see, it seems like the trigger for this is quite ordinary. Not going to say it's benign, but it's the sort of thing you see all the time. But frankly, the sort of thing that often leads to extreme outbursts. Of violence. So that takes us to April 18, 2020. This message is sponsored by Greenlight. Guys, if you've been listening to us, you know every true crime story has got money somewhere in the mix. Maybe it's the motive, maybe it's the pressure. Maybe it's the moment everything goes wrong. And the fact of the matter is, the lack of financial literacy is what makes people, especially kids and teens, easy targets for fraudsters. Well, that's where Greenlight comes in. Greenlight is a debit card and app for families, but it's more than a money tool. It's a safety net for teaching kids about money while also helping protect them before bad habits, bad actors or real world risks take hold. We all know how it works. You give them cash, you have no idea where it goes. You don't know how they're spending it. You don't know if they're spending it well. And you certainly don't know if someone is taking advantage of them. With Greenlight it'll be different. You'll get real time notifications the second your child swaps their card. You can set spending controls by store category and see exactly where the money is going. You can help teach your kids how to save, how to invest, and to build real confidence with money. But it's not just about money. Parents can place alerts when kids come and go from school activities or home. You can even have driving safety features. And if your child ever feels unsafe, SOS alerts, make sure help is just a tap away. Here's the part that should worry you. It's not just about teaching your kids how to handle money. It's also about avoiding scammers. Scammers targeting teens have tripled in every transaction. Without your visibility is an opportunity for fraud. That's why Greenlight helps protect families from scammers with credit identity and dark web monitoring. Now is the time to form those good habits and make sure your kids are safer and learning how to be financially independent in this world. Every day they're handling money without guidance is a missed opportunity. Start your risk free Greenlight trial today@greenlight.com Prosecutors don't wait to teach your kids real world money skills. That's greenlight.com prosecutors to get started. Greenlight.com prosecutors
- [18:14]
A
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- [18:28]
B
auto policies the process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save Progressive Cash, insurance company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. Guys, you may not know this, but I wear contacts and I'm really bad about it. I wear them all the time. I sleep in them for weeks at a time. And eventually, you know what? My eyes start feeling not that great and I gotta wear glasses. But the problem is the glasses I have are like 25 years old. And you know how it is. Even in 2026, replacing glasses feels like a whole production. So most of us just live with it. You got to schedule an appointment, got to pay a fortune, then you wait. Well, our newest sponsor, Zinni Optical, fixes all of that. Zinni is an online eyewear shop. Prescription glasses, sunglasses, blue light lenses. Starting at under $30. You go to zinni.com, pick a frame, upload your prescription and they ship it to your door. No appointment, no store, no upsell at the counter. I was able to get a of both prescription sunglasses and regular glasses on Zenni. It took no time at all. My daughter helped me pick out my sunglasses. They're these awesome aviators with these polarized pink lenses. They're amazing. I can't wait to wear them in public. You're going to love Zenny as much as I do.
- [19:49]
A
And at that price, something kind of shifts. You stop asking, do I really need new glasses? And you start asking, why wouldn't I just get them? You, you're not agonizing over one pair. That has to do everything for the next two years. Just get the ones that work, get the fun ones, get the pair that matches your outfit. At under $30, you don't have to justify it. Over 150,000 five star reviews. And if you've never bought glasses online before, Zenni has a virtual try on so you can see exactly how a frame looks on your face before you commit. I use this and apparently I need square frames. I loved it. I got to do it from my home. If your glasses are overdue for a refresh, now is the time. Go to zenni.com podcast and use code podcast15 for 15% off your first order. The styles sell out, so don't sit on it. That's Z-E-N-N-I.com podcast promo code podcast15. Grainger knows. When you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail. Filters ready to clog H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
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B
I sold my car in Carvana last night.
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A
Well, that's cool.
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B
No, you don't understand. It went perfectly. Real offer down to the penny. They're picking it up tomorrow. Nothing went wrong.
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A
So what's the problem?
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B
That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes as smoothly. I'm waiting for the catch.
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A
Maybe there's no catch.
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B
That's exactly what a catch would want me to think.
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A
Wow. You need to relax.
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B
I need to knock on wood.
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A
Do we have.
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B
What is this table wood?
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A
I think it's laminate. Okay.
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B
Yeah, that's good.
- [21:40]
A
That's close enough. Car selling without a catch. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up these may apply. The sun is calling. Are you ready? From beach days to soccer plays. Blue Lizard Australian Sunscreen helps protect your family skin so you can focus on the fun, not the sun. With no fragrances, parabens or phthalates, our mineral sunscreen is designed for your sensitive skin and trusted by dermatologists, pediatricians and parents alike. Be fearless in the sun with Blue Lizard Australian sunscreen. Shop now on Amazon.com
- [22:19]
B
it's in the evening. Port A Peak residents Gabriel Wortman and his common law wife Lisa Banfield attend a party where they are heard having a loud argument. They leave and return to their nearby home where the argument sort of continues. But then Lisa goes to bed shortly before 10pm so this happens in the evening. She goes to bed. Well, apparently Wortman is not only stewing in his rage, but he's preparing to do something about it. It's right before 10pm When Wortman, who has now dressed himself in an RCMP uniform, wakes Lisa. He is armed with four firearms. A Colt law enforcement grade carbide rifle, which looks a lot like an AR15, which you guys are probably familiar with. A Ruger mini 14 rifle, similar deal. A Glock GmbH semi automatic pistol and a Ruger P89 semi automatic pistol. So he has two rifles and two pistols. He orders Lisa to go outside and he's firing shots at her feet as she went. And I even wonder about this because where we live, where I grew up, you hear gunshots all the time where I grew up, it was more because people were hunting or shooting or doing whatever. Where I live now, it's more because people are committing crimes. I wonder if Port au Pique is the kind of place where you just hear gunshots, because he's already firing out shots. Now. He's not shooting her, but he's shooting at her feet, like, this is some, like, bizarre Western or something. He pulls off her shoes, and he drags her by the hair and pushes her into the back of a decommissioned RCMP vehicle, which he has purchased from a federal government auction site, which I have lots of questions about later on. But. So he makes dentures. That's his job. He's not a cop, but he's got this RCMP uniform, and he has this decommissioned vehicle which apparently looks just like an RCMP active cruiser, which is a real problem. I don't really know. Feel like that should be illegal, but I don't know, Maybe it's just me. He then, at this point, douses their home, garage and his truck with gasoline and sets it all on fire. Now, at this point, Lisa saves her own life. She's able to escape the vehicle, and she runs into the nearby woods to hide. If she hadn't done that, she absolutely would have been killed.
- [24:54]
A
And thankfully, there was a concerned neighbor, Lisa McCully, who calls 911 after seeing the fires. And she went across the street to check on her neighbors where Gabriel shot and killed her. So no good deed goes unpunished. She's just like, oh, my goodness, my neighbor's house is on fire. She goes over to check, but as soon as Gabriel sees her, she is shot by him. And this is why what Brett said is totally true. Lisa was going to be killed. Maybe he was going to torture her a little bit more, because I can't think of how horrifying it was to be told to march outside while being shot at. She didn't know whether those bullets would hit her. It's actually incredible that none of them ricocheted off and hit her. But Lisa wasn't so lucky. She dies. So Macaulay had two young children who were asleep at her home. This is devastating because she was just going to check on a neighbor, and her kids are asleep at home, but not to them. Their mom is dead. Gabriel had previously had a dispute over some property with Macaulay, but it's not like they were actively fighting in that moment.
- [25:58]
B
And as you're going to see, this begins with people he knows and maybe has some slight disagreements with, but it's going to spiral out from beyond that as well. I mean, Gabriel Wortman. I mean, he clearly. That rage inside of him, something has snapped, and he is now, at this point, just. He has lost it. It is sad. I mean, all these are sad. But you have someone who clearly is just concerned. She's called 911. She's going over to try and help. She's there to help. And what does he do? He shoots her and kills her.
- [26:29]
A
So Gabriel, dressed in that RCMP uniform, jumps into his RCMP decommissioned vehicle, and he drove to the home of another pair of neighbors, Greg and Jamie Blair. There, he shot and killed Greg outside As Jamie ran back into the home, barricading her and her children in a bedroom. From there, Jamie called 911 and reported the shooting while holding the door shut with her body. Meanwhile, Gabriel shot into the room. At that point, a bullet strikes Jamie and kills her. Her kids are terrified, and they run from their home to the Macaulay's home, where they hid with the McCauley children. This is just, like, devastating, beyond devastating. Both kids don't even totally know if they both know that both of their parents have died, but they are huddled together in absolute terror.
- [27:19]
B
And it is. It's like. It's like a horror movie. Honestly, getting to the RCMP's reaction. Sometimes you watch horror movies and stuff like this is happening, and you think, man, this is so unrealistic. The police would be there immediately. Well, as you're gonna see, I mean, at this point, he set the house on fire. He shot and killed one person who called 91 1. He shot and killed somebody else. The wife calls 91 1. She's now shot and killed. He then goes to the home of Frank and Don Galuchin, where he shoots and kills them both. And then he sets fire to their home, at which point, another couple living nearby see the blaze. They called 91 1. So now the authorities have received at least three different 911 calls. They've got calls that people have been shot and killed. They got calls that various buildings are on fire.
- [28:08]
A
This sounds like war. This sounds like the terrorist attack, right?
- [28:13]
B
So then they get in their car to see if they could go assist. They see an RCMP vehicle, and they're like, oh, the police. Unfortunately, Gabriel Wortman's in that RCMP vehicle. They pull up beside him. They see that he's the driver. They realize they know him at this point, he fires two shots into their car. He hits Frank, but they are able to speed away and survive. He then continues on killing a retired couple, Peter and Joey Bond. And all this has happened in like a 20 minute span. I mean, this is just wild. Insanity is taking place in this tiny little town.
- [28:55]
A
And the insanity continues. So now, about 20 minutes later, 1001pm Clinton Ellison, who's visiting his father in Port a peak, calls 911 to let them know that he heard gunshots and sees fire. While, While Clinton calls 911, his brother Corey Ellison goes outside to see what's going on. When Clinton hangs up the phone, he goes outside to check on Corey and to his horror, Corey is dead in the road. Clinton runs into the nearby woods and hides for four hours. This is like a zombie movie, except the zombie is Wartman going around killing people. Now, meanwhile, Gabriel continues onto the home of the Tuck family where he kills Jolene Oliver, Aaron Tuck and their teenage daughter Emily Elizabeth, Joanne Thomas and John Zahl were also killed. The last of the Porta Peak victims, I mean, he is just mowing down all of his neighbors is like going down the road killing everyone in his path. And the sad part about this is this sounds like Nova Scotia. Everyone is so close knit in the sense that when they see a fire, they call 91 1. They don't just do that. They walk outside to see if they can help because they're all neighbors. And by doing that, basically everyone who tries to help is shot and killed or barely gets away with their lives.
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B
So at 10:26, only about 30 minutes after this starts, the RCMP arrives in Port A Peak and they find a horror scene. Bodies, burning structures. They're able to find Frank, remember Frank who'd been shot. He comes up to them, he's been shot in the shoulder. The other bullet that was fired in the car actually grates his forehead. And he's able to tell them that the shooter is Gabriel Wortman and that he was driving an RCMP vehicle. So at this point, 30 minutes into this whole thing, the RCMP knows it's Gabriel Wortman who's doing this and he has access to an RCMP vehicle and he's engaging in extreme violence, shootings, burning down houses. I mean, this is a real danger. At 10:35, a resident spots a vehicle driving through a field. This was Wortman who was leaving the town of Port A Peak via a dirt road next to a blueberry field. Sometime after, more officers are beginning to arrive and they're working to establish a perimeter and they're searching homes and they're trying to use dogs to locate the killer. They believe he's still there. So they're setting up roadblocks, trying to shut off the community, unaware that he has left via this dirt road and he's no longer there. So they're starting to show up in force, but the person they're looking for is gone.
- [31:36]
A
So at 11:12pm, a little over an hour after this killing spree starts, Wortman continues east to the community of De Burt, where he spent the next six hours parked in an industrial area. At 11:32, Nova Scotia RCMP tweet that they are responding to firearms complaint in Porta Peak. They asked people in the area to remain in their homes with their doors locked. Honestly, a tweet is probably the best way to reach a lot of people here. Now, they would not publicly address the situation again for eight hours. At this point, like, do you set off like a storm alarm just to be like, everyone stay inside?
- [32:14]
B
I don't know. I mean, honestly, at this point, I would have done everything. I would have used every form of communication.
- [32:21]
A
I would have clearly was not leaving anyone unharmed.
- [32:25]
B
Now, I understand you don't want to cause a panic, whatever, but this guy Worthy, you don't know where he is. A lot's happening and they had a lot of time. Yes, Initially this was a very quickly developing situation and there's all sorts of fog of war and it's really hard to come up with, what should we do? But they're not going to address this again for eight hours. He's like hanging out for six hours parked in this industrial area. Probably expecting police are going to come at him at any time. He's probably thinking, I'm going to fight it out right here. When the police come and get me, we're going to have a shootout right here. This obviously is going to be severely criticized. Tweeting about it is the only way they communicated and they did it. A firearms complaint. I mean, if I saw that.
- [33:10]
A
That's a murder complaint. This is a murder complaint.
- [33:13]
B
Yeah. I mean, that wouldn't make me think anything, but that's what they do and. And that's how they choose to address it.
- [33:19]
A
So during this time, police were going door to door, checking for victims and survivors as well as for the gunmen. In total, they found seven separate places in a five square kilometer area where 13 victims are found dead. Oh, my goodness. I mean, this is just, again, this is like akin to a zombie apocalypse. They also confirmed that Wortman was the shooter, and they were able to discover that he owned three properties in that area. They Also uncovered that Wortman owned several replica police vehicles and was in possession of multiple firearms. With his criminal record. First of all, why are they selling their decommissioned vehicles that are not obviously not police vehicles. But second, why are you selling them to a guy who has such a violent record?
- [34:07]
B
Yeah, I mean, so in the United States, in most jurisdictions, and I don't. I mean, as you're gonna see, seems like this was a fairly convincing replica. You can buy the old police cars, but they're stripped of all their, you know, markings and everything else. It's usually illegal to have red and blue lights on a vehicle. You know, usually it's like ultimas souped up. Ultimas with like running lights. They get stopped for that. But nevertheless, you're not supposed to have red or blue lights. So I don't know. Apparently in Canada that was a big deal. Now the firearms are all illegally owned. He gotten those illegally. I don't know if they knew about it, but they've been warned about it. They just hadn't taken action. But once again, okay, you're finding all this. Seems like this is a good time to warn everyone in the area. There's a guy with an RCMP police vehicle and a bunch of guns and he is shooting up the area. He's already killed 13 people. He's setting a whole bunch of stuff on fire. If you're ever going to have like all hands, this is the time. This is not just. There was a shooting downtown. I don't understand why this wasn't the highest possible emergency for them. As someone in the chat said, you know, somebody breaks out of prison, you get more of a warning than you do with this. But it just seems like there was just nothing. So you know, Warman, he's been hanging out for like a long time. Now we're into April 19th. It's close to 6 o' clock in the morning and he leaves this industrial area where he'd been hiding. He's in his fake RCMP vehicle and he is now heading north. At 6:30, he saw on video entering the Wentworth area, which is about 60 km from port, a peak in 40 km from De Bert. He proceeded to the home of a couple he knew, Alma Jenkins and Sean McLeod. He shot and killed them. He also killed their neighbor, Tom Bagley. Now why did he do this? The only thing we really know is that Sean and Wortman had previously gone hunting together. So they had some very limited connection. But it was enough that he goes to their home, kills both of them and kills the neighbor, he stays in the house for some time, but he will ultimately set it on fire and leave heading south.
- [36:38]
A
Yeah, you know what, the way this like timeline is going, it really did sound like he went on spree, did it really fast because expecting to be stopped by the police and then waits for the police for a shootout and when it doesn't happen he's like, well, I guess I'll keep shooting. The first set really did kind of come out of the blue, but that second set, when he starts at 5:43 in the morning, just seems devastating because he had already killed 13 people. You would think that he'd be able to be stopped. And he's not done yet because at 6:30, Lisa Banfield, who's Wartman's common law wife, remember she had run for her life and hid in the woods. She stayed there basically all night. And at 6:30 she emerges from the woods and she calls 91 1. She confirms with police that he is wearing He Bing Wortman is wearing an RCMP uniform and has a replica RCMP vehicle and multiple guns. At this point, the police had figured it out, but she is just. I mean she's terrified and she doesn't probably know what time it is. She finally comes out. If they had any doubts it was Wortman, they have no doubts now. They have his own common law wife who was the subject of the first attack, telling them he is dressed, he is armed, he is in an RCMP decommissioned vehicle. At 8:02, the Nova Scotia RCMP shares another tweet stating that there was an active shooter in Porta Peak. Unfortunately by this point Wortman was 60 kilometers away in Wentworth. So this tweet would have been really helpful that night because he was still kind of in the Porta Peak area. But really now the danger is in Wentworth with Wortman. Around the same time, a series of 911 calls come from the Hunter Road area and they're about fire and gunshots. Again. When I get that, even though if I don't know for sure, I'm sending out all the alarms and saying, probably suspected active shooter in a Hunter Road area in Wentworth. Everyone stay inside. But that doesn't happen.
- [38:29]
B
Well, they tweet about it again because Twitter is apparently the only. If this weren't such a serious case, I would make a joke about like the pony express with the rcmp. But they've just chosen Twitter as their only way of communicating with anyone. It's nine o' clock in the morning now. They release a photo Of Wortman on Twitter. They warn that he is armed and dangerous. They confirm there have been multiple victims, but they don't go into any specifics. Around 9:23, Wortman finally leaves. Wentworth is about three hours after he arrived. He's now headed southbound down Highway 4 when he shoots and kills Lillian Campbell Highslop, who was just a woman walking down the highway. So she literally is just walking down the highway. He rides by, shoots her, kills her, keeps going. Someone calls 911 to report the shooting.
- [39:24]
A
At 9:48, just five minutes later, Wortman arrives in the Glen Home area, and he knocks on the door residents on Highway 4. The residents don't open the door. Instead, they call 911 to alert authorities that Wortman is there. He leaves when they don't answer the door. And by not answering the door, their lives are saved. At 10:08, the shooter, under the guise of an RCMP officer, pulls someone over, heading northbound on Highway 4 back towards Debert. So before he was just shooting people he knew. Now he is actively impersonating an RCMP officer. When he pulls this person over, he shoots and kills the driver of the vehicle, who's Kristen Beaton, and she tragically was pregnant with her second child at the time. He then shot at a vehicle that was driving by. And that shot kills Heather o'. Brien.
- [40:15]
B
Yeah, I mean, like I said, I can't believe this case isn't more well known. I. I vaguely knew about it in the Vegas way, and I. And I can only imagine that was because of COVID because the stuff that happens in this is nightmarish to the point of if this were in a movie, you would say this is so over the top. It's so over the top, it's unbelievable. I mean, he's pulling the lady over, he's shooting her, Someone's driving by. It's like out of the Terminator or something. Shooting her as she's driving by. It's just horrific.
- [40:47]
A
So at 10:17, the RCMP tweet yet again that the shooter is wearing an RCMP uniform and driving a replica RCMP vehicle. I don't know why this wasn't included in the first tweet, because that would be one of the most alarming things to me, in addition to knowing that he's already killed 13 people back before midnight, but they now let people know, okay, not only stay inside your houses, but also there's this guy who's impersonating a police officer out there.
- [41:13]
B
Okay, so at around 10:49am Two RCMP officers Constable Heidi Stevenson and Constable Chad Morrison arrange to meet in the town of Shuba Nakadi, which actually thinks pretty close to the correct pronunciation, so give me some credit. Where Highway 2 meets Highway 224. So they're gonna meet where these two highways intersect. So if you're writing the movie, what would you have happen? So Morrison sees this is how convincing the RCMP car is that he's driving the replica. Morrison, Chad, he sees an RCMP vehicle coming. It pulls up next to him. He believes it's Stevenson, but it's not. It's the gunman who opens fire. Now, Morrison manages to escape. He's injured, and he notifies dispatch that he's been shot. At this point, Wortman leaves. He starts driving south on Highway 2 and Stevenson. I don't know exact, and it will never know exactly how this goes down, but she actually collides with his vehicle. I kind of feel like she has probably heard over dispatch what happened to Morrison and realizes that's him. So she's like, well, I'm gonna take out his car at least. So she collides with his vehicle. Unfortunately, he's able to shoot her and kill her. At this point, a good Samaritan, Joey Weber, is driving by and sees these two RCMP vehicles have wrecked into each other. So he stops to see if he can help, and of course, he is shot and killed. So at this point, Wortman lights his cruiser and Stevenson's vehicle on fire. So he lights their cars on fire, and he gets in Joey Weber's car and drives off. The only good thing about this, and this is because of Constable Heidi Stevenson's sacrifice, at least now he's no longer in that replica RCMP vehicle.
- [43:23]
A
Oh. So at 1106am The RCMP tweets that the shooter has changed vehicles and is believed to be driving a silver SUV and traveling southbound on Highway 102. Around the same time, Wortman arrives at the home of Gina Goulette in Shuba Nocadi, whom he knows. He also shoots and kills her. And at this point. So he's changed cars now he changes clothes, and he steals her Mazda 3. At 11:24, the RCMP tweet that the shooter is now driving a Chevy Tracker. Now, this turns out to be incorrect, of course, because he's in the Mazda 3.
- [43:59]
B
Now, at this point, they're being much more proactive. Hard to blame them for errors here because he's changing cars and everything else. But the good news is, at around 11:25, he pulls into an Irving gas station in Enfield at this point, because once again, this is a movie. This is like evidence that we live in a simulation or something. Tactical officers who are looking for him, well, they are out of gas, so they need some gas. They pull into the same gas station to fuel their vehicles. So this is literally like his cars at the pump. A whole bunch of tactical officers roll up, get out, they're putting gas in their vehicle. And one of them notices that the guy sitting in the other car at the gas station has blood on his head. At this point they realize that's the guy we're looking for. They approach the vehicle, Wortman raises his gun and they waste no time. He does that, they light him up and he is killed. And at this point, his horrific 13 hour killing spree has come to an end. Though not before he traveled at least 155 kilometers and killed 22 people.
- [45:26]
A
You know what's shocking about this is there are like so few misses. He basically misses like two people he shoots at don't die. Everybody else is dead on and he kills them. And that is frightening because he is not only violent, he is accurate and he is good at what he does.
- [45:45]
B
He kills one person just driving by. You're right. I don't know. I guess he spent a lot of time practicing with those guns.
- [45:50]
A
I was going to say this is not this, this shows like all the premeditation and the planning it takes because even the best shooters are not this accurate. Right? This is immense.
- [46:01]
B
And look, I mean, I know as we said in the beginning, I know everybody's out there is thinking, you know, why did he do this? What could possibly lead to someone taking these kind of actions? Why did he kill all these people? It's a question we ask ourselves in so many of the cases we cover. Now obviously, you know, he's not like Julia Beverly, right? I mean, she does something horrible. She has no prior history of violence. And so that makes that a little bit more difficult to understand. That the family dynamic probably gives you a lot of insight here. You do have a guy who, he's been violent, he's been in trouble with the law before, but none of his prior acts of violence even approach this. You know, the triggering event is he gets into a domestic altercation with his common law wife and that leads him to go on this rampage. You know, there's no manifesto, there's no great political end here. There's no, you know, he was under some delusion other than his delusion that things were Falling apart, which at the beginning of COVID might not even been that delusional. We're not going to have any answer for you. We can tell you some things about him that are interesting, speak to sort of his background. But why he did this will always be a complete mystery.
- [47:26]
A
Absolutely. I mean, the why is such a huge question here. And we only know so much. So, Gabriel Wortman was lifelong friends with disgraced New Brunswick lawyer Tom Evans. Evans was a successful lawyer in the 1980s until he resigned as a lawyer in the early 90s after being convicted of sexually assaulting an underage boy and plying him with liquor. So not great. Now, Evans was 19 years older than Wortman, and according to Wortman, they met when he was just a child. Wortman also rented a room from Evans when he attended the University of New Brunswick. Did that have anything to do with what happened? Who knows? Except that when you're trying to figure out how someone just completely snaps and becomes this incredibly violent person, you have to look into who they knew, what they may have experienced growing up, what altered their brain chemistry to do something like this.
- [48:22]
B
And look, I don't think it's making excuses for him to say that he grew up in a violent household, and apparently one of his childhood friends turned out to be a pedophile who he knew when he was a child. He rented a room from when he was in college. We don't know that anything happened there, but it possibly could have. But I think Alice is right. I think when you look at these cases, trying to understand why they happen, what some of the triggers are, what some of the red flags are, is valuable. We always talk about how do you stop these things from happening? People have all sorts of views, and it often gets very political. But when you're just looking at these cases and trying to identify potential perpetrators, maybe some of this history is relevant. And they were lifelong friends. When Evans died in 2009, he left Wortman his entire estate and his possessions, including the Ruger Mini 14 semiautomatic rifle, which Wortman used in the 2020 attacks. Now, Wortman could not legally possess that firearm, but nevertheless, that's how he got it. And Wortman, who was the executor of this estate, would claim that Evans estate had no value. And in fact, he never probated the will. This appears to have been an effort to both get some properties away from people who might have had interest in those properties and to avoid paying taxes, because in reality, Evans estate was worth Hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you wondered where'd he get all that cash from, part of it was this estate that he took control of. But it gets weirder, these two in their relationship. So this has been looked into pretty extensively by various Canadian news agencies because once again, everybody's trying to figure out, why did this happen? Well, apparently not only were they close, but the two men were known to travel to the United States together. And they were basically smugglers. They would smuggle cigarettes, alcohol, other items, probably firearms, various other illegal things across the border using a sailboat that Evans owned and that Wortman would later inherit as well. Wortman's Uncle Glenn reportedly warned the family to get Wortman away from Evans because Evans would, quote, only get him in trouble. It seems to be fairly accurate. The Halifax examiner would report that Evans sort of took Wartman under his wing. Remember, he'd known him since he was a child. And remember, Wortman is this kind of vulnerable kid pedophiles often target because he has this rough home life, he isn't close with his father, ends up beating his father up at some point. And so he sort of takes him under his wing. He shows him how to make money smuggling illegal goods across the US Border. So hard to say. Both men are dead, though. We'll never have concrete answers on this. But their relationship is one of the more intriguing aspects of this story, beyond just the horrific rampage that Wortman goes on.
- [51:33]
A
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B
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A
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B
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- [55:30]
A
I mean, that's a really interesting way. Again, being a smuggler doesn't necessarily mean you're this like utterly violent person. Right? So this is the part of the story where you throw a bunch of spaghetti at the wall. In terms of like his background. We're not necessarily saying this is what led him to do these sorts of things, but trying to make sense of the nonsensical here. So this attack goes forward, 22 people die in quick succession, and it ends with Wortman himself being shot to death. The repercussions of this are going to be astronomical, of course, because an entire province was terrorized. So on May 1, 2020, Justin Trudeau, who's the Prime Minister of Canada, announced a Federal ban on 1500 makes and models of military style assault weapons and variants of semi automatic rifles, including the Ruger Mini 14 model used by the shooter. Now, according to the police, none of the firearms in Wortman's possessions were legally owned by him. But nonetheless, the response to this, which we often see is like a massive ban of a ton of types of guns.
- [56:38]
B
I would like to know if they did anything about owning replica vehicles, because
- [56:42]
A
I was gonna say that. Or replica uniforms. Yeah, I mean, impersonating an officer is a very serious crime here in the United States.
- [56:50]
B
Like, why would you need that if you need it to make a movie? At least have a permitting system. I mean, there has to be some way to avoid you being able to pull a woman over and shoot her in your replica car, at least to fool another rcmp. Yeah, that's a good one. And I think that's important to note because I'm sure a lot of you out there are thinking, well, I see people with cars. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we talked about that earlier. You can get vehicles, they never look like police vehicles that. Well, even if you initially saw them, you're like, oh, is that a cop? Like, sometimes you'll see the little. They still have that really bright light that's right outside the door so they can reach out and they can shine it. And you'll see that come up behind you like, oh, it's a cop. Then you realize, oh, no, it's, it's not. This was so convincing that he could pull up beside another officer and the officer thought he was a cop. That is wild that you could do something like that. And I don't know, I mean, that's certainly something I hope they looked at. That's just wild. That's wild to me.
- [57:48]
A
Like we said, the first 13 victims were in Port A Peak. It really did happen in such quick succession, it was difficult to know what was happening. They're getting all these 911 calls. Is that fire? Is it a shooter? It's not even clear. But then he goes on to kill another nine people. So many people have been openly critical of the RCMP's response to these tragic events because they didn't effectively do certain things like block all the exits in Port A Peak. You know, you have this mass murderer in Port A Peak and he's in a car. Block all the roads. They provided misinformation, slow to provide information. And they were only providing information on Twitter, not phone calls. You know, I get phone calls for our soccer field being closed. Right. There are ways to do communication in emergency situations, but they were only communicating by Twitter. And there was actually no general alert ever given, even once it became clear. And they were giving more frequent updates on Twitter. They didn't use like a general alert system or go on tv, for example, and do a plea for people to stay inside their homes. Don't be good Samaritans. Don't pull over for an RCMP looking car. But of course, the RCMP defends their response, saying that it was all very confusing and fast moving at the time. I do agree.
- [59:08]
B
Really.
- [59:09]
A
I see two sets of mass murders. Thirteen and then nine. The nine later. It's such a tragedy. They died because they had time to stop him. And those nine died nonetheless.
- [59:23]
B
Yeah, and look, that was the RCMP's position. It was not satisfying for a lot of people. And so the federal and the Nova Scotia government launched a public investigation into the response. Remember, this is 2020. I mean, that's. I mean, it's great that they were using Twitter. I love that they use Twitter. I don't fault them for using Twitter, but it's astonishing that that's all they used to, that they only tweeted about it. I think there's a lot of people who weren't on Twitter, maybe in Nova Scotia at the time. But anyways, so they released this final report. It's incredibly detailed and it is damning for the RCMP. This is March of 2023. I feel like so many of our cases end with a damning report for the rcmp. We're back again. It's another damning report for the rcmp. And maybe it's just because the RCMP really believes in looking internally and figuring out what went wrong and not covering it up and taking responsibility. I'm gonna, that's gonna be my positive spin on this, is that at least the RCMP is trying to figure out what went wrong. Anyways, very critical of the RCMP and it made a lot of detailed findings. But here's sort of the eight high level findings that they made. Number one, the first responders were faced with a chaotic situation, but the RCMP command system failed them. It did not give them the direction they needed in this fast moving, difficult situation. A lot of decisions were left to RCMP officers on the ground who just were not in a position to be able to do that. The RCMP failed to warn the public? Effectively. Yes, yes. And you'll see many of these or subsets of that. The Next1, the RCMP's social media warnings were grossly inadequate. So even the warnings that were putting out on Twitter, you know, you got a dozen people dead and buildings on fire and they're responding to a firearms complaint, which I, I see. That doesn't make me think, man, I better stay in my house, I better not answer the door. Right. They also did not use the alert ready system, which is Canada's emergency alert system. And the report treated this as a systemic failure. They were under, apparently they just were wrong about this. They were under the impression that they needed to get all these different approvals to do this. It would be really hard. Can you even use it for this? And it's probably not what it's made for. The reality was if they had just said, hey, this situation, they would have issued the alert ready alert and that would have been the one that would have gone to everyone's phones, that would have gone to their televisions, their radios. Like, basically, if you're connected in any way, you would have gotten an alert that there's a shooter on the loose and RCMP vehicle and stay away from that guy. And if they had done that, this still would have been an incredible tragedy because as Alice said, I mean, the first dozen or so victims, there was no stopping that. But some of these later Ones you see, you got to think those people would at least have had a chance. And they didn't have that chance because they had no idea what was going on. Critical information did not get to the right people fast enough. That's obviously true. Coordination with other agencies was weak, so people weren't talking to each other. This has obviously moved beyond Port Au Peak. It becomes fairly obvious fairly quickly. It's moved beyond Port Au Peak. And yet the people in the different areas are not communicating that, hey, we have people being shot in buildings on fire too, which would have alerted people that this is a much bigger problem. The RCMP failed to conduct an adequate post incident review. So I take back all that I said about the rcmp, like trying to look internally and the report concluded by calling for major reforms, not just small fixes here or there. We will put the final report up on the website if you want to read it. And it goes into a lot of detail about all of these problems. And you know, we always try and find some positive from this. I feel like usually when we talk about a Canadian case, the positive is, well, hopefully the RCMP has corrected X problem so it doesn't happen again. And that's where we're at. Again, this incredibly horrific thing happened. We can only hope that the RCMP has taken the steps necessary that if there's another person out there like him getting ready to go on a rampage, that they'll be able to respond more quickly and more effectively.
- [63:56]
A
But of course, we as prosecutors want to know what justice can there be, right? Wortman isn't here to pay for his crimes. He's not ever going to be tried for his crimes. It's very clear that he did all of this. There's really no question. The question is why he did this. So what sort of justice are we left with? Well, In May of 2020, the families of the victims launched a class action lawsuit against Wortman's estate, which was estimated to be about $2.1 million. In August of 2020, a second class action suit against the RCMP criticizing their response to the attacks was filed as well. Now this, of course, it's never going to bring back all of these people who are senselessly killed. But we often say like civil lawsuits, especially when it's like wrongful death or trying to just seek some sort of compensation is sometimes as close to justice as you can get in these sorts of situations. So In December of 2020, the police arrested Lisa Banfield, Wortman's common law wife, along with her Brother James and her brother in law Brian Brewster. And they were charged with unlawfully purchasing and transferring ammunition which Wortman had used in his attacks. Now, law enforcement does not believe that they had any knowledge of these attacks, but I guess they were pressured to bring charges against someone. So they brought it against the people who had bought the ammunition that were ultimately used. As you can see. I mean, Lisa was really victim number one. It's a wonder that she wasn't killed. And they are not exactly the people to be held responsible for what Wortman did. And these charges were ultimately dropped. In February of 2021, the class action suit was expanded to include Lisa Banfield, James and Brian Brewster claiming that they had help helped the killer prepare for the attacks. Based on that previous they, they purchased the ammunition and the guns. Now these lawsuits are still pending. Unfortunately, the justice system turns very slowly and they remain unresolved to this day. Highly unsatisfying. Just like unsatisfying as to why Wortman did this in the first place.
- [66:08]
B
Yeah, it is. There's no resolution here. And honestly, even if they got all this money and there'd be no resolution, I think they're just trying to do what they can to get some justice here. Seems like the legal system moves just as slowly in Canada as it does in the United States. This is six years ago now. You know, this happened right after we started the podcast. It's one of the things I noticed. We were recording episodes right as this happened. And here we are six years later. No closer to really knowing why this happened or having any positive resolution. As I said, you know, when I think. I think when you look at these cases, all you can try and do is remember the victims and hope that lessons are learned and the hardest lessons are learned from the worst situations. So hopefully, as we said, the RCMP has taken a lot from this, and maybe this will be something that police forces around the world can learn from and really bolster that emergency alert system. I know even in the past few years here in the United States, I mean, now we have the Amber Alert. I get Amber Alerts all the time. You get the Silver Alerts when you have someone who's. That's right, Elderly, who is missing the
- [67:25]
A
traffic alerts when there's like a big blockage on a highway. Right. Because that could be dangerous if, like the. A big car overturned and is blocking the entire highway.
- [67:34]
B
Right.
- [67:35]
A
I get those alerts on my phone now.
- [67:36]
B
So I feel like the communication thing probably has improved. Some of this was probably the RCMP really trying to be forward thinking about how they're going to communicate. Oh, we're going to be on Twitter and everybody will see us. And it won't just be, you know, granny's watching Wheel of Fortune, seeing that there's something bad happening. We're going to have it on Twitter and this is going to be so great. And yeah, I mean, great way to enhance your communication, but they can't be the only thing. Well, look this, as we said, a lot of people requested this. Thank you guys for sending this to us. That aspect of using the vehicle, I do want to just reiterate. One reason this is such a striking case is because that is fairly uncommon. You don't see that very often, but it certainly happened in this case. Thank you guys for pointing this out. Thank you to all of our listeners in Canada. We love you guys. We always enjoy covering cases north of the border. Keep sending them to us. It's always a lot of fun. And it's different because just the system's different. It's, you know, it's. Canada and United States are so close, yet different. I don't really know how to describe it. It's like not the same, but so close. But it's interesting to see how those differences matter. And the RCMP is a fascinating organization because it's kind of like the FBI, but it's kind of like your local police too. It's a very different structure they have. So always enjoy that. Thank you so much for listening and for providing Kay's suggestions. We love you. I'd love to get up there. Have to go up to Nova Scotia, have to visit Prince Edwards island, see if they're different. Maybe we can combine those two, make it one province. Have more power in Parliament. Do you have a parliament? I guess I do. I don't know. Anyways, this is great. I'm gonna stop talking for all the Canadians hate me again. If you do have cases you want to suggest, shoot us an email. Prosecutorspodmail.com Prosecutors pod for your social media. We're just like the RCMP. We're on Twitter, but we're also on Facebook. In the gallery, you can join the gallery, you can follow us on Instagram or if you want to see these episodes recorded for only $3 a month, you can join Patreon. You also get the episodes early and ad free on Patreon or on the Apple podcast. You can subscribe now and get episodes without commercials. So then you don't have to do the whole Patreon thing, but you don't get to see our smiling faces. And I feel like that is part of the attraction, though maybe. Maybe I'm wrong about that. So I guess we'll see. Well, Alice, do you want to answer a question today?
- [70:04]
A
I think we have to. It's like this was so deeply unsatisfying because it's just so violent. It really shows you the utter depravity that a human is capable of. So, yes, let's answer our questions.
- [70:15]
B
Let me just say, you know, some of you don't like mysteries because you like resolutions. And the thing that I find more and more when we cover these cases is there's never a true resolution. I mean, we know who did it. Does that answer the great mystery at the heart of this case? No, it doesn't. I don't know. To me, these cases bother me more because there's no hope of resolution. We're never going to know why I did it. Even if you did. Even if they discovered, oh, we actually did write a manifesto. We discovered it and we're going to read it. You're still not going to. It's not going to be satisfying. You're not really going to know. You're not really going to understand it. You know, this is the kind of horrific thing that happens that you just, I don't know, you can never really get past. So anyways, with all that depressing stuff said, let's answer a question. Okay. This is by someone named Red Gun Dogs. Red Gun Dogs, they have a ton of vinyl. They like the sound more than digital music. And they play theirs on a 1964 Jared Lab 80. It was their dad's turntable. That's pretty awesome. They pair it with a 1963 Kenwood tube receiver and Sunny Real to real. That's kind of awesome. Okay, so they want to know, number one, what turntable do we play albums on? But also, do we have any albums? And what is our favorite record that we own?
- [71:50]
A
This is Tailor Made for you, Brett.
- [71:53]
B
I mean, do you not have a.
- [71:55]
A
I do not have a record player.
- [71:57]
B
Do you have any records?
- [71:59]
A
I have records, but from like my parents collection growing up. So like, I have them and then sometimes when I go by like a used bookstore and I see one, even though I don't have a record player, if I see like a nostalgic album, I'll buy it. I don't have any, like, new records. I only have what I have, like Abba and you know, like, that's about as new as it gets because it makes me feel Nostalgic, because we used to have one growing up and I loved experimenting with how the needle would play.
- [72:33]
B
Oh, yeah. I would love to say I have, like, a 1950s, you know, turntable or whatever. And I am curious now that you ask, if my parents still have their turntable and what it is, but mine is a, like, audio techna. Whatever. What is called audio techno turntable that's connected to, like, fancy speakers. So. So it's nowhere near as like. Like, cool as yours. Yours is a much cooler one. Yeah. Audio Technica. It's great, though. I mean, it's. The kids love it. It's like, fancy. They can, like, do the lights and stuff. They really like it. Favorite album. I mean, you don't really. It doesn't really have to be album. Like, it doesn't have to actually be vinyl. So the first vinyl album I ever purchased, well, as an adult was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles. Because I was very much in a Beatles place when I got my record player. So I got a bunch of Beatles albums, much of Bob Dylan albums, you know, the Wall, Tommy, like, all this sort of classics. But then, you know, all the new music comes out on vinyl as well. So vinyl sales are physical media. I mean, that's, you know, blows away. Nobody buys CDs or tapes or anything like that anymore. If you're gonna buy physical media, you buy a record. Because most stuff's just downloads. So I get like, Taylor Swift albums on vinyl, you know, all that kind of stuff. All that stuff. It's great.
- [74:08]
A
Does it sound different?
- [74:09]
B
So I don't know. You know, people debate this because you.
- [74:13]
A
You have. You can like. You have the exact corollary there, right? You have, like, what you hear on your apple music for Taylor Swift and then the Taylor Swift final. So you can, like, compare apples to apples.
- [74:24]
B
I remember when I first got my record player and I put an album on the record player and started playing it, and my dog was in another room and, like, ran in the room barking like crazy.
- [74:40]
A
Huh.
- [74:41]
B
Because I think the dog thought it was a person. There's somebody in that room playing music now. He never did that with. Huh. Other music. And he heard music all the time.
- [74:52]
A
Oh, that's interesting.
- [74:53]
B
That always made me think, okay, I may not be able to tell the difference, but I think he can. I think it sounds better. And I actually like the pops and the scratches. I like all that stuff because I think it adds.
- [75:03]
A
It's like when you hear breathing when someone's talking. That's why they add the breaths into AI.
- [75:09]
B
Exactly. Someone needs to send Brett a Lana Del Rey album. You don't think I've got.
- [75:14]
A
I was going to say you definitely have. I'm sure you do.
- [75:18]
B
Norman Rockwell. I got that, baby. It's four discs. I played all the time. Her first album and Born to Die. I got all that on vinyl. Come on. Yeah. I don't know. It's just such a good question. But it gets into the music thing.
- [75:31]
A
I only. I only have, like, older. I really did. I loved Donny and Marie and abba. I had Michael Jackson. But, like, my parents didn't buy that. I did buy that because I'm a Thriller child.
- [75:43]
B
Well, I've told my story about listening to Thriller on vinyl just over and over again. When I was a kid, I mean, I loved Thriller and I've got it. I got Thriller on vinyl.
- [75:52]
A
That's great, kids.
- [75:53]
B
You know, it's amazing. The problem with vinyl, and this is obvious, is wears down. Well, it wears down, but also we've become so accustomed to being able to hear whatever song we want to hear, whenever we want to hear it, and we can skip all the songs we don't like. So music Today is less album based. The really good artist, like, I feel like one thing I like about Taylor Swift is I feel like her albums are always good. They're not just. There's like five hit songs on this, and you listen to the songs. Like she builds kind of the albums to. It matters as an album. Her last one, which I didn't love, you know, I didn't love her last album, but the whole thing has like an arc. And that's the perfect kind of record
- [76:42]
A
way to listen to it. Yeah, yeah.
- [76:44]
B
Like if you vinyl, you listen to it like there's the Head and the Heart, which is a great band. Some of you heard of their first album, which came out 15 years ago, which is hard to believe. Awesome. On a record player, because it is an album from start to finish and every song kind of plays into each other. And when you listen to it on the record player, it's just great. And so that's what I like. And that's why stuff like Tommy or the Wall is so great, because the whole thing matters. You're not just listening to one song. So I think as far as what is my favorite records, vinyl records, it's whenever you have something that the whole record matters. You're not just looking for that one or two songs that you want to hear. That's my thought. All right, guys. Well, if you want to ask us a question, leave a five star review and we will answer them. That question was left a long time ago, so it might take a while, but we'll get to it eventually. So do that and we will answer your question live in a lot of detail sometimes. So I hope you enjoyed that. All right, guys, well, this has been a downer. Next episode probably be a downer too. But that's the thing we do. We do true crime. As we sit here today, we're like one week away from CrimeCon. By the time you hear this, Crimecon will be over. We'll be back. It will have been amazing. We've met so many of you and we loved every minute of it. But as we sit here today, we're getting really excited to see you. Alice, any thoughts before we sign off?
- [78:08]
A
I wish there were some great takeaway here, except I don't have anything brilliant to say. But I do think it was worth saying all of the victims names because you often hear about the sheer number of victims is overwhelming. But each one of those people were loved and had dignity and their lives were ended senselessly by an incredibly violent person. And so I never think it's a waste of time to go into kind of the detail of what their loved ones were left behind stuck in this class action, trying to grasp at some sense of justice when there really can be no justice in this life is done. So I guess just to say I believe in the sanctity of each human person and they are not just a glob of 22 victims to me, nor to really most people.
- [78:59]
B
Well said, Alice. All right, guys, well, we'll be back soon. But until then, I'm Brett.
- [79:07]
A
And I'm Alice.
- [79:08]
B
And we are the prosecutors.
- [79:31]
A
I don't even know what airline I'm flying. I just got back from IO. I flew. Did I tell you this? I haven't talked to you. I flew through a tornado. Like, I think the.
- [79:43]
B
Like, literally through a tornado?
- [79:45]
A
Yeah, like, I mean, it's hard to fly through a tornado, but it's the entire span. It spanned the entire state of Iowa, so there was no way around it. And we were in the air for three hours. So we were running out of gas. And I think the pilot forgot to turn off his mic because he said, f it, let's just go for it.
- [80:02]
B
There you go.
- [80:04]
A
And then it was the bumpiest ride I've ever been on in my life, Sam. And we landed at 3am in Iowa and we made it.
- [81:09]
B
What?
- [81:09]
A
And when I landed all the News stations were talking about the tornadoes that had touched down. So I did fly through the storm cell in which the tornadoes were formed.
- [81:21]
B
Gotcha.
- [81:22]
A
And it was not fun. Sam.
- [82:08]
B
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