A California man has confessed to killing his two young children.
Matthew Taylor Coleman, a 40-year-old Santa Barbara surfing school instructor, has been charged with foreign murder of US nationals after allegedly taking his 2-year-old son and 10-month-old daughter into Mexico and killing them.
Coleman allegedly told an FBI investigator he thought his children were “going to grow into monsters so he had to kill them,” according to a criminal complaint filed Wednesday, August 11.
When stopped for questioning at the US-Mexico border, Coleman allegedly told investigators he shot his children with a spear fishing gun, then hid their bodies, the affidavit said.
Coleman told authorities about being “enlightened by QAnon and Illuminati conspiracy theories”. He also said that he had visions that his wife “possessed serpent DNA and had passed it onto his children,” according to the affidavit.
He told the FBI that “he knew it was wrong, but it was the only course of action that would save the world,” KABC reported.
Coleman was detained at the border and transported to a local jail by authorities.
Police in Santa Barbara were initially alerted by Coleman’s wife on Saturday, August 7.
She told them that her husband had taken the children and he hadn’t told her their destination and also wouldn’t respond to text messages. She told police she did not feel the lives of the children were in danger. She also said she and Coleman did not have an argument before he left and that they didn’t have any problems in the family.
She asked for police to speak with Coleman, who did not respond to police calls.
On Sunday, August 8, Coleman’s wife and a police officer used the ‘Find My Phone’ application on her laptop to trace Coleman’s phone, and it was discovered that it had been last tracked in Rosarito, Mexico.
Federal agencies were informed to be on the watch for Coleman’s return, which occurred around 1 p.m. Monday, August 9, according to the affidavit.
When the vehicle was stopped at the border, Coleman was the only occupant, the affidavit said.
Mexican law enforcement was notified about the missing children and, according to the affidavit, police in Rosarito confirmed that two children matching the description of Coleman’s were found dead that Monday morning.
The children’s bodies were found by a farmworker at a ranch near a Baja California town.
Baja California prosecutor Hiram Sánchez Zamora said the 2-year-old had been stabbed 17 times and the 10-month-old 12 times, KABC reported.
During his interview with the FBI, Coleman, who founded the Lovewater Surf School in Santa Barbara, said he had killed his children in Rosarito, the affidavit said.
He told authorities “he believed his children were going to grow into monsters so he had to kill them,” the affidavit said, speaking about QAnon conspiracy theories and the belief that his wife passed along “serpent DNA.”
