A A

Editor’s note — Some readers have expressed opposition to this story, not wishing to read about a mass murderer’s background. We respect their position. We don’t ever want to glorify, but we must contextualize to begin to find the answers we all desperately want — who, why and how. Providing personal history is crucial to this.

We only use the murderer’s name and photo when it serves a greater public good, and when we do, we will endeavour to explain it.

We are taking a similar approach with photos of his crime scenes. Those will only appear when they provide valuable context for our readers.

A Nova Scotia man who was killed by police last weekend after committing Canada’s worst mass shooting had a history of taking advantage of people financially.

An Alberta man claims Gabriel Wortman duped him out of his house near Dartmouth 16 years ago after offering to help him navigate a rough patch.

“I was down and out and needed help,” Steven Zinck told The Chronicle Herald on Wednesday.

“He conned me right in.”

According to documents from Nova Scotia small claims court, Zinck’s home on Candy Mountain Road in Mineville was in foreclosure when it was transferred to Wortman in the spring of 2004.

Wortman then told the Residential Tenancies Board that Zinck, who was still living in the house and paying $650 a month in rent, wouldn’t allow him to repair or maintain the property and asked that his tenancy be terminated.

In a June 18, 2004, decision granting Wortman’s request, a residential tenancy officer noted that Zinck insisted he had not signed the property over and planned to take the matter to Nova Scotia Supreme Court for a ruling confirming he was still the owner.

“At present, he cannot afford to pay the required court fees and is making application for waiver of the court fees, however it may take a year or more before this case gets to court,” residential tenancy officer Gerard Neal wrote.

Neal determined that Wortman was the owner and that a landlord/tenant relationship had commenced May 1, 2004, with the paying of rent.

Wortman got an order from small claims court on July 7, 2004, to have sheriff’s deputies enforce the eviction notice.

In an interview from Edmonton, Zinck said Wortman double-crossed him after pretending he wanted to help him hang onto his house.

Zinck’s $38,000 mortgage was up but the bank wasn’t willing to renew it until he had a steady income.

Wortman offered to pay off the mortgage and hold it. Zinck would live in the house and make monthly payments to Wortman until he could secure a mortgage on his own, and then pay back the full amount and an extra $10,000.

Zinck said the understanding was that if he missed three payments, the house would become Wortman’s. He said he never missed a payment but still lost the house.

He said wanted to fight Wortman in Supreme Court but couldn’t afford the $2,500 retainer for a lawyer.

In hindsight, he said he realizes Wortman’s offer was too good to be true.

Zinck said he’s been in Alberta for 14 years and hasn’t thought about Wortman much. He said he couldn’t believe it Sunday when he heard about the killings.

“I don’t know why you guys are even worried about talking to me,” Zinck said of the media inquiries he’s received about his experience with Wortman.

“Those poor people that he killed, it’s devastating. This is going down in the history books.”

Wortman also had a financial dispute with a relative that ended up in court.

In June 2015, Glynn Wortman filed an application in Supreme Court to have his nephew removed from the title of a property at 135 Orchard Beach Dr. in Portapique.

Gabriel Wortman had provided bridge financing to help Glynn Wortman buy the property in 2010. Glynn Wortman said he repaid his nephew the money, $165,000, in 2011.

Glynn Wortman said he also paid all expenses for Gabriel to travel to Edmonton to help him sell his condo and that he had footed the entire bill for heating, electricity, insurance, maintenance and taxes since buying the home.

He also said he had transferred $9,946 to Gabriel Wortman in 2012 to reimburse him for goods and services he had purchased for the property on his behalf.

In an affidavit, Glynn Wortman said Gabriel Wortman at one point in time, as a reason for refusing to release his name on the title to the property, claimed it was his uncle’s intention to give him the home as a gift, “but I have never had that intention.”

Glynn Wortman said that when his brother, acting as his power of attorney, asked Gabriel Wortman to remove his name, he gave various reasons at different times for not doing so: that he was kind of busy and would get around to it some time, that he intended to do so but first had to consult with his lawyer, that his uncle had never repaid the loan, that his uncle still owed him money for goods and services, and that his uncle owed him money for his negotiating a good price for the home.

The home was sold to Lisa McCully in early 2015, but the funds from the sale were held in trust by a Truro law firm pending a settlement agreement between Gabriel Wortman and his uncle.

A Supreme Court judge granted an order releasing the funds to Glynn Wortman in July 2015.

McCully, a mother of two and a teacher at Debert Elementary School, died Saturday night during the shooting rampage.

Gabriel Wortman, a denturist who lived in Dartmouth, owned a property at 136 Orchard Beach Dr., across the road from McCully’s home, and two properties on nearby Portapique Beach Road.