How the Nova Scotia mass shooter smuggled guns into Canada

An RCMP investigator told a close friend of the N.S. man who killed 22 people that police didn't plan to hold the Maine man accountable for giving the killer a gun, but wanted to know about how the shooter acquired his weapons and smuggled them across the border to ensure guns wouldn't make it into Canada in the future.

A transcript of the May 2020 RCMP interview with Sean Conlogue — a resident of Houlton, Maine who knew Gabriel Wortman for more than two decades — has been posted online by the public inquiry examining the April 2020 mass shooting. 

A CBC News investigation found that though Conlogue and at least one other person in Maine may have broken U.S. federal laws by helping the shooter obtain two of the guns he used during the April 2020 rampage, it is unlikely they will face charges.

It is illegal for an American to transfer, sell, trade, give, transport or deliver a firearm to someone they know is not a U.S. resident. Investigators believe the shooter, who didn't have a firearms licence, obtained three of the guns he used during the massacre in Houlton and smuggled them into Canada. 

Police traced two of his weapons back to Conlogue, who told investigators he had no idea what his friend was planning. In a four-hour interview, RCMP Staff Sgt. Greg Vardy asked him about their relationship, guns and border crossings. 

The gunman frequently stayed at Conlogue's home and had online orders shipped to his address. Conlogue said he'd given Wortman a Ruger handgun as a "token of appreciation" for the work he did around his property during his visits.

In response, Vardy told Conlogue it was illegal for him to do so. 

"I'm not interested in charging you…. I want to know, like, the truth," the Mountie said.

"We don't have any inkling of coming down here, coming after Sean Conlogue for this event. This is about knowing what's happened for those 22 families, so that in the future this stuff is not gonna happen again. In the future, that these guns will never get across that border." 

Search warrant documents show the Canada Border Services Agency determined the gunman crossed the border at Woodstock, N.B., a short drive from Houlton, 15 times in the two years prior to the shootings.

That included in April 2019 when the shooter stayed with Conlogue for a week to help him after a foot surgery. During that visit, police believe Wortman purchased a high-powered rifle — a Colt Law Enforcement-brand carbine 5.56-mm semi-automatic — after attending a local gun show. 

Conlogue said he was in bed recovering and didn't go to the show, but assumed Wortman went with a mutual friend. Vardy named the man but the public inquiry has not released any documents related to interviews with him. 

He told Vardy he saw the shooter counting cash and remembers seeing a rifle the day before the gunman left to return home to Nova Scotia. 

"I said, 'what in the hell do you need something like that for?' And I think his words were 'I've always wanted one,'" according to the transcript of his RCMP statement.