A ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ YouTuber said he was contacted by police after hosting a livestream with a teen boy claiming responsibility for the fatal stabbing of a 71-year-old woman in North York.
In the livestream, archived on social media, the boy is barely visible, his eyes peeking out from above a dark face covering, shadowed by a large hood, as the interviewer questioned him about the stabbing.
“I didn’t even mean to f—-ing kill the old lady,†the teen said. “I was trying to get the ‘v’ from her as a free car.â€
“It went left,†the boy continued. “She didn’t give me the keys so I yoked her.â€
Amid an ongoing rise in youth violence in the city, the livestream highlights the growing issue of social media influence on young people and the challenge of enforcing publication bans in a digital age, where online platforms allow unfiltered content to spread rapidly.
The man on the other side of the livestream was 25-year-old Samuel Pierre Jacques. He doesn’t have a huge following on social media — 1,500 subscribers and, after the viral livestream, growing. Like many others he creates his own content about local and national news, discussing the ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ rap scene, Canadian politics and other issues as “Underground Nation.”
He was just as shocked as anyone when the Instagram account he believes belongs to the 14-year-old boy wanted for the fatal stabbing commented on several of his videos about the homicide.
“Honestly I was super surprised because I honestly thought he was just gonna troll me,†the podcaster said in an interview. “But that’s when he sent me a voice note with all these different things.â€
The two struck up a private conversation where the user talked about what happened, which Jacques has also shared clips of online.
“I didn’t just go outside to like, yo, just go kill her,†someone can be heard saying in one voice note promising to join a future livestream.
Jacques told the Star he was worried at first about getting in trouble for posting communications with the boy when the person wanted by ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ police was on the run. Commenters descended on the videos to decry giving the teen a platform. Jacques added a disclaimer to one of the videos that the interview was a dramatization before he said the police officer who contacted him told him he wasn’t in trouble.
Police would not confirm whether the person who was messaging with Jacques or the young person who appeared on the livestream is the boy who has since been arrested and charged with the second-degree murder of Shahnaz Pestonji, a beloved grandmother who was stabbed July 17 as she loaded groceries into her car in North York.
Shahnaz Pestonji, 71, pictured with her grandchild, Shayna, was stabbed to death in a random, unprovoked attack on July 17 at a plaza while she was grocery shopping. The family describe her as a their rock, and are devastated.
Pestonji family photoBefore his arrest on July 20, police received judicial authorization to circulate his name and photo, which is otherwise protected by the Youth Criminal Justice Act. The special permission police received was time-limited and expired once he was arrested, requiring his name and photo to be removed from online postings.
Jacques told the Star police contacted him to ask about how he reached the boy. ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ police’s official Instagram page also commented on a clip of the livestream on Underground Nation’s page that shows the wanted boy’s photo, advising them to remove anything that could identify a young offender.
The Star reviewed the Instagram account used to contact Jacques. It is still active but does not have a profile picture or any posts. The account links to other social media accounts, including one that uses the same full name as the youth arrested and several which use pictures that appear to be the same boy wanted by police.
A person who answered the phone at the law office representing the boy declined to put a reporter in touch with his lawyer and said they could not comment on this story.
The young person on the livestream pivoted from bragging about having money and expensive jewelry — sending photos of cash and an unmasked video of a boy he claimed to be him wearing what he said was a Rolex watch — to discussing challenges he had at home and how he ended up in trouble.
“When you have kids make sure you have a proper roof over your head, money in your hand and food in your fridge,” the boy said. “So that your kids don’t have to go outside and go make change and turn into what I am right now.”
Jacques continued to push him about the stabbing, asking the boy on screen if he regretted what happened.
“That was an idiot thing. I can’t lie, after I think about it, she didn’t deserve it,†the boy on the livestream said.
Jacques told the Star he worries about this generation of kids, who, at a formative age, were negatively impacted by pandemic lockdowns and a lack of in-person social activities.
“I feel they’re missing a lot of social skills and things like this,” he said. “I feel like there’s a loss of identity.”
Police have not spoken about an alleged motive for the stabbing, only saying they believe it was unprovoked.
Youth workers and other experts, including police, continue to be concerned by the rise in youth violence, including armed carjackings. ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ police charged 13 young people under the age of 18 with homicide in 2024, up from just three in 2023.
Jacques said he sees how young people fall in with the wrong crowd, often older kids, when they are still impressionable. He pointed to the voices that could be heard talking to the boy and yelling in the background as he participated in the livestream.
“I don’t believe no one that was in that house with him was his real friend,” Jacques said. “If I did something like this I know my friends would try to tell me to do better.”
