‘You’re not going to get out of this alive,’ N.S. man told his ex-girlfriend

Her ex was pounding on the door, trying to get in.

The woman’s friend fielded a text from her on Jan. 20, so he called 911. Mounties sent a patrol car by her home on a First Nations reserve in Nova Scotia.

When the constable arrived, he found William George Nauss, 52, outside the home, requesting police assistance to fetch his belongings. His ex had his gear packed and ready to go and he left.

“After police left, he came back to the house and told her, ‘You’re not going to get out of this alive,’” RCMP Const. Vladimir Dounin said in his application for a warrant in the case.

‘Threw it in her face’

Nine days later, Mounties fielded another call about Nauss allegedly climbing through his ex’s window and making her shut off her outside security camera, Dounin said.

“He told her he got the band’s letter (banning Nauss from the reserve),” said the investigator. “He crumpled it up and threw it in her face.”

She pretended to make Nauss some food while he fell asleep on her bed, Dounin said.

“When she was sure that he was asleep, she escaped from the residence and went to a band council member’s residence, who then called the police.”

Calls, threats, stalking 

When Mounties arrived on the scene, Nauss was already gone.

His ex “reported that Nauss has relentlessly called her and sent her messages, threatened her and stalked her after she ended their relationship in January,” Dounin said in information to obtain a warrant filed at a provincial courthouse near her home.

The Chronicle Herald is not naming her reserve to avoid identifying a sexual assault victim.

The woman had gone to her band council for help, said the investigator.

“They agreed to help and decided to hide her at a hotel while they went through the process of banning Nauss from being at their reserve,” Dounin said.

“Despite this, Nauss had somehow found (her) at the hotel while she was hiding there.”

The woman told police Nauss got a hotel staffer to do a wellbeing check on her while she was asleep.

He was sitting in her SUV

“She looked out of her window at the hotel and saw that Nauss was sitting in (her sport utility vehicle) in a parking area across the road,” Dounin said.

Two councilors from the reserve came into his detachment on Jan. 30 looking to talk about domestic violence.

They raised concerns about the woman’s safety, he said.

One of them had spoken with Nauss on Facetime the day he allegedly broke into his ex’s place and fell asleep, Dounin said.

The councilor “observed Nauss sitting on a bed inside a room” that belonged to his ex on the reserve, said the investigator.

Fearing that the woman’s “life was in danger,” the councilors were concerned that Nauss hadn’t been arrested, Dounin said.

‘Burned his house down’

That same day, the constable sat down with the woman, who met Nauss three years ago. She cried “uncontrollably” during the first 10 minutes of her meeting with the investigator.

“Nauss moved in with her after he burned his house down in Mill Village to get content insurance paid out,” Dounin said.

“Nauss started getting controlling,” she told the investigator, noting he would check her mobile phone and “put location tracking on it.”

“Nauss started using drugs regularly, crack cocaine,” she told police, noting she used it as well.

“They got into lots of arguments and fights.”

Break-action shotgun 

She told police that, about two years back, they struggled during a fight for a break-action shotgun on her bed.

“She had grabbed it and he had a hold of it,” Dounin said.

“After he took it from her, he showed her that it was loaded.”

The woman told police Nauss “has frequently pushed her around, has been verbally abusive, and has cut up her clothing,” said the investigator.

She’d locked him out before, but he always got back in.

“He … kicked the doors in, about a year ago,” she told police.

“She then went and hid in a locked bathroom, but he kicked that in too,” the woman said. “She felt that she had nowhere safe to go.”

‘Left finger marks’

The woman described an argument in middle of 2022 where Nauss allegedly choked her in her bedroom while she struggled to escape.

“He had her good and left finger marks on her neck,” Dounin said.

“He frequently grabbed her arms and shoulders in arguments, four to five times a week, like someone grabbing a child.”

When they broke up, “he told her things like, ‘You’ll be with no one else,’” she told police.

‘Mark his territory’

When they were still together, Nauss would frequently bite her back without consent during sex, she told police.

“They did not use protection when they had sex and he ejaculated inside her without her consent, saying that he was doing so to ‘mark his territory,’” the woman told investigators, noting that happened last fall.

The last time she locked him out, the woman said Nauss went to her shed and fetched a hammer.

‘I will make sure of that’

“He walked towards the residence with the hammer, stopped and stared in the window, yelling at her. He told her ‘You’re going to be with me forever – you will never be with anyone else. I will make sure of that,’” Dounin said.

Believing that he was investigating Nauss for arson, multiple assaults and sexual assaults on the woman, death threats, harassment, and that Nauss had been handling a firearm when he was banned from doing so, the investigator and two other Mounties visited the home of their suspect’s mother.

“Nauss opened the door,” Dounin said.

Police arrested him for break and enter and criminal harassment, said the investigator.

“Nauss uttered that he had never been at the reserve,” Dounin said.

White powder on phone

While Nauss was talking with his lawyer at the RCMP detachment, the investigator noticed his suspect’s phone was covered in white powder. Dounin seized the phone and used a cocaine test wipe on the device, “which produced a positive test result for cocaine.”

The investigator convinced a justice of the peace to grant a search warrant for a forensic examination of the black Apple iPhone.

“Nauss’s cellular phone is expected to contain evidence that will be relevant to the investigation,” Dounin said.

Nauss, who is behind bars and is not facing arson charges, has been sentenced for a dozen crimes since 1991 including uttering threats, fraud, and criminal harassment.

In court next month

Nauss is due back in court Dec. 20 to answer to charges including break and enter with intent and trespassing on a reserve. Those allegedly took place Jan. 29.

Nauss is charged with uttering threats to cause death or bodily harm on Jan. 20.

He’s also charged with crimes involving violence and criminal harassment in the last ten days of January.

Police charged Nauss with making repeated telephone calls between Nov. 1, 2022, and Jan. 30.

He’s also charged with sexual assault, assault, assault with a weapon causing bodily harm and using a firearm in the commission of an offence.