Spouse of Nova Scotia mass shooter to publish memoir about domestic violence

By Canadian Press on September 22, 2025.

TORONTO — Lisa Banfield, the spouse of the man who perpetrated the Portapique, N.S., mass shooting, is set to publish a memoir recounting the abuse she endured in their relationship.

“The First Survivor: Life with Canada’s Deadliest Mass Shooter” is due to be published in January by Sutherland House.

Gabriel Wortman’s rampage on April 18, 2020, began when he assaulted Banfield, his common-law wife of 19 years.

Over the next 13 hours, he killed 22 people in Portapique and the surrounding counties in Nova Scotia.

Banfield wrote the book in collaboration with her sister Maureen Banfield and journalist Sherri Aikenhead.

Sutherland House says the book is both a personal account and a call to action to shift society’s response to victims of intimate partner violence.

It’s set to be published Jan. 20, 2026.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 22, 2025.

Nicole Thompson, The Canadian Press