Maine man who bought rifle later used in N.S. shootings lied to police about purchase

A man from Maine admitted to lying to an RCMP investigator about the day he went to a gun show and bought a high-powered rifle with Gabriel Wortman, who used the carbine a year later when he killed 22 people in Nova Scotia, newly released documents show. 

New details about how the shooter obtained firearms are included in a report released Tuesday morning by the public inquiry examining the April 2020 massacre. The gunman never had a firearms licence and smuggled three weapons into Canada from Maine. 

Transcripts of RCMP interviews, released without redactions for the first time, shed light on how the shooter bypassed authorized dealers and arranged a private cash sale of a Colt Law Enforcement-brand carbine 5.56-mm semi-automatic at a gun show in Houlton, Maine, in April 2019.  

In the weeks after the shootings, police spoke with the gun's sellers and Neil Gallivan, a man who lives outside Houlton and went to the show with Wortman the previous spring.  

Gallivan initially claimed in an interview with RCMP Sgt. Fraser Firth that he didn't remember details of that Saturday morning, denied going to the event with Wortman and then backtracked several times during the interview. 

Gallivan had previously spoken to U.S. investigators. Eventually he admitted to going to the show with Wortman, who he'd known for two decades. 

"I tried to save my own skin because I knew that was going to be big trouble," he said to Firth about his earlier denials. "I apologize for the ah, for that — for the lies."

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, but a CBC News investigation found charges seem unlikely for those who provided the gunman some of his weapons.

Gallivan was a lifelong friend of Sean Conlogue of Houlton. Both men told police they met Wortman through Tom Evans, a now-deceased lawyer from Fredericton. Over the years, they all spent time together at a camp 40 kilometres south of the border town.

Conlogue has admitted he was the source for two handguns the shooter appears to have used. Conlogue has said he gave one as a gift, and told police Wortman took the other from his home.

But while details have previously emerged about those two weapons, the records released Tuesday offer more information about the semi-automatic rifle.

In his RCMP interview, Gallivan went on to explain that on April 27, 2019, he stopped at Conlogue's home to see about going to the show together. But since Conlogue was recovering from a surgery and Wortman was staying there to help, Gallivan went with the shooter instead.

It seems Wortman admired the gun in the morning but was unable to buy it, so he and Gallivan returned to the arena around noon, at which point Gallivan bought it for cash in a private sale. 

"It was quick and kind of dirty really. And I brought the gun back and gave it to Sean," Gallivan said, according to a transcript.