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.
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