Facebook/Twitter/NewsMedia, mostly, publicly made about Gabriel Wortman by people who knew him personally - most comments were made spontaneously, at the time the news first broke that he was a mass killer.
Ie they don’t seem at all mediated through 20/20 hindsight.
What is so very striking is how deeply divided they are, falling into either one of two basic categories : either ‘smiling helpful nice guy’ or ‘creepy freaked me out’.
Even more striking is that they fall on either side of a key dividing point in every young person’s life : when they first leave mom and dad and the home community that knows them all too well and strike out on their own, able to finally re-invent themselves if they wish.
All the nice smiling helpful comments come from people who knew Gabe in Riverview’s primary school, junior high and high school years.
Importantly, some did not know him personally in the ordinary sense, but rather in that uniquely small town sense , “I knew of him.”
Yes, Riverview, NB, is part of the Greater Moncton metro area, but not in the same sense then say Bedford is a part of Greater Halifax.
In Halifax urban development is basically continuous right around the harbour for about 30 linear miles and each smaller community seamlessly blends into its neighbours.
But Riverview is decidedly different : crucial for our story.
It is more like an enclave onto itself, divided from Moncton and Dieppe by the big wide river and with a decidedly rural hinterland immediately outside city limits. Google Map it, switch to aerial view and you will see what I mean right away.
Its all rather like living in a sizeable fishbowl : everyone has either gone to the only high school or has a sibling that has. Everyone teen in Riverview knows at least a little about every other teen : a place where it is hard to keep a secret or lead a double life.
The favourable comments continue right into the Spring of 1987, the second year Gabe took Grade 12 at Riverview High, in an effort egged on by his friend Mary, to get his marks up for university. (He had been working at a dead-end job in a local garage after graduating in 1986.)
They continued, but shifted a little, in the Fall of 1987 when he was in the same UNB Fredericton co-ed dorm as media personality and Gabe’s then best friend, Candy Palmater. Its Gabe’s first time away from the fishbowl of Riverview and way from Mom and Dad and their rules and regulations.
Fredericton isn’t really much bigger than Moncton but Gabe and the whole Wortman clan aren’t known there. Wortman, you see, is one of the founding families of Moncton - for Gabe, even adults in Moncton across the river are likely to know “of him” via his uncles, grandparents, great uncles etc.
Candy found him awkward but nice, while admitting that her friends (hardly conventional themselves) didn’t like him.
Candy leaves the UNB campus in the Spring of 1988 and Gabe moves into Bridges House dorm - UNB’s Animal House/Frat House.
The home of the hell-raisers, but even hell-raisers have limits.
And right away, Gabe broke them.
Now the comments from people who knew him best, saw him in his underwear so to speak - his dorm mates/room mates and their girlfriends, paint him in decidedly negative terms.
Kinky, prickly, stand-offish, confrontational, owning false IDs, using false names, (he was legally an adult so no, it wasn’t to get him booze), disappearing for days at a time mysteriously without an explanation.
Dyed his hair silver, got a cock ring or nipple pierced, had loud sex in the public shower room while dorm mates were trying to get ready for classes.
An all-around arsehole and voted as such by his dorm peers, awarded the infamous CHUCK COSBY award, as the biggest asshole on the UNB campus.
There are two competing theories about why Gabe’s public personalty seemed to change so drastically, so suddenly and so permanently.
One theory is that Gabe mentally collapsed at UNB ; the other is that he consciously concealed in Riverview.
But what sort of a collapse at UNB : he hardly presents as someone who took a tab of bad acid and never recovered.
Bullied ? The evidence suggests rather that at UNB, he bullied and browbeat others.
Rejected by the love of his life and thereafter swore revenge on all women ? He seemed to have had , if anything, too active a love life, right up to the day he died : much more about this side of him in another post.
Bullied ? The evidence suggests rather that at UNB, he bullied and browbeat others.
Rejected by the love of his life and thereafter swore revenge on all women ? He seemed to have had , if anything, too active a love life, right up to the day he died : much more about this side of him in another post.
A better reason, a much better one, is that Gabe did formally apply to the RCMP after he obtained his degree and was turned down. A denture customer online says Gabe told him it was for physical reasons.
If Gabe had been specific, “an undiscovered severe heart murmur”, this might be believable but he seemed to be in energetic, wirily good heath all his life.
If it was in fact because he failed the psych exam, this merely raises more questions as to when did this condition arise and why.
I am biased, admittedly : I firmly believe that wee Gabe had a chaotic uncertain life while still an infant and this, combined, with the brain chemistry mix he was born with, made him what he turned out to be : an unusual, rage-against-the-whole-world, example of a spree killer.
I believe he only felt at ease with his inner demons when he was totally in charge and everything was perfect in his mind’s eye. Anything less than that (and it was an impossibly high bar to set) made him deeply uneasy, angry, depressed.
We have a barely filled out gap of about ten years between when he graduated from UNB in 1991 (with a degree in Business, judging by his entrepreneurial skills) and 2001 when he divorced wife Corrina B Kincaid, takes up with common law partner Lisa Banfield, and becomes co-owner of a denturist lab and is in court charged with a violent assault against a kid, a stranger.
Beginning to fill that gap is worth another post...
Thinking something happened all of a sudden to cause a mental collapse may be something of a "red herring". Personality disorder (PD) is much more prevalent in males than in females, and typically begins to be recognisable in adolescent years, usually late adolescents. If there are early (childhood signs, which is debatable), those might be a tendency to frustration, temper, lack of attention, excessive narcissism (hard to judge in children). Emergent PD will often be compounded by substance abuse, more difficulties in interpersonal relationships, depression and anxiety. The history you have put together in your essay, viewed by someone trained in the field, is probably textbook in the timing of the emergence of PD. See, for example, https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20366662
ReplyDeleteI agree 100% : Gabe's timeline fits that pattern to a T. But while our unique mix of brain chemicals strengths seems to be essentially random and hence beyond our control, strong evidence suggests periods of high stress and confusion in the years 0-5 alter the strengths of our brain chemistry permanently.
ReplyDeleteThis is something society CAN change : we must educate - by example - and Gabe might be a very good example - that what we inflict on our kids in those earliest years sets them up for life --- and that any additional stresses later on only make the situation worse, but does NOT create it novo.
Yes, early years are significant. See, for example,
ReplyDelete"Studies have shown that babies and young children who grow up in safe, stable and nurturing environments, with lots of positive interaction with parents and caring adults, will go on to be healthier and more successful in school and in life. Unfortunately, the opposite is true as well. Young children who are deprived of caring interaction do not develop as many positive brain connections. Hunger, neglect and exposure to family violence are all factors that can negatively impact a child’s early development and, subsequently, their future.
That’s why it’s so important to support the healthy development of young children. Because the seeds of a healthy, successful life are planted in the early years."
(https://azpbs.org/2017/11/early-childhood-brain-development-lifelong-impact/)
You've mentioned the environment of living in very bad neighbourhoods during that time in his life. Possible, but I have a different take. I think the violence he experienced was much closer to home, and lasted much longer in his young life. For example, if a child lives in a terrible place, but lives in a kind, supportive, loving home, where he is nurtured physically and emotionally, the environment he hears outside of his home, or experiences outside of his home with his caregivers is unlikely (I think) to make a lasting impression. However, if a child is raised in such a home until age six, and then things decline, or he lives in a home in which there is emotional abuse due to a parent's personality disorder, that child doesn't need the early exposure to bad neighbourhoods to bend him. (And, of course, children who live through such stuff do not necessarily grow up to be outrageously violent.)
I have heard Gabe called a psychopath or a sociopath. I do not think he was either. These personalities are cool, calm and collected . Gabe was none of these. Definitely a pathological perfectionist in the extreme with a borderline personality disorder and I agree probably caused by some very traumatic events when he was very young. He seemed to be escalating. Unfortunately nothing done by himself or anyone else to help him. Individuals like him have "triggers" and "flashbacks" Unfortunately since he could not control events around COVID19, I think he was sent into a major flashback resulting in such violence and rage. I think the relatives and friends of his victims deserve a very close look at his early life to try and explain his behaviour.
ReplyDeleteI agree - I too used the terms like sociopath until I had to read the definitions more closely and felt they didnt fit GW at all NPD he is! PS : I couldnt respond because I only had my ipad and Google won't accept my comments on it - only on my old old macbook....
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