More victims of the Nova Scotia shooting have been identified. Their names are Heather O’Brien and Lisa McCully.
The women were killed this weekend when a gunman went a shooting rampage through the province, according to The Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
“To all of you kind people who have reached out to myself and my family today please know I am reading, it’s all just very overwhelming,” O’Brien’s daughter Darcy Dobson wrote in a post to Facebook. “Hold your loved ones a little closer. Pick up the phone. Call your mom. Tell her you love her! This will be hard but it will not be Heather O’Briens defining moment! I want everyone to remember how kind she was. How much she loved being a nurse. The way her eyes sparkled when she talked to her grandchildren and the way she just LOVED Christmas. Let those things define her. Not the horrible way she died.”
McCully was an elementary school teacher in the community of Debert.
“9300 NSTU hearts are broken along with those of her colleagues and students at Debert Elementary, as well as her family and friends who knew her not only as a passionate teacher but as a shining love in their lives,” said President Paul Wozney of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union.
RCMP Constable Heidi Stevenson was previously identified as one of 16 people killed by a gunman this weekend.
“Heidi answered the call of duty and lost her life while protecting those she served,” Nova Scotia RCMP Commanding Officer Assistant Commissioner Lee Bergerman said in a statement posted to Facebook. “Earlier this afternoon, I met with Heidi’s family and there are no words to describe their pain. Two children have lost their mother and a husband his wife. Parents lost their daughter and countless others lost an incredible friend and colleague.”
The gunman was identified as denturist Gabriel Wortman, 51. His alleged actions ended up on police radar with reports of a shooting at a home in the community of Portapique. Officers reported finding victims inside and outside, but the shooter wasn’t there. This sparked a manhunt that ended with the suspect’s death on Sunday.
Witness Glenn Hines told NBC News he witnessed a shootout involving a SWAT team at the Enfield, Nova Scotia gas station where the manhunt ended.
During the manhunt, officers warned Wortman might have been wearing what appeared to be a police uniform, and possibly what seemed like a RCMP vehicle. Chief Superintendent Chris Leather said that the shootings seemed to be “at least in part, very random in nature,” according to CTV News. But he also mentioned that the suspect having a uniform and a vehicle “certainly speaks to it not being a random act.”
The motive behind the killing spree remains under investigation.
[Screengrab via NBC News]
