Residents along a small back road in rural Nova Scotia are reeling after watching a neighbouring home burn to the ground, while another friend lay dead from the weekend’s killing rampage.
Residents along a small back road in rural Nova Scotia are reeling after watching a neighbouring home burn to the ground, while another friend lay dead from the weekend’s killing rampage.
Lisa Owen and her husband, Darrol Thurier, live on Hunter Road in West Wentworth, N.S., about 50 kilometres north of Portapique, where a 51-year-old man began a rampage Saturday night that would stretch across the province before ending in Enfield the next day.
RCMP confirmed Monday at least 19 people are dead.
Just after 8 a.m. AT on Sunday, Owen said they heard what sounded like a gunshot.
Thurier drove his ATV down the road, but ran into other neighbours in a truck who told him to turn around because there was a house on fire and there were “bullets flying.”
He returned home, where they locked the door and waited inside for about 10 minutes. Thurier said he then went outside to do some yardwork and heard a “very, very loud” explosion.
Thurier saw flames and black smoke billowing into the air.
He again drove down the road on his ATV, and met a volunteer firefighter standing at the end of the driveway to the home of Alanna Jenkins and Sean McLeod.
Although they called 911, Owen said the dispatcher told them that fire crews were standing down since there was an active shooter in the area and it wasn’t safe for them to respond.
“Basically, their hands were tied. So we just watched it go up in flames,” Owen said.
The couple