TORONTO One year after a mass shooting in Nova Scotia took the lives of 22 people and injured three others, family members look back at a year of loss and trauma. Jenny Kierstead, whose sister Lisa McCully was killed in the April 18 shooting in the Portapique community, is hoping community members can finally come together and grieve collectively. “The commemorative walk has been designed to give the public an opportunity to grieve and to come together outdoors and to remember the victims of last April, and to process their grief, ” she told CTV News. Kierstead, along with other members of the Nova Scotia Remembers Legacy Society, will participate in planned memorial events on Sunday.
Michael Tutton
Charlene Bagley holds a photo of her late father, Tom Bagley, in Halifax on Tuesday, March 16, 2021. Tom Bagley was one of 22 victims in the rural Nova Scotia murder rampage of April 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan April 15, 2021 - 6:04 AM
HALIFAX - Tom Bagley s birthday was just two days away on April 19, 2020, when his daughter Charlene called his cottage in West Wentworth, N.S., and small talk ensued about the possibility of a socially distanced party in her driveway.
Like other final conversations and images, what at the time was a routine chat is now remembered in crisp detail â Tom s cheery desire for ice-cream cake and the playful, back-and-forth banter with Patsy, his wife of over four decades.
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Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press
Tom Bagley’s birthday was just two days away on April 19, 2020, when his daughter Charlene called his cottage in West Wentworth, N.S., and small talk ensued about the possibility of a socially distanced party in her driveway.
Like other final conversations and images, what at the time was a routine chat is now remembered in crisp detail – Tom’s cheery desire for ice-cream cake and the playful, back-and-forth banter with Patsy, his wife of over four decades.
But for the 70-year-old naval veteran and former firefighter, there would be no gathering, and like other families in Nova Scotia and across the continent, Charlene Bagley was about to lose a person whom she loved and leaned on for guidance.
Bagley died that morning from gunshot wounds near a neighbour s burning home, one of 22 men and women and an unborn child who were killed in a mass shooting that began late the night before and continued over 13 hours. The neighbours, Alanna Jenkins and Sean McLeod, were also among those killed by the gunman. The horror ended when the killer was shot dead outside a gas station in Enfield, N.S.
Families of N.S. mass shooting victims left with vivid memories, searing grief
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Charlene Bagley holds a photo of her late father, Tom Bagley, in Halifax on Tuesday, March 16, 2021. Tom Bagley was one of 22 victims in the rural Nova Scotia murder rampage of April 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan
HALIFAX – Tom Bagley’s birthday was just two days away on April 19, 2020, when his daughter Charlene called his cottage in West Wentworth, N.S., and small talk ensued about the possibility of a socially distanced party in her driveway.
Like other final conversations and images, what at the time was a routine chat is now remembered in crisp detail – Tom’s cheery desire for ice-cream cake and the playful, back-and-forth banter with Patsy, his wife of over four decades.