FEDS WON’T SEEK DEATH FOR MAN ACCUSED OF KILLING HIS 2 CHILDREN
Conspiracy theorist accused of slaying them in Mexico
Federal prosecutors will not seek the death penalty against Matthew Taylor Coleman, the Santa Barbara surf school owner and QAnon conspiracy theorist who allegedly killed his two young children with a spearfishing gun in Mexico.
Prosecutors filed a onesentence notice alerting the court to the decision Monday, a day before a deadline set by U.S. District Judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo.
Coleman, 41, has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of murdering U.S. nationals on foreign soil for the August 2021 slayings of his 2-yearold son, Kaleo, and 10month-old daughter, Roxy.
But according to statements outlined in court records, he has admitted to the killings in detailed confessions during several interviews with law enforcement.
Federal death penalty cases are rare and the review process extensive. It’s a decision that involves approval by the U.S. attorney general after input from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division and others at the highest levels of the
Justice Department.
Federal executions are also rare, with just 50 carried out since 1927, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. No federal inmates were executed between 1963 and 2001, when Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was executed. The practice was again halted between 2003 and 2019, until the Trump administration directed the Bureau of Prisons to resume executions. Thirteen prisoners were executed in the last six months of President Donald Trump’s term.
President Joe Biden campaigned on abolishing federal capital punishment but so far has failed to act on the promise, the Associated Press reported last month. Though the Biden administration has issued a moratorium on executions — none have been carried out since Trump left office, and none are currently scheduled — federal prosecutors are still seeking the death penalty in certain cases.
Neither the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego nor the public defenders representing Coleman immediately responded Wednesday to requests for comments.
Coleman’s wife told investigators that the couple had delved into the sprawling QAnon conspiracy together, coming to believe in the existence of a secret society of elites bent on evil. Coleman eventually became paranoid by a mix of conspiracy theories, even believing that his wife was compromised and had passed serpent blood from “lizard people” on to their children, according to search warrant affidavits. Coleman said he believed he was the only one who could stop them from eventually spreading an alien species that would release carnage over the Earth.
Authorities said Coleman disappeared with the children in the family’s Mercedes Sprinter van on Aug. 7, 2021. His wife called police and was able to track his iPhone, which showed him in Mexico.
The couple exchanged text messages early in the morning on Aug. 9. She told him to take care of their children, who by then were already dead, their bodies discovered in a ditch off a Rosarito highway.
Coleman, who attended Point Loma Nazarene University as an undergrad, was arrested about 1 p.m. as he tried to drive back into the U.S. through the San Ysidro Port of Entry.