STORY: A Canadian family is in mourning after their 12-year old daughter Kylie Smith was shot and killed at a school shooting in Tumbler Ridge.

Kylie's father Lance Younge remembered his daughter as a "beautiful soul" and "light in the family".

He recalled his final moment with Kylie as he saw her off to school with her brother Ethan, unaware it was the last time he would see her alive.

Kylie's brother Ethan survived the shooting after hiding in a utility room.

Younge called on more focus to be put on the victims and heroes and not on the shooter. "Stop giving this psychopath recognition", said Kylie's father.

The suspect in a deadly school shooting in western Canada was 18-year-old woman Jesse Van Rootselaar. The shooter killed her mother and stepbrother before attacking her former school.

At the school she shot a 39-year-old woman teacher as well as three 12-year-old female students and two male students, one aged 12 and one aged 13.

The killer died by suicide after the shooting on Tuesday (February 11) in Tumbler Ridge, a remote community of 2,400 people in the Pacific province of British Columbia.

DESCRIPCIÓN DE IMÁGENES

VIDEO SHOWS: INTERVIEW WITH FAMILY WHOSE DAUGHTER WAS KILLED IN SCHOOL SHOOTING, SOUNDBITES FROM FAMILY

RESENDING WITH COMPLETE STORY

SHOWS: TUMBLER RIDGE, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA (FEBRUARY 11, 2026) (CTV - No use Canada)

1. FATHER LANCE YOUNGE AND STEPMOTHER JENNIFER GEARY OF SHOOTING VICTIM KYLIE SMITH

2. PHOTO OF KYLIE SMITH

3. (SOUNDBITE) (English) FATHER OF KYLIE SMITH, LANCE YOUNGE, SAYING:

"She was just a beautiful soul. She's a light in our family. She loved art and anime. She wanted to go to school in Toronto, and we just loved her so much. She was thriving in high school. She never hurt a soul. She was a supporter, LGBTQ supporter. And she just, she was the last person who ever deserved this."

4. FAMILY BEING INTERVIEWED

5. (SOUNDBITE) (English) FATHER OF KYLIE SMITH, LANCE YOUNGE, SAYING:

"I let her off, I let her go to school with her brother Ethan, in the morning and just soaked in that moment, watching them walk in the door together for whatever reason. And I didn't know it would be the last time they would go to school together."

6. WHITE FLASH

7. (SOUNDBITE) (English) STEPMOTHER OF KYLIE SMITH, JENNIFER GEARY, SAYING:

"Ethan called about five after three after he had text messaged saying, 'I love you'. And he called and said that he was in a utility room and that he was hiding and he didn't know where Kylie was."

8. WHITE FLASH

9. (SOUNDBITE) (English) FATHER OF KYLIE SMITH, LANCE YOUNGE, SAYING:

"Seven kids and two adults. And we need to put their pictures up on social media. But there's a hero named Maddie (inaudible) who did CPR on my daughter for 45 minutes, and she was the one who came and told us nine hours later that our daughter had passed because the police hadn't said anything to us. These are the heroes, you want to put someone's picture up on on the news, put Maddie's picture up, put my daughter's picture up, (inaudible), Abel, (inaudible) and Maya, who's still fighting for her life, put all their pictures up, stop giving this psychopath the recognition because these kids were lost before they got to become teenagers. So let's put their pictures up and remember them, not this murderer."

10. WHITE FLASH

11. (SOUNDBITE) (English) FATHER OF KYLIE SMITH, LANCE YOUNGE, SAYING:

JOURNALIST: "You must have known all these kids?"

YOUNGE: "I taught some of them soccer here. Most of them were in Kylie's class. One of them was Kylie's best friend."

GEARY: "This is is so devastating."

YOUNGE: "I walked around our rec center for about six hours looking for my child. The police wouldn't tell me anything. I went home not knowing where my daughter was until a high school kid Maddie (inaudible) came here and told us her story about trying to save my daughter's life. The police didn't tell us anything. We had to find out through the community and through kids and rumors in the stands. We had to count because we were watching the news, put up body counts and we weren't being told anything. And so we were doing numbers and math and figuring out, is our kid in the helicopter or is our kid dead. It was so much confusion. No one told us anything all day."

12. WHITE FLASH

13. (SOUNDBITE) (English) FATHER OF KYLIE SMITH, LANCE YOUNGE, SAYING:

"Hold your kids tight, tell them you love them every day. You never know, you never know."

14. FAMILY DURING INTERVIEW