Washington man faces life in Canada school murder plot

Jesse Van Rootselaar could not start the car.

She had already killed her mother and her 11-year-old stepbrother at home on Feb. 10, 2026. Prosecutors say James Cody Bryant, Bellingham, Washington, told her how to get the engine running. She drove to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in British Columbia.

On Oct. 6, 2026, federal prosecutors in Seattle charged Bryant with conspiracy to murder persons in a foreign country. The charge carries a potential penalty of up to life in prison.

Bryant, 30, was arrested in Bellingham the week before the announcement. He lived on Verona Street in the Roosevelt neighborhood. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington presented the case at a joint news conference with the FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Death tolls in the Tumbler Ridge attack have been reported as six, eight, or nine across outlets. Victims included children and an educational assistant. Injury counts have been reported as 25 or 27. Van Rootselaar, 18 and a former student at the school, used an improvised explosive device to damage the building and fired through locked classroom doors. She exchanged gunfire with police before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Acting U.S. Attorney Neil Floyd addressed the scale of the loss. “The Tumbler Ridge Secondary School shooting was a horrific tragedy for that small community and for all of Canada. Indeed, here in the Pacific Northwest we felt the pain of those families devastated by this violence,” he said. “It is even more profoundly disturbing to learn that a resident of Western Washington had a role in the attack and took steps – providing counsel, technical advice, and money to the shooter planning such a tragedy.”

Conspiracy to murder persons in a foreign country is a federal charge built for cross-border plots. It means an American alleged to have helped plan killings abroad answers in a U.S. courtroom. Public safety and the ordinary working of the border both depend on that reach holding when the evidence supports it.

According to the complaint, Bryant and Van Rootselaar began communicating on Omegle in 2023 and continued over Discord. Planning for the attack began around August 2025, roughly six months before the shooting. Prosecutors say Bryant sent money for attack-related items, provided counsel and technical advice, and agreed to record and broadcast a livestream of the attack via Twitch. Test runs of the livestreaming equipment occurred about a month before.

The livestream lasted about 20 seconds. It was viewed by one account before it was taken down.