Royal Canadian Mounted Police Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald said Jesse Van Rootselaar had a history of mental health contact with police and that the suspect’s mother and stepbrother were also found dead in a home near the school.
A British publication, the Telegraph, reported Van Rootselaar was transgender who was born male but identified as female.
The motive remained unclear.
Police initially said nine people were killed Tuesday in the attack, but McDonald clarified Wednesday that there were eight fatalities, plus the suspect, who authorities said shot himself. McDonald said the discrepancy arose from a victim who was airlifted to a medical center. Authorities mistakenly thought that person had died.
More than 25 people were wounded Tuesday in the attack in the small mountain community of Tumbler Ridge, police said.
McDonald said the suspect's mother, who was also 39, and an 11-year-old stepbrother, were found at the suspect's home.
The killings at the home occurred first, he said. A young family member at the home went to a neighbor, who called police.
At the school, one victim was found in a stairwell and the rest, McDonald believed, were found in the library. The suspect was not related to any of the victims at the school, he said.
The village of 2,700 people in the Canadian Rockies is more than 600 miles northeast of Vancouver, near the provincial border with Alberta.
The Rev. George Rowe of the Tumbler Ridge Fellowship Baptist Church went to the recreation center where victims’ families were awaiting more information.
Rowe once taught at the high school, and his three children graduated from there.
“To walk through the corridors of that school will never be the same again,” he said.
The school district said the high school and elementary school will be closed for the rest of the week.
