Canada

A public investigation in Nova Scotia has heard that a mass gunman killed his latest victim

Memorial pays tribute to Gina Gulet in front of her residence in Shubenakadie, NS, on May 14, 2020. Andrew Vaughn / The Canadian Press

The morning she was killed, Gina Gule told her daughter she feared a man who was raging in rural Scotland. Minutes later, he began to break the glass on her side door.

Ms. Gulet has been following breaking news about the search for Gabriel Wortman, a fellow dentist who has already killed 21 others before stopping in a stolen jeep behind her home on April 19, 2020. Her latest texts with her daughter were shared Wednesday. through a public investigation into the mass shooting, she revealed that she was concerned that the shooter knew her address.

An hour before she was shot, Ms. Gulet told her daughter to lock her doors and said she was not surprised that the killer knew how to make a replica of an RCMP car – something police knew from the night before, but only shared publicly at 10:17 a.m.

The mass murderer from Nova Scotia probably shot himself in the head when the police opened fire, says the chief forensic doctor

The massive gunman from Nova Scotia smiled as he passed the RCMP before continuing the rampage, the investigation reveals

“He knows where I live … I hope they catch him,” she told her daughter, Mrs. Gule. “I’m nervous. I hope they start blocking the roads.… Like I said, he’s a smart man. Almost too smart.”

Mrs. Gulet, a cancer survivor who previously turned down a job offer from the shooter, was fatally shot while hiding in the bathroom of her home near Shubenakadie, NS The gunman who also shot one of her dogs stole her gray Mazda 3, and threw pieces of his fake RCMP uniform as he left.

The investigation found that the killer had passed the woman’s home on a rural highway after killing police officer Heidi Stevenson and passer-by Joey Weber just minutes earlier. He recognized her house, made a U-turn, and headed back. Ms. Gule was the latest victim of the massacre, the deadliest in Canadian history.

According to a summary shared by the inquiry, Ms. Gulet tried to call her daughter Amelia Butler at 10:58 a.m., but when Ms. Butler responded, she did not hear her mother’s voice from the other end. Ms. Butler called feverishly 16 times before taking her mother’s home, where her husband found the body.

Within half an hour of Ms. Gulet’s murder, the gunman’s rage was finally over: he was killed after stopping for fuel at an Irving gas station in Anfield, NS. Minutes earlier, he had tried to buy gasoline. from another station, where an RCMP officer stopped to the side but did not recognize him as he had changed.

The investigation revealed that the armed man shot himself in the temple when he was confronted by two tactical RCMP officers. He used a gun issued by the RCMP, which he stole from Officer Stevenson, whom he killed after a head-on collision earlier that morning.

Gina Gule in a photo without a date. Distribution

The two RCMP officers had also stopped for gas when one noticed that the driver of the vehicle at the next pump was bleeding from his forehead. An autopsy later confirmed that the injury came from a bullet fired by Officer Stevenson, who destroyed his forehead, according to the investigation.

Officer Craig Hubbley quickly identified the driver as the shooter from photos released by police.

“Benny, it’s him,” he told his partner, Officer Ben McLeod.

Within seconds of getting out of their jeep, they loaded 23 rounds of ammunition into the stolen car driven by the attacker, firing through the passenger’s window and windshield. When the police took the killer out of the vehicle and handcuffed him, he was already dead.

Dr Matthew Bowes, chief medical officer for Nova Scotia, told the investigation that the cause of death was multiple shots to the chest and stomach that had been fired by police. In a cross-examination by a lawyer for the victims’ families, he admitted that the shooter “most likely” would have died from his self-inflicted gunshot wound, but said it was not necessarily immediate.

Brian Sove, president of the National Police Federation, a union of regular RCMP members, said evidence heard Wednesday showed that the actions of Officers Hubble and McLeod had saved many lives. The union continued to deflect criticism of the way the RCMP handled its response to the mass shootings and harassment.

“There was a lot of armchair and unfair criticism of what our members did or did not do during and after those 13 hours. We know that each member rose to the occasion, with the information available at the time, in an implausible and truly unthinkable situation, risking his life to protect others in his communities, “Mr Sove said in a statement.

Commission Adviser Anna Mancini spoke in Halifax on April 13 during the Commission’s inquiry into the mass casualties of mass killings in rural Nova Scotia. Andrew Vaughn / The Canadian Press

The RCMP union also called on the medical examiner to consider a report on the death of Heather O’Brien, one of the victims of the shooter who was killed on the second day of the attack. Ms. O’Brien’s family previously accused the RCMP of declaring her dead too soon and shared data from her Fitbit watch, which suggests her heart continued to beat hours after she was shot.

In his testimony Wednesday, Dr. Bowes challenged the suggestion that Fitbit was a reliable indicator that Ms. O’Brien had survived and could have been saved. He said her four-shot injuries would have caused her death “quickly and definitively” and she would not recover.

Wednesday’s hearing ended with statements from lawyers for the victims’ families. Joshua Bryson, a lawyer for Joy and Peter Bond’s relatives, told the investigation that the “trauma-informed” approach used by the investigation was used to limit testimony, making it difficult for the commission to fulfill its mandate.

He called the RCMP’s response to the mass shootings disorganized and disruptive, including unexplained delays in broadcasting 911 calls to on-site staff and sending police to the scene.

“These are lives in an event with mass casualties,” Mr Bryson said. “These delays are simply unacceptable.”

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