Surf school owner claims ‘Qanon inspired him to kill his two children with spear gun’

Matthew Taylor Coleman, 40, told police he thought his children ‘were going to grow into monsters’

Influenced by QAnon and Illuminati conspiracy theory, a California surfing school owner allegedly murdered his two young children because he believed they “were going to grow into monsters”, authorities have said.

Matthew Taylor Coleman, 40, has been charged with murder over the killings of his two-year-old son and ten-month-old daughter with a spear fishing gun in Mexico, the US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California stated.

According to an affidavit, Coleman allegedly confessed to the killings during an interview with FBI agents. He reportedly claimed that the conspiracy theories led him to believe that his wife had passed down her “serpent DNA” to their children.

Coleman’s wife, named only as AC, reported to Santa Barbara police on Saturday that her husband had left with the kids but did not tell her where they were going. She said that he had not responded to texts, adding that she did not believe the children were in any danger or that her husband would harm them.

She told police she had not had any problems with her husband and “they did not have any sort of argument” before he left, the affidavit stated.

Police filed a missing person’s report on Sunday and asked AC to use the “Find my iPhone” application to attempt to locate her husband.  Coleman’s phone was located in Rosarito, Mexico and later traced to an area near the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego, said the affidavit.

Coleman was detained on Monday after the FBI intercepted him at US-Mexico border checkpoint. His children were not in the vehicle but agents spotted traces of blood and contacted local law enforcement in Rosarito.

Mexican authorities subsequently discovered the bodies of the two children after being alerted by a farm worker at a ranch near Rosarito.

According to police, Coleman and his children checked into a hotel in Rosarito on Saturday. Hotel footage showed him leaving before dawn on Monday before returning alone later that morning and then checking out.

During the FBI interview, Coleman confessed to the killing and gave the location of where he discarded the murder weapon and the bloody clothes, the complaint stated.

Coleman “explained that he was enlightened by QAnon and Illuminati conspiracy theories and was receiving visions and signs revealing that his wife, AC, possessed serpent DNA and had passed it on to his children”, the FBI complaint stated.

Coleman reportedly claimed that while what he did was wrong “it was the only course of action that would save the world”.

Additional reporting from the wires