Arthur Greene
A two-year-old boy and his 10-month-old sister had to die because they were “going to grow into monsters”.
This was the deranged belief of a US man, who killed his two young children with a spear fishing gun on Saturday.
Matthew Taylor Coleman, 40, is a follower of the rightwing conspiracy theory, QAnon, which led him to believe that his wife had passed down her “serpent DNA” to their children.
Coleman’s wife contacted the police on Saturday after he had taken the children out but didn’t tell her where they were going. She grew concerned when she realised that he didn’t bother to take the children’s car seats and he wasn’t responding to her text messages.
After a missing person’s report was filed on Sunday, she used an app to locate his cellphone, and found that he had crossed the US border into Mexico.
Coleman was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping on Monday. He soon after confessed to the FBI for murdering his children.
He knew the crimes were wrong, but that “it was the only course of action that would save the world,” he said.
The “serpent DNA” remark is likely a reference to the the “lizard people” rightwing conspiracy theory. The theory falsely purports that reptilian aliens secretly run the world, controlling governments and banks all over the world, as well as Hollywood.
Coleman, who owns a surf school in California, told authorities that he learned of this conspiracy theory through the QAnon and Illuminati conspiracy theories.
The QAnon conspiracy theory is confusing and nonsensical. But it has risen to prominence since emerging in 2007. In short, it is based on the belief that those at the top of the US government are satanic paedophile cannibals, who traffic, kill and eat children.
Followers of this unhinged theory believe that Donald Trump is the savior of the world. He has been secretly working to defeat the satanic cannibals, instead of watching Fox News.
And the theory is not just limited to the dark corners of the web. Several Trump-supporting Republican politicians have openly stated their support of the theory.
Georgian Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example, openly expressed her belief in QAnon.
Image source: @thedailybeast
