An obscure Reddit post flagged years ago by conservative commentator Matt Walsh now appears to be linked to the 18-year-old suspect believed to have murdered eight people before killing himself in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, on Tuesday.
According to Western Journal, the alleged shooter has been identified as Jesse Van Rootselaar, a profoundly troubled young man who reportedly identified as a transgender woman and whose killing spree, according to CBC, left eight victims dead along with the gunman. Investigators believe Van Rootselaar first murdered his own mother, 39-year-old Jennifer Strang, at the family home before proceeding to the school shooting that shocked the small Canadian community.
Online researchers have connected Van Rootselaar to a Reddit handle, jesseboy347, an account that appears to have been used repeatedly by him and even promoted by his late mother. The accounts activity, including posts and personal details, strongly suggests it belonged to Van Rootselaar, aligning with information now emerging about his background and mental state.
The account was active on r/MtF, a subreddit catering to biological males seeking to transition into women through surgery and hormone injections, a process critics argue preys on vulnerable, mentally unstable individuals. Posts from jesseboy347 describe a young person immersed in transgender ideology, struggling with self-image and obsessively comparing himself to fictional characters.
One such post, screenshotted three years ago and widely shared with the caption never let your kids watch anime, has resurfaced in light of the massacre. The post, titled, How do I stop comparing myself to fictional characters? reveals a disturbing fixation on animated figures and an inability to reconcile fantasy with reality.
In the post, the user identifies as trans and pre-HRT, indicating he had not yet begun hormone treatment. Ive been viewing a lot of anime content recently, and never went into it before, he wrote, describing how his new media consumption was feeding his dissatisfaction with his own body.
After insisting he did not want to be two-dimensional like the characters he watched, he admitted, when it comes to their body shape n stuff, I often find myself comparing their semi-unrealistic (Yet still physically possible) shape. The post goes on to lament his inability to match the physiques of these fictional figures, tying those unrealistic standards to his expectations for his transition.
The accounts comments reveal mounting frustration and despair over failing to achieve an imagined female form, underscoring how transgender ideology can deepen self-loathing rather than resolve it. Walsh, who highlighted the post years ago as an example of the dangers of online gender propaganda, has now revisited the episode in light of the killings.
After the shooting, Walsh reposted the old screenshot, telling his followers, Hate to say I told you so. When the X account Reddit Lies resurfaced the same moment, Walsh shared it again, adding, I once again hate to say I told you so.
What should be an extraordinarily rare convergence of online delusion and real-world violence is, in fact, becoming disturbingly familiar. Walsh had no way of knowing who this anonymous poster was or what murderous intentions he would later harbor, yet the pattern fits a broader trend that many on the left refuse to acknowledge.
He simply reposted a bizarre comment from a random Reddit account, and the individual behind that comment would go on to kill. Despite this, leftist activists and legacy media outlets are already working to portray Tuesdays atrocity as an isolated aberration, rushing to shield a radical ideology from scrutiny rather than confront its consequences.
Recent history tells a different story. 2023 saw a woman who thought she was a man murder children in Nashville, Tennessee, and last year a man who thought he was a woman murdered children in Minneapolis, Minnesota, both cases fitting the same ideological profile.
When a culture encourages people to affirm delusions that involve chopping off body parts, taking hormones, and trying to adopt a new identity, it is not offering compassion but pushing vulnerable individuals down a dark path. The Post Millennial has cataloged multiple other shootings involving self-identified transgender or non-binary individuals, including a non-binary man who killed six people at a gay nightclub in 2022, with similar incidents traceable back to at least 2018.
In one of those earlier attacks, the killers openly admitted that transphobic students were targeted, revealing how grievance politics and identity-based rage can morph into lethal violence. This is not merely a private psychological struggle or just a mental illness, as activists often insist whenever ideology is implicated.
It is a murderous nihilistic ideology that builds resentment and hatred of the world, one that encourages fragile young people to see themselves as perpetual victims and their critics as enemies to be punished. Until policymakers, media, and cultural leaders are willing to confront the ideological component of these crimes, rather than hiding behind euphemisms and denial, communities like Tumbler Ridge will remain vulnerable to the next ideologically driven outburst of violence.
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