Bizarre reason surfer dad 'killed kids with speargun'
A surfing instructor has allegedly admitted to fleeing to another country with his two young children before killing them with a speargun in remote bushland, police claim.
Matthew Taylor Coleman, 40, left his home in Santa Barbara, California, on Saturday (local time) with his two-year-old son and 10-month-old daughter without telling his wife Abby Coleman where they were going, according to a criminal complaint filed in the Los Angeles federal court on Wednesday.
Ms Coleman told officers the family had been preparing for a camping trip when her husband suddenly fled with their two kids in the family’s Mercedes, the complaint says.
Police say she told them Mr Coleman was not answering his phone or text messages but that she didn’t believe he would harm the children, and would eventually return home.
However, the following day the mum reported the trio as missing and gave police permission to use the ‘find my iPhone’ feature on Mr Coleman’s mobile, the complaint says.
Dad fled with kids to Mexico
The search revealed the surfing instructor was in Rosarito, Baja California, in Mexico, police said.
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Baja California prosecutor Hiram Sánchez Zamora's office said on Tuesday (local time) that Mr Coleman had checked into a hotel near Tijuana, Mexico, with his kids on Saturday.
Mexican authorities claim that during his stay, Mr Coleman left the hotel at 2:54am on Monday (local time) with his son and daughter but returned around 6:30am without them, ABC News reports.
Mr Zamora's office has published CCTV footage from the hotel allegedly showing the dad checking-in with the kids but checking-out alone.
At around 8am on Monday a farmworker discovered the bodies of the two-year-old and 10-month-old on a rural property almost 30km away from the hotel, Zamora said, the ABC 7 reports.
The young boy and girl had “large puncture wounds” in their chests, the court complaint says.
Dad said kids were growing into 'monsters', police claim
The FBI arrested Mr Coleman when he tried to re-enter the US and the 40-year-old allegedly confessed to killing his kids, the complaint says.
“Coleman stated that he believed his children were going to grow into monsters so he had to kill them,” it reads.
The dad allegedly told police he killed the kids with a spear fishing gun before moving their bodies into bushland, according to the complaint.
He ditched the spear fishing gun and bloody clothing near a creek in the area, police claim.
'Enlightened by QAnon and Illumunati conspiracy theories'
“Coleman explained that he was enlightened by QAnon and Illumunati conspiracy theories and was received visions and signs revealing that his wife possessed serpent DNA and had passed it onto his children,” the complaint said.
“[He] said that he was saving the world from monsters.”
QAnon is a far-right conspiracy theory alleging that a group of cannibalistic paedophiles are running a global child sex trafficking ring and raging a war against former US President Donald Trump. The Illuminati conspiracy is the belief there is a "global elite" society controlling the world.
Coleman, who co-founded Lovewater Surf School in Santa Barbara with his wife, is facing the charge of the foreign murder of United States nationals, the complaint says.
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