Man kills his kids, blames QAnon

A California surfing instructor confessed to killing his two children with a spearfishing gun, telling investigators that his belief in the conspiracy theories known as QAnon made him do it.

Matthew Taylor Coleman, of Santa Barbara, drove his 2-yearold-son and 10-month-old daughter to Mexico over the weekend and fatally shot them Monday, according to an FBI investigator.

Coleman told authorities that he knew what he did was wrong, but that it was the only course of action that would save the world, according to a criminal affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

“M. Coleman stated that he believed his children were going to grow into monsters so he had to kill them,” FBI special agent, Jennifer Bannon, wrote. “M. Coleman explained that he was enlightened by QAnon and Illuminati conspiracy theories and was receiving visions and signs revealing that his wife, A.C., possessed serpent DNA and had passed it on to his children.”

The QAnon conspiracy movement has been the subject of warnings by the FBI that its followers could resort to violence.

Coleman, 40, was charged with foreign murder of U.S. nationals and remains in federal custody.

Investigators said Coleman’s wife first contacted the Santa Barbara Police Department on Saturday, the same day that Coleman drove off with the couple’s children in their Mercedes Sprinter van and did not say where he was going. The family was supposed to go camping, and Coleman did not respond to his wife’s text messages, authorities said.

Using the “find my phone” function on her laptop, Coleman’s wife learned Sunday that he was in Rosarito, Mexico, a beach town about 16 miles south of the border city of Tijuana, according to the criminal affidavit.

On Monday, it showed Coleman was still in Mexico and was near the San Ysidro Port of Entry, where a FBI agent interviewed him when he attempted to cross back into the United States, authorities said. There was no sign of his children, according to investigators, who said they had found blood on the vehicle’s registration papers.