to regular readers of this blog, major revelation in G&M investigation into Gabriel Wortman was the cigarette smuggling

I don’t think anyone mentioned ciggie smuggling as the childhood basis of the WORTMAN crime empire

The July 5th 2020 Globe & Mail story confirms much that this blog has speculated - as a historian might - from the known facts and surrounding context - over the last ten weeks.

But it does offer a totally new and totally reasonable explanation for just why the (adult) Gabe needed so many false ids and always needed to always be going out mysterious at night while he was a student at UNB.

He paid his way through college by smuggling black market cigarettes across the Maine/NB border.

He later tried to expand into grass ‘cigarettes’ with the help of a Hells Angels handyman.

G&M confirms his boyhood love of guns, hatred of slow buses and love of illegal speeding, with the ciggie smuggling an explanation for his his spending well above his legitimate income and his deep need to hang around crooks.

The poor people who are overwhelmingly the people who go to denturists, if we are frank, (most Canadians hate to be frank) are used to dealing in cash. Cash payments allowed Wortman to pay very little income tax : he hated paying his share of taxes as much as he hated gun control laws and speed signs.

Almost more American than Canadian in his habits : his grandmother Doris’s American ‘friend’  in his formative years ?

The emotional wreckage of his early childhood is well confirmed, with the family moving constantly, the father hopping the freights to find work - perhaps the reason why Evelyn - on her own, in her own words, put her second child up for adoption.

The multi-generation of violent fathers among the Wortmans.

His heavy drinking whenever he got depressed - leading to acts of violence.

His casual adultery during both of his long term relationships.

Did I just say “both” of his long term relationships ? Yes, I guess I did ....

His attempts to have sex with his female patients —- again where were other denturists while this was going on ?

NS society is byzantine everybody know somebody who knows something : gossip is 30% of the provincial GDP after all.

Its a must read article  .....

ADDENDUM : the revelation that Gabe’s father, Paul, who Gabe disliked, was a wheeler-dealer in buying and selling properties helps explain why his grown up son was so obsessed with real estate ——-and property boundary lines