Warning: The details are disturbing.
New videos show the longtime partner of the Nova Scotia mass shooter re-enacting what she saw and experienced the night the rampage began two years ago.
The Mass Casualty Commission, leading the investigation into what happened on April 18 and 19, 2020, when Gabriel Wartman attacked his partner Lisa Banfield and proceeded to kill 22 people while driving an RCMP mock-up car, released new documents and images on Wednesday.
Among them are video reenactments from October 2020, when Banfield walked an RCMP investigator through what she remembers happened in Portapeak.
Banfield said the evening began with a celebration of the couple’s 19th anniversary and drinking in the shooter’s large garage next to his cottage. They were video-chatting with friends in the United States and talking about how they planned to have a commitment ceremony next year. Then their friend Angel Patterson said, “Don’t.” This upset Banfield and she left the garage.
Halfway to the cottage, Banfield said she decided to turn around and apologize to Wortman, but when she arrived he was already “angry.” She told the committee that she could not calm him down and went back to the cottage and went to bed.
Minutes later, Banfield said the gunman pulled back the bed covers and attacked her, kicking her into the bedpost. He then dragged her through the cottage, which she noticed was already doused in petrol, and set fire to the building as soon as they were outside.
She then told police about the shooter, who led her through the woods to the garage.
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New videos show Lisa Banfield, the longtime partner of the Nova Scotia mass shooter, recreating what she saw and experienced the night the rampage began two years ago.
After reaching the garage, the shooter began dousing the vehicles outside with gas. He dragged Banfield into the garage and handcuffed her left hand.
But when he asked for her right hand, Banfield said she withheld it.
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Lisa Banfield recalls the tense moments when she prayed for her life.
When she was in the backseat of the mock-up RCMP cruiser behind the Plexiglas partition, Banfield said the gunman loaded several firearms into the front of the vehicle.
He then went up to the loft in the garage and she tried to kick out the back seat windows to no avail.
She managed to slip the handcuffs off her left hand and was able to slide a window into the bulkhead and dive into the front seat. She fled the garage without taking any of the guns in the cruiser — something she told police she replayed in her head.
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Lisa Banfield recounts what she saw and experienced the night the rampage began two years ago.
After fleeing the garage, Banfield tried to hide in one of his trucks, but worried he was going to set it on fire and fled into the woods.
Banfield told police how she spent the next several hours alone, hearing gunshots and terrified that the shooter would find her.
Lisa Banfield describes the sounds she can hear coming from beyond the forest where she hid
Former domestic partner of Nova Scotia mass shooter describes in her own words what she could hear while hiding in dark woods in Portapeak, North Carolina
As Banfield went into hiding, the gunman killed 13 people in the small community.
She remained hidden in a fallen tree during the night when temperatures dropped near freezing, investigative documents said.
Banfield said he thought if he could survive until dawn he might venture to go for help.
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Terrified and in pain, Lisa Banfield describes how and when she emerged from her hiding place in North Carolina’s Portapeak Forest
After the morning, she went to a neighbor, who called the police just before 6:30 a.m. on April 19. Members of the RCMP Emergency Response Team picked her up in an armored car a few minutes later.
Medical records released through the inquest show Banfield spent five nights in hospital after sustaining fractured ribs and vertebrae as well as extensive bruising and abrasions since the night of April 18.
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