Twitch streamer’s car set on fire by alleged stalker

A New York man reportedly drove hundreds of miles to Twitch streamer Kylee Carter’s Ohio home and set her car, a Jaguar F-type, on fire. 28-year-old Farhan Jami was arrested nearby in mid-May when the incident took place; he remains in custody in Ohio awaiting a grand jury trial for felony aggravated assault, according to court documents and an arrest record obtained by Polygon.

Carter is a popular 25-year-old streamer who goes by justfoxii online, and who plays games like Fortnite while talking with viewers in chat. She has 593,000 followers on Twitch and 127,000 on Instagram. A local Fox affiliate reported the details of the arson in early June after the incident took place on May 16.

Carter hasn’t streamed on Twitch and has been quiet on social media since the incident. On Tuesday, she published a four-minute YouTube video detailing the arson alongside home security footage of a man, reportedly Jami, starting a fire that engulfs the entire front hood of the car. Carter was not home at the time of the incident, but her mother and animals were inside the house.

The footage shows a person, wearing a mask, placing what looks to be a brick and a bucket on the hood of the car before lighting something inside the bucket. The car catches fire before it spreads to an “adjacent fence” and the home, according to a criminal complaint. Carter said in her YouTube video that a fire crew arrived quickly and put out the fence before it spread further.

Carter’s mother called 911 at 2:26 a.m. local time and police and firefighters were on-scene in under 10 minutes, according to the 911 call report obtained by Polygon. Her mother told police that Carter is a popular video game streamer and that the incident was possibly done by a stalker; she could see flames, but was afraid to go outside in case the person was still there. Jami was found “in the area” and taken into custody “after the investigation concluded,” according to the criminal complaint. “Jami was found to be wearing clothing consistent in the video and matched the suspect in the video,” it alleged. “Nearby him was [sic] articles related to the initial crime scene.”

“We’re all traumatized in ways that I will never be able to describe but I’m just glad that everybody is safe,” Carter said, in the YouTube video. “That’s the most important thing to me. I never thought that when I started streaming back in 2015 that something like this would ever happen to me.”

The threat of real-world violence is a horrifying reality for people — especially women — that broadcast online. The nature of Twitch streams makes it easy for parasocial relationships to form, but the interaction is not entirely one-sided. Dr. Rachel Kowert called it a “one point five sided relationship” in an interview last year with the New York Times; you can interact with streamers on Twitch in a way that other media doesn’t allow. Some viewers take that perceived relationship way too far; several female streamers have spoken out about the violence, stalking, and threats made against them by obsessed fans. In 2021, Twitch star Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa was targeted in a suspected arson when a fire was set outside her house.

Carter has not responded to Polygon’s request for comment. Jami remains in custody in Ohio; the case has been assigned to a grand jury. Bail is set at $300,000, and Jami is not to leave Ohio. No court dates have been listed.

Update: This story has been updated to include suspect Farhan Jami’s bond.