Coleman was charged with two counts of foreign first-degree murder of United States nationals, for which he has pleaded not guilty.
Trigger Warning: This story contains details of murder that may be disturbing to readers.
On August 7, 2021, Matthew Taylor Coleman, his wife Abby, and their two children, Kaleo, 2, and Roxy, 10 months, were getting ready to go on a trip from their place in Santa Barbara, California.
Suddenly, Coleman put his two kids in the car, and drove off, leaving Abby behind. Worried about what the reason was for his sudden decision, the confused wife decided to contact the authorities.
She informed them that the two did not have any issues nor had they fought. In fact, she didn't think their kids were in any danger and fully expected her husband to bring them back safely in a day or two.
However, that was just not Coleman's plan.
According to PEOPLE, Coleman's final destination with his kids was Mexico. There, he booked a room at the City Express Hotel in the coastal city of Rosarito, where he stayed for two days with his children.
Then, authorities allege that the man took Kaleo and Roxy to a nearby ranch, where he killed them with a fishing gun. Though it is unclear what Coleman did with his kids for two days before murdering them, another guest at the hotel said she saw the Coleman family in the lobby just hours before the incident.
"They stood out to me because they were really good-looking, and I wondered where the mom was," said Malena Rivas, who stayed at the hotel for a week in August. "I just assumed that she was already down at the pool or something," Rivas added.
She then said that there was nothing wrong or suspicious about the way Coleman behaved. "He was talking to them, smiling, and it was normal to me. He said 'You'll see mommy soon' or something like that, which is why I thought she was there with them, either at the pool or up in their room."
He killed his children with a spearfishing gun. The ranch owner discovered their lifeless bodies the next day. Meanwhile, he was arrested while trying to attempt to cross the border into the U.S.
An FBI criminal complaint states that he was reportedly motivated to commit the crime due to conspiracy theories he believed in. "He said visions and signs revealed that his wife, A.C. [Abby Coleman], possessed serpent DNA (M. COLEMAN mentioned that he was not sure if his wife was a shapeshifter) and had passed it onto his children and that all things were pointing to the idea that his children have corrupted DNA that will spread if something is not done about it," reads an affidavit.
'You'll See Mommy Soon:' Hotel Guest Recalls Seeing Matthew Coleman Hours Before He Allegedly Killed His Kids https://t.co/8Fi772L6kt
— People (@people) June 21, 2022
Authorities then alleged that Coleman believed in the QAnon conspiracy theory, and Abby also admitted to researching it with her husband but said he "became significantly more paranoid that people around him were involved in a conspiracy."
Recently, Coleman, who is currently in an undisclosed federal prison in California, wrote a two-page letter to a friend about how things have changed in the 10 months since he murdered his own children, per PEOPLE.
"I was deceived," Coleman wrote in the letter. "I was deceiving myself. I know now that the [reptile] DNA thing was a delusion in my own mind. I made myself believe something that wasn't there."
In the letter, he also wrote that he is trying to get rid of all the unwanted beliefs in his mind.
"I'm sorting through it all now," he wrote. "There's a lot to unpack, but I have to figure out what I really believe, but I don't have access to information anymore, so I'm having to use my mind to figure things out."
Coleman was charged with two counts of foreign first-degree murder of United States nationals, for which he has pleaded not guilty.
References:
https://people.com/crime/matthew-taylor-coleman-letter-jail-admits-delusion/
Cover Image Source: YouTube | CNN (Man allegedly confesses to killing his kids, refers to QAnon conspiracies)
