Const. Greg Wylie is set to testify Tuesday at the Mass Casualty Commission leading the investigation into the April 18-19, 2020 mass shooting that killed 22 people across the province. Proceedings this week are virtual, and Wiley is testifying via a closed video link with the media, attorneys and the panel, which will not be broadcast online. Wiley spoke to the RCMP shortly after the 2020 murders and to the commission’s investigators last June. He is no longer based in Nova Scotia and said he was shocked to discover the gunman, Gabriel Wortman, was the same man he had visited in Portapique, NS for tips on local crime. “Besides the wound, you ask yourself questions. Like, I’ve had enough contact with this guy. Did I miss something? Was I asleep at the wheel here? Could I have somehow been on top of this better or whatever?” Wiley told the committee. “All I can answer to that is… I am conscious, but I sleep at night.”
First encountered after stealing tools
Wiley said he had developed a working relationship with the gunman after responding to a burglary at his garage where tools were stolen around 2007 or 2008, when Wiley was working at the Bible Hill detachment. Once most of the tools were recovered and the case closed, Wiley said he continued to check in with the man often because he “knew the value” of community outreach, a lesson he had learned as a cadet at the RCMP Depot in Saskatchewan. “And isn’t it ironic how things turned out?” Wiley said. The Mountie estimated he dropped in to visit the gunman about 16 times over the years, often sitting and chatting together over soda in the cottage’s living room or just standing in the driveway. He said some of his visits to Portapique would last an hour or more if he wasn’t responding to other calls. It’s unclear exactly when Wiley’s visits took place, but most appear to be between 2008 and 2011 before he moved to the Parrsboro area in neighboring Cumberland County. Wiley said he last saw the gunman on a wooded Colchester County trail in 2017 when Wortman drove by him on an ATV, and before that he hadn’t seen him in “years, probably.” The gunman never seemed overly interested in his RCMP uniform or car, Wiley said, adding that he never would have guessed that the same man who hosted him at his large Portapique vacation home would eventually create a fake RCMP cruiser that led to communities killing strangers, neighbors and acquaintances. . Wiley told the panel he had a “pretty good deal” with Wortman, who was always polite, and said he “didn’t strike me as a violent guy.”
Halifax police call after threat to parents
A few years after Wiley connected with the gunman, a Halifax Regional Police officer contacted Wiley in June 2010 about a tip that Wortman had threatened to kill his parents in New Brunswick. Cordell Poirier, a retired Halifax regional police officer of 35 years, told the commission in an interview that an RCMP officer from Moncton, NB, called to tell him about the alleged threat. The gunman’s father had also reported that his son was an alcoholic with “many long guns”. The gunman never had a firearms license. Poirier investigated but decided there were no grounds for a search warrant at the gunman’s Dartmouth home. The Halifax officer then spoke with Wiley by phone about the complaint. Wiley “told me he was a good friend” of the gunman, according to Poirier, and was going to try to find out if he actually had guns at his Portapeak cottage. Poirier said he was never informed by Wiley and closed the file at his end. Provincial police investigators sit outside the Atlantic Denture Clinic on April 20, 2020, in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Gunman Gabriel Wortman owned the clinic and lived in the apartment above it for years. (Tim Krochak/Getty Images) But Wiley told the committee he didn’t recall hearing from another officer about a complaint of threats, didn’t recognize Poirier’s name and didn’t recall ever asking Wortman about guns — but insisted he must have. “If I told the guy I was going to talk to Gabriel about it, I would have talked to Gabriel about it,” Wiley said. “Well, I wouldn’t be left out of it.” Wiley recalled talking to the gunman about some sort of “disagreement” he had about a will or property with his family in New Brunswick, “but he wasn’t too big about it.” The situation seemed like a typical thing Wiley himself experienced growing up on a farm in Ontario, he said. Wiley said he didn’t see any grills or guns at the cottage, but he never searched the house. Exactly what Wiley did in 2010 to investigate the weapons and threat tips is unknown, as RCMP records from that time have been purged as part of their regular practice. Wiley also searched for any of his notes on the gunman, but found none. The ruins of Gabriel Wortman’s Portapique cottage and burned car in Portapique, NS in May 2020. (Steve Lawrence/CBC) During that 2010 visit, Lisa Banfield said Wiley asked Wortman if he had any guns. The gunman showed Oros an old musket and a decorative gun over a fireplace that was filled with candles. Wiley was only at the Portapique cottage for about 10 minutes and did not appear to get a formal statement from the gunman, nor did he search the home, Banfield said. Lawyers for the victims’ families, including Michael Scott of Patterson Law, have asked Wiley to appear before the inquest. Scott questioned whether Wiley was the right officer to be assigned to investigate the gunman because of their connection and said he was unclear about the “appropriateness of those interactions.” A year later, in May 2011, an officer safety bulletin about the gunman was sent to all police agencies in the province based on an anonymous tip given to Cpl. Greg Densmore of Truro Police. Densmore said an unknown man approached him while on duty and said the gunman “stated he wanted to kill a police officer.”
Wiley doesn’t remember following the 2011 edge
According to Densmore’s report, the source said Wortman had “at least one handgun” that he would take between Dartmouth and Portapique, as well as “several long rifles located at his cottage” that may be stored in an “apartment located behind the chimney”. “Use extreme caution when handling WORTMAN,” the bulletin said. Poirier recognized the name and called the RCMP’s Bible Hill detachment, where he spoke with on-duty supervisor Const. John MacMinn. MacMinn said he would review Wiley’s file on the 2010 threat to “determine what action, if any, was taken last year” and get back to Poirier. But Poirer said that never happened, so from his perspective “that was it,” and he left the case with the RCMP. Chief Dan Kinsella of the Halifax Regional Police recently testified before the inquiry that it was up to the RCMP to investigate this information because the weapons were allegedly located at the Portapique cottage in the Mountie area. Twenty-two people died on April 18 and 19, 2020. Top row from left: Gina Goulet, Dawn Gulensin, Jolene Oliver, Frank Gulensin, Sean McLeod, Alana Jenkins. Second row: John Zahl, Lisa McCully, Joey Webber, Heidi Stevenson, Heather O’Brien and Jamie Blair. Third row from top: Kristen Beaton, Lillian Campbell, Joanne Thomas, Peter Bond, Tom Bagley and Greg Blair. Bottom row: Emily Tuck, Joy Bond, Corrie Ellison and Aaron Tuck. (CBC) He said if a similar report came to Halifax police, he expects action would be taken “right then and there.” “I’m not going to go into a database to look at it later, and hopefully someone will find it. Whether that’s the case in any case, I don’t know,” Kinsella said. In his police interview, Wiley said he did not recall seeing Densmore’s report detailing Wortman wanting to kill a police officer or any conversations with MacMinn. When the panel asked if hearing that the gunman wanted to kill a police officer was troubling, Wiley said he didn’t recall getting anything “so official.” “How I thought of him as a person was benign, so … I knew Dr. Jekyll, but I didn’t know Mr. Hyde at all,” Wiley said. Any records of investigations of Wiley or other RCMP officers related to the 2011 evidence, if they occurred, have also been removed from the system. Scott told the CBC that details like the 2011 tipster referring to firearms being stored in a chimney compartment at the gunman’s cottage suggest firsthand knowledge — and that’s “reliable enough information” for a warrant. The commission also plans to question Wiley about his involvement in the case of Susie Butlin, a Tatamagouche woman who was killed by her neighbor in September 2017 after she reported him to the RCMP for sexual assault and harassment. When Butlin called the RCMP on August 26, 2017 to report harassing messages from her neighbor trying to intimidate her into dropping a peace petition against him, Wylie was named lead investigator. He discussed the messages with Butlin’s and decided there was no basis to lay a criminal charge.
