TUMBLER RIDGE — The family of Tumbler Ridge shooter Jesse Van Rootselaar led a “nomadic lifestyle” marked by multiple moves between at least three provinces, a British Columbia court ruling says.
The 2015 B.C. Supreme Court decision in a dispute between her parents describes her mother, Jennifer Jacobs, moving with her children between Newfoundland and Labrador, Grand Cache in Alberta and Powell River, B.C., in the previous five years.
Jacobs, also known as Jennifer Strang, was found to have engaged in “reprehensible conduct” by failing to give her children’s father enough notice that she was moving back to Newfoundland in August 2015.
Jacobs was ordered to return their children to B.C.
Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, killed her mother and 11-year-old stepbrother at their home on Tuesday before going to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and killing a teacher’s aide and five children.
Police investigators in white protective suits were working Thursday at the Tumbler Ridge home were Jacobs and 11-year-old Emmett Jacobs were both shot dead.
Outside the split level, brown timber home, there were signs of the lives erased, blue bins and a pickup truck in the driveway.
In the snowy front yard lay a bicycle, tangled in yellow police tape.
In the court ruling, Justice Anthony Saunders blames Jennifer Jacobs’ “nomadic lifestyle” for Justin Jan Vanrootselaar not having vigorously pursued his parental rights. The court spells the father’s surname without the space.
“Ms. Strang acknowledges in her affidavit that there have been at least months at a time when Mr. Vanrootselaar has had no idea where the children have been,” Saunders notes.
Strang is described in the court documents as being pregnant with a child due in January 2016. Her existing children, Saunders’ ruling says, had had “no personal contact” with their father at the time of the ruling, although they were beginning to have phone contact.
Jennifer Jacobs’ Facebook account lists her hometown as Lawn, N.L.
In that small community of about 600 near the coast of the French islands of St. Pierre-Miquelon and about a 400-kilometre drive west of St. John’s, she is remembered as an occasional visitor.
Resident Doris Strang is unrelated but says Jennifer Strang used to visit from B.C. when her grandmother was still alive, never staying for very long.
“It’s a tragedy,” Doris Strang said in an interview Thursday. “It’s affected a lot of people in this little town … (people) are just outraged about it, that this could happen, and it could have been worse.”
According to a 2018 post on her social media, Jennifer Strang had five children. She was featured in a 2023 article from the northeast B.C. news site Energeticcity.ca, urging parents to push for better health care.
The article was published after a nurse said Strang’s then-seven-year-old son had a stomach bug that turned out to be appendicitis.
Strang’s Facebook profile says she worked for Tumbler Ridge coal mining company Conuma Resources. Her friend list includes numerous residents of both Lawn and Tumbler Ridge.
They include Cia Edmonds, the mother of 12-year-old Maya Gebala who was shot by Van Rootselaar and is gravely injured in BC Children’s Hospital.
Police have said Van Rootselaar chose his victims at the school at random.
— Brenna Owen in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., and Devin Stevens in Halifax
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 12, 2026.
The Canadian Press
