Canada school shooter’s online history shows fascination with violence and mass killings
Before killing nine people in British Columbia, Canada, 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar appeared to leave behind an extensive online presence that reflected her struggles with mental health and a growing fascination with mass violence and gore.
Tuesday’s mass shooting has devastated the small rural community of Tumbler Ridge, where Van Rootselaar is accused of killing her mother, 11-year-old stepbrother, five schoolchildren and an education assistant. The shootings happened at the family’s home and Tumbler Ridge Secondary School. Van Rootselaar, a former student at the school, died from a self-inflicted injury. Twenty-seven others were injured.
Her digital footprint appears to show a fascination with firearms, violence and previous mass shooters, as well as drugs and nihilistic content, often within dark and obscure internet forums, where users share and celebrate images of death.
She – police say Van Rootselaar was transgender and used she pronouns – appears to have created an account on the website WatchPeopleDie, an online forum where users share images of violent death and glorify mass shooters.
The Independent has also confirmed an account with Roblox, where she created a game that allowed players to simulate a mass shooting inside what appeared to be a shopping mall. The account and content has been removed.
In 2019, she created a Reddit account where she discussed suicidal thoughts, video games and gender transition; in 2023, Van Rootselaar started to socially transition and posted that she was on a six-month waiting list for hormonal treatment, though it is unclear whether she actually received medical gender-affirming care. Health authorities reported that Van Rootselaar was never enrolled in any inpatient care programs in the region.
In February 2023, Van Rootselaar posted that she started a fire in her house while high on psychedelic mushrooms. In that post, she also said she had been recently hospitalized for psychiatric care, was experiencing other mental health conditions, including depression, and received a diagnosis that she was on the autism spectrum.
Van Rootselaar also claims to be taking antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs.
An account on WatchPeopleDie included images and videos of firearms, though the account has since been removed by site moderators in the wake of the attack, according to an analysis from the ADL Center on Extremism.
The account includes many images of guns that were also visible in a Facebook post from the shooter’s mother. In 2021, her mother Jessica Jacobs — who appeared to use her maiden name, Strang, for herself and Van Rootselaar — said to “check out my oldest son Jesse Strang YouTube Channel.”
“He posts about hunting, self reliance, guns and stuff he likes to do,” she added.
Another image from her Facebook account in 2024 shows six guns with the caption “think it’s time to take them out for some target practice.”
Van Rootselaar’s minor’s firearms license expired that year, according to police.
On Reddit, Van Rootselaar posted an image of a Chinese Norinco SKS rifle, the same model that was also included in an image on her mother’s Facebook account.
That same firearm was included on the WatchPeopleDie website with an account using a similar username to one Van Rootselaar used on Reddit.
The account on the website — which has been linked to several school shooters — was immersed in videos of death and violence, commenting “I appreciate this post” on a thread that compiled footage of prior mass shootings.
“I love these first person perspective type videos, when the shooter records his or her own actions it’s always heat,” the account commented on another threat of shooting footage.
In August, the user posted that they found violent content “addictive.”
“I’ve tried to stray [sic] away from watching this type of thing before cuz it really sucks me in and is a massive useless time dump,” the account wrote, according to the ADL’s analysis.
“To say it ‘doesn’t effect [sic] me is likely naive,” the user added. “It just doesn’t feel like a big deal.”
The Independent has requested comment from the website.
Roblox confirmed to The Independent that Van Rootselaar’s account was removed February 11.
The mall shooting game could only be accessed through downloading a separate app used by developers to design games, and had only seven visits, according to a company spokesperson.
Van Rootselaar’s online presence reflects a pattern of online radicalization towards committing mass violence fueled by engagement with violent content, which experts and law enforcement officials are increasingly warning is a trend of online-driven “nihilism.”
Officials have not found a legible agenda behind a recent streak of high-profile killings and acts of political violence where assailants defied being neatly categorized into familiar ideologically- or racism-driven threats.
A recent wave of attackers instead broadly declared their contempt for humanity and welcomed the end of civilization.
“Although these subcultures can produce outcomes similar to ideologically-motivated extremism, their goals, worldviews and motivations differ from classic ideological movements,” according to a December report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. “This presents distinct challenges for prevention and safeguarding.”
The Department of Justice is also investigating what it has labeled Nihilistic Violent Extremism, while Canada labeled groups 764 and Maniac Murder Cult as terrorist entities, among a growing number of groups stemming from far-right accelerationist threats within the “Nihilistic Violent Extremism” ecosystem.
Such groups have proliferated online and spread globally, with arrests reported in at least 29 countries, according to a February report from the Global Network on Extremism and Technology, which reported on a trend of what it calls “post-ideological violence.”
“These communities glorify violence and its perpetrators while engaging in manipulative and coercive practices that draw young people into committing extreme acts of violence against others, animals, or themselves,” according to the report.
“While the full scope of this phenomenon … remains difficult to determine, the growing number of documented cases and victims underscores the urgent need for targeted and coordinated responses,” the group found.
In the aftermath of Tumbler Ridge shooting, social media also focused intensely on Van Rootselaar’s gender, a frequent phenomenon in the wake of recent mass shootings where users wrongly identify suspects as transgender.
Fewer than one in 1,000 mass shooters over the past decade have been identified as transgender, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The overwhelming majority of mass attacks are committed by cisgender men, while trans people are more than four times likely to be victims of violent crimes, including rape and sexual assault, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.
