Justin Bourque, the subject of an ongoing manhunt in Moncton, N.B., told a former co-worker he wanted to “go out with a bang and bring people with him.”
Caitlin Isaac spoke to Business Insider, describing the suspect as an outcast who had a problem with authority. The two worked at Walmart until Bourque was fired for "attitude related reasons" in 2010.
Isaac also spoke to the Saint John Telegraph-Journal, saying his two long guns were “his favourite things” and “he seemed to hate on everything.”
UPDATE: Justin Bourque was arrested early Friday by Moncton police. Read updates here.
A Facebook account under Bourque’s name contains several anti-police and pro-gun posts. A profile picture shows him and another man holding guns. He currently has 44 friends, and two appear to have been added after the shootings.
HuffPost Canada has been unable to confirm that the Facebook page belongs to the shooter.
Mike Campbell, who also spoke to the Insider and identified himself as the suspect’s best friend, said Bourque hinted he might never see him again a few weeks before the shooting.
Campbell and Bourque had been drinking in his garage, when Bourque got up to leave, his friend asked him to visit again soon.
“I told him, ‘Get hold of me later.’ And he was like, ‘I don’t know …You take care, Mike. You have a good life.’
Campbell says he was "weirded out" by the comment, but never expected his friend to do anything like the shooting rampage.
“He was my best friend my whole life. He would be the last person I would think would this.”
Another friend and former co-worker, Trever Finck, spoke to the Toronto Star, describing Bourque's transformation from intelligent and laid back to a radical and angry man obsessed with gun rights.
"It was like a complete 180 for him," he said. "There was a pretty stark difference."
The Star also reports that Bourque frequently used marijuana, but had recently moved on to harder drugs like heroin. He also bought a new shotgun in April, which he informed Finck about.
Another friend from Walmart, Cameron Keeping, told Postmedia that Bourque was always the "life of the party." Keeping said he last saw Bourque on Sunday when they hung out in his trailer, smoked marijuana and watched TV.
"Cosmos, or some weird space show,” Keeping said.
While the recent changes in Bourque's behaviour were plenty, Finck says nobody expected Bourque to take such measures.
"When they started giving the description (of the shooter), he was the only person I could think of that would dress like that,” Finck told The Star. "In the back of my mind I thought of that and I was on Skype with my friends and they had just released a picture of him. As soon as I saw it I was like, ‘Whoa, wow, this is really crazy.'"
The shock was also felt by Cameron Keeping, a friend Bourque made while working at Walmart about five years ago. They had just spent time together at the suspect's trailer house Sunday.
"He was the life of the party," Keeping told Postmedia News. "He loved his guns and hunting but was more into music and drinking than guns."