Paul Palango - 22 Murders: Investigating the Massacres, Cover-up and Obstacles to Justice in Nova Scotia

PUBLISHED BY RANDOM HOUSE CANADA

Copyright 2022 Paul Palango

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published in 2022 by Random House Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed in Canada and the United States of America by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: 22 murders : investigating the massacres, cover-up and obstacles to justice in Nova Scotia / Paul Palango.

Other titles: Twenty-two murders

Names: Palango, Paul, 1950- author.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210256028 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210256060 | ISBN 9781039001275 (softcover) | ISBN 9781039001282 (EPUB)

Subjects: LCSH: Mass shootingsNova ScotiaPortapique. | LCSH: Mass murderNova ScotiaPortapique. | LCSH: Mass murder investigationNova ScotiaPortapique. | LCSH: Mass murderersNova ScotiaPortapique.

Classification: LCC HV6536.6.C22 N67 2022 | DDC 364.152/340971612dc23

Text design: Matthew Flute, adapted for ebook

Cover design: Matthew Flute

Image credits: (Country road) Grant Faint / Getty Images;

(Police car) Andrew7726 / Dreamstime.com and Frank Wulfers

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The victims of the first massacre,

APRIL 18, 2020

Jamie Blair, Greg Blair, Lisa McCully, Corrie Ellison, Frank Gulenchyn, Dawn Madsen Gulenchyn, John Zahl, Elizabeth Joanne Thomas, Peter Bond, Joy Bond, Aaron Tuck, Jolene Oliver and Emily Tuck

The victims of the second massacre,

APRIL 19, 2020

Sean McLeod, Alanna Jenkins, Tom Bagley, Lillian Campbell Hyslop, Heather OBrien, Constable Heidi Stevenson, Joey Webber, Gina Goulet and Kristen Beaton

and Kristen and Nick Beatons unborn child

APRIL 18, PORTAPIQUE BEACH

APRIL 19, NOVA SCOTIA

CONTENTS

PART ONE:
AN EPIC FAILURE IN POLICING

PART TWO:
THE SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH

1

CAPTAIN PORTAPIQUE

A few months before his beachfront village made international headlines, Gabriel Wortman began a winters night where he often did, with drinks and a guest at the Black Bear Lodge. The name was emblazoned in block letters on an overturned green canoe that served as the roof of his ersatz tiki bar. Hed named it for a wild bear he had nurtured as a cub. He still hand-fed Tostitos to it, right out of the bag, whenever it showed up in his backyard, which overlooked picturesque Cobequid Bay in the Minas Basin, the easternmost arm of the mighty Bay of Fundy.