A federal magistrate judge ordered Bellingham resident Melody Bryant detained pending further proceedings in a federal conspiracy case tied to a deadly school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia. Bryant, also known as James Cody Bryant, was charged Oct. 2 with conspiring to murder people in a foreign country. Prosecutors allege she helped Jesse Van Rootselaar, who killed eight people and wounded 27 in February. Bryant has not entered a plea. At a detention hearing Tuesday in Seattle, U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Alice Theiler said she did not believe conditions such as limits on Bryant’s internet access could adequately protect the community if Bryant were released before trial. A criminal complaint alleges Bryant did not report Van Rootselaar’s plans, agreed to distribute a livestream of the attack, provided money and offered advice on deleting online messages to conceal the plot. Bryant’s public defender, Greg Murphy, argued for her release, saying he had not received evidence needed to assess the government’s case. He also noted that federal agents interviewed Bryant days after the attack but she remained free for months, and that authorities waited four days after filing the complaint to arrest her. “There is no evidence that suggests any new danger to the community in the last seven months since the government first interviewed her,” Murphy said. Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Greenberg said the charge carries a presumption of detention. He told the judge Bryant had been in daily contact for months with someone planning a mass killing and “chose not to intervene.” Authorities say Van Rootselaar killed her mother and stepbrother at home before attacking a nearby secondary school. Five children, ages 12 and 13, and an educational assistant were killed at the school. Van Rootselaar was later found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Tumbler Ridge, a community in the Canadian Rockies more than 1,000 kilometers northeast of Vancouver, is near the Alberta border. The provincial government lists Tumbler Ridge Secondary School as serving 175 students in Grades 7 through 12. Families of the victims are also suing OpenAI in U.S. federal court, alleging the company failed to alert police to the shooter’s alarming interactions with ChatGPT.