Book ~ "The First Survivor: Life With Canada's Deadliest Mass Shooter" by Lisa Banfield, Sherri Aikenhead and Maureen Banfield

From Goodreads ~ On April 18, 2020, Lisa Banfield's life shattered.

After nineteen years in a controlling and often abusive relationship, she escaped a violent assault by her partner, Gabriel Wortman - unaware he was about to carry out the deadliest mass shooting in Canadian history. In "The First Survivor", Banfield tells her story for the first of being groomed and surviving years of intimate partner violence, and of the horrific night she fled barefoot into the freezing woods as Wortman began a murderous rampage that left twenty-two people and an unborn child dead.

Told with raw honesty and courage, Banfield's memoir is more than a personal account of life with a man she tried to heal - it's a call to action. With intimate reflections and her own transformation, she exposes the failures in how society sees, supports, and judges survivors of domestic abuse.

This is a powerful story of trauma, survival, and one woman's journey reclaiming her voice and redefining her life.

This memoir is Lisa Banfield’s account of the events surrounding the April 18 and 19, 2020, attacks in Portapique, Nova Scotia. After nearly 20 years in a relationship marked by control and abuse, Banfield escaped a violent assault by her partner, who then carried out the deadliest mass shooting in Canadian history, killing 22 people and an unborn child. In the book, Banfield details her experiences leading up to that night, the hours she spent hiding in the woods and the aftermath that followed. She also addresses the public scrutiny she faced and the realities of intimate partner violence.

This was a shocking story out of Nova Scotia at the beginning of COVID and I was interested to read more about what and why it happened and those involved. It was a tough story to read. 

I've never experienced domestic violence but even after witnessing it when I was growing up, I don't understand why people stay in these relationships (regardless of the crappy childhoods they may have had). After the first beating Banfield received from her partner, she left him ... but he quickly talked her into getting back together and she stayed with him for 19 years (they were supposed to celebrate their anniversary that night). If someone I was involved with ever laid a hand on me, I'd be gone and there would be no going back. 

After the way he abused her and the killings of innocent people, I found it amazing that it wasn't until 5 years later that she FINALLY deleted the pictures of their life together from her phone and threw away his cremated ashes (why did she even take some of the ashes of this monster??!!).

While I don't blame her for his actions and no one deserves the abuse she put with, I had a hard time feeling a lot of sympathy for her when she talked about the benefits of being with him like a new career and business, a house and a cottage, being able to shop and buy whatever she wanted, the vacations, etc.

Book ~ "Mommy Don’t - From Mother to Murderer: The True Story of Penny and Karissa Boudreau" (2023) Sherri Aikenhead

From Goodreads ~ On January 29, 2008, just days after a bitter winter storm, Nova Scotians watched with breaking hearts as a young mother in the small town of Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, pleaded on the supper-hour news for help finding her missing twelve-year-old daughter. For thirteen days, the country held its breath as the search for Karissa Boudreau continued. When finally frozen toes were found poking out of a snowbank, police confirmed Karissa was dead. 

Shock quickly turned to anger when Karissa’s mother, Penny Boudreau, was arrested for the murder of her only child. A year later, Penny sat in the prisoner’s box in Nova Scotia Supreme Court. The moment seasoned journalist Sherri Aikenhead heard Penny confess to the killing, she knew she would write this story. 

Aikenhead scoured official Bridgewater Police records, RCMP investigative records, court records and Penny Boudreau’s Parole Board of Canada decisions to recreate what happened fifteen years ago. Through interviews with Karissa’s circle of family and friends, and including a first-hand account from a key undercover agent who reveals how the Mr. Big operation extracted Penny’s confession, Aikenhead skillfully builds a powerful and intimate narrative of what really happened to “Bridgewater’s daughter.” 

With fifteen black-and-white photos, some provided by Karissa’s family members, Mommy Don’t takes readers on a heart-pounding journey into the unfathomable question: how could a mother murder her own daughter?

I'm originally from Nova Scotia so that's why this book caught my eye.

Twelve-year-old Karissa had recently moved in with her mother, Penny, and her mother's boyfriend, Vernon, after living with her father, Paul. Karissa didn't like living there and was acting like any twelve-year-old would. Penny had had enough and took her for a drive to have a heart-to-heart chat. Penny stopped in the grocery store to pick up some things and while she was there, Karissa took off. Because there was a snowstorm happening and Karissa wasn't dressed for the weather, Penny drove around looking for her. She eventually called the police to report her daughter missing.

But that's not happened. Penny was scared she was going to lose Vernon because of all the bickering so she murdered her own daughter to keep her man. So sad.

I hadn't heard about this case and it was interesting to read about it. I liked the writing style and the author obviously did a lot of research. It wasn't a happy story and it's crazy that Penny, despite pleading guilty to second degree murder in 2009, is already allowed out on supervised outings.