U.S. suspect conspired with Tumbler Ridge killer before and during attack: FBI

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The detailed account of the killings and the months leading up to the attack is contained in the complaint filed against Bryant of Bellingham, Wash.

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The FBI, the U.S. Attorney in Washington state and the RCMP announced in Seattle on Tuesday that Bryant, 30, had been charged with conspiracy to murder persons in a foreign country.

Mike Harrington, special agent in charge with the FBI in Seattle told a news conference that Bryant enabled the shooter for months as they discussed the plan.

The claims have not been tested in court, and Bryant’s lawyer, public defender Greg Murphy, was not immediately available for comment. Bryant appeared in the U.S. District Courthouse in Seattle on Tuesday, with a detention hearing scheduled for Oct. 13.

“In the complaint, Bryant even admits to being maybe the only one who could stop the shooter,” Harrington said.

The complaint quotes extensive alleged exchanges between the two, including from August 2025 when Van Rootselaar said she wanted to surpass the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre in Montreal, which left 14 people dead, in order to complete “the deadliest school shooting in all of Canadian history.”

“If I got more than 22 it’d be simply the deadliest shooting in Canadian history period,” Van Rootselaar is quoted as saying, referring to the Nova Scotia mass murder where 22 people were killed in 2020 by a man posing as a police officer.

But she is said to have added that killing 14 people would be a “lot easier” than 22.

The conversations depicted by the FBI include Bryant repeatedly assuring Van Rootselaar that they would not “snitch,” adding in one conversation that “people die no matter what.”

The FBI says that moments before Van Rootselaar headed to the school, Bryant accessed a livestream account to record and broadcast the killings on the Twitch platform.

Rootselaar allegedly told Bryant, “I’m going now. (for real). Live. I shot them,” after killing her mother and brother at their home.

“Watching now,” Bryant allegedly responded.

Acting U.S. Attorney Neil Floyd said the accused had the information and the ability to alert police, but instead encouraged the murders.

“Today, Bryant is in custody, charged with conspiracy to murder people in a foreign country. That charge carries a penalty of up to life in prison,” Floyd said.

Harrington said the livestream only lasted about 20 seconds, briefly showing the killer sitting in a vehicle with a rifle.

“Without Bryant’s misplaced loyalty and willingness to operate the livestream, we don’t ultimately know if the shooter would have gone through (with) the crime,” Harrington said.

He said the killer was concerned that not enough people would see the livestream without Bryant broadcasting it and was depending on it because Van Rootselaar didn’t have many followers on social media.

The complaint filed by the FBI said Bryant also gave tactical advice “on how to carry out the murders,” including suggestions on target locations, and that hallways had “a lot of ways people can escape” but “open spaces means numbers.”

The document also said Van Rootselaar threw a crude improvised explosive device in the high school and tried to get into classrooms by firing through locked doors.

Earlier chats between Van Rootselaar and Bryant suggest the shooter considered other targets before settling on Tumbler Ridge Secondary.

In a conversation dated Aug. 8, 2025, Van Rootselaar shared a map of Northern Lights College in Dawson Creek, saying it “seems to give me the best chance at getting a lot of time to shoot before the cops show up.”

The document said Bryant met Van Rootselaar about three years ago, but they fell out of contact while the killer was institutionalized after setting her room of fire.

They spoke daily in the six months before the murders, the complaint said.

Bryant — who the FBI says identifies as a women — allegedly told them that Van Rootselaar was becoming increasingly angry and suicidal.

“Van Rootselaar often spoke about planning to use guns to murder her family members and others because she felt she had been mistreated,” the court filing said.

Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said Tuesday he was informed of the pending arrest on Monday.

“It is absolutely devastating to see the allegations,” Anandasangaree said in Ottawa.

The minister was joined by B.C. Conservative MP Bob Zimmer, who represents Tumbler Ridge, Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon and Conservative public safety critic Frank Caputo.

Zimmer said the allegations are “very troubling,” and while there are still many questions about why the Tumbler Ridge shooting happened, this arrest is an important step forward in getting answers.

“To me, it’s a sick individual … that would even consider this. And the result would be eight dead individuals from my community,” he said, while praising the FBI and the RCMP for the investigation.

The charges against Bryant are American, but Anandasangaree did not rule out the possibility of Canadian charges.

“RCMP is working in collaboration with the FBI, if Canadian laws as part of it were broken and based on the circumstances, there is a likelihood that an individual could also face prosecution in Canada,” he said.

The charging of Bryant comes after allegations that an AI chatbot also helped Van Rootselaar ahead of the killings.

OpenAI said shortly after the murders that it shut down the killer’s first ChatGPT account but that she opened a second account that wasn’t discovered until after the attack.

An article published by U.S. magazine Mother Jones in September said ChatGPT gave Van Rootselaar advice about how to circumvent its own safeguards by describing mass shooting scenarios in prompts as fictional or hypothetical.

The District of Tumbler Ridge said in a statement on Tuesday that it was aware of the developments released by the FBI and RCMP, but it wouldn’t not be providing further comment.

“We recognize that new information related to the events of Feb. 10 may be difficult for members of our community. Supports remain available in Tumbler Ridge for all community members,” it said.

This report by The Canadian was first published by The Canadian Press on Oct. 6, 2026.

Nono Shen, The Canadian Press