Months prior to Matthew Coleman being arrested for killing his children, the father of two spent a significant amount of time online reading conspiracy theory websites and message boards.
“He started believing crazy things that he saw on the internet,” one of Coleman’s childhood friends shared.
This same friend was in contact with Coleman a week prior to the killings.
“But nothing seemed violent. He just seemed to be buying a lot of stuff that didn’t make a lot of sense.”
“It started off slowly, but near the end, he deteriorated rapidly,” the friend said. “But he never once said anything to make anyone think that he’d kill his own kids. That’s another level.”
Coleman has been at an undisclosed federal prison after being arrested for killing his kids and in the fall, asked his family for forgiveness.
ON August 7, Coleman and his wife, Abby were packing up around the house for a family trip. Authorities allege that Coleman abruptly put his two kids — Kaleo, 2, and Roxy, 10 months — into his van and drove away from their Santa Barbara, Calif., home.
Police then say that he then drove the children into Mexico.
Authorities allege that two days later, he took the kids to a ranch, where he killed them with a spearfishing gun and returned to his hotel a few hours later. He was then arrested when he attempted to cross the border back into the United States. The father allegedly told police he was motivated by the QAnon conspiracy theory, according to an FBI criminal complaint.
RELATED: Matthew Coleman Writes Letter To Childhood Friend Begging For Forgiveness After Killing Children
In a newly released affidavit revealed just how deep Coleman’s conspiratorial beliefs ran. Allegedly, he told agents that while he was in Mexico, he had laid in bed “seeing all the pieces being decoded like The Matrix, and that he was Neo.”
“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,” according to the affidavit.
The latest affidavit left those who knew him, puzzled.
“That sounds crazy,” Coleman’s childhood friend said. “He never said anything about serpent DNA to me, and I assume he never said anything about it to Abby. We knew he was in turmoil, figuring things out, but no one — especially not Abby — thought he’d get violent.”
“I’m going to make one thing perfectly clear,” the friend said.
“Abby loved those kids more than anything, and we all believed that Matthew did too. If anyone had even one thought that he was violent or dangerous, we would’ve done everything to stop it. This came out of left field for all of us, and we have to live with that every day for the rest of our lives.”
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