California dad, who allegedly killed his kids believing they had serpent DNA, tried to inflict injury on himself in jail

According to the New York Post’s exclusive, the killer father was found cutting himself with a razor, attempting to dive into a toilet, punching himself in the face and slamming his head into the floor.

In 2023, Coleman, a California surf instructor, was deemed incompetent to stand trial after being charged with taking his children to Rosarito, Mexico, stabbing them with a fishing spear and then leaving them to die. Earlier this year, prosecutors urged the Federal Bureau of Prisons to medicate him against his will to recover his competence to go to trial.

Matthew Taylor Coleman is being medicated against his will; he was deemed incompetent to stand trial

As the situation continued to worsen in the Santa Barbara man’s case, the involuntary medication process ultimately began, and Coleman is now under constant supervision. What came as a shock to people from his past is how mentally unwell the initially sought-after instructor is.

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A court filing by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California states that a prison physician has ascertained that the 40-year-old accused man’s symptoms tick off the boxes for unspecified schizophrenia spectrum and other psychiatric disorders as listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

In February, sources told the NY Post that the California man seemed to have no clue that his children were dead, and he continued talking about them “in present tense sometimes.” The same problem surfaced when it came to grasping the accusations against him. Considering his current condition, prosecutors say he fails to defend himself in the matter.

What happened in 2021?

Before the tragedy struck, Coleman was supposed to set out on a family trip with his children and wife, Abby, on August 7, 2021. The accused abruptly took off with his two kids in his van. Later, his wife reported him and the children missing from their Santa Barbara home. Eventually, authorities tracked him in Mexico, where Coleman reportedly took his kids to kill them.

After a two-day stay at a hotel, he tried to re-enter the US, which is when US Customs and Border Protection agents arrested him. While his kids were nowhere to be seen with him, two children with the same descriptions were discovered on a ranch in the vicinity that very morning. During an interview at the border, he confessed to the murders, informing the authorities about where he’d left his children to die while citing his reasons.

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Reasons cited for the alleged murder of California man’s children

At the time of the arrest, he allegedly told the authorities that he had been motivated by the QAnon conspiracy theory that his kids had serpent DNA and needed to be killed to save the world. When asked whether he knew what he was wrong, Coleman said he did, “but it was the only course of action that would save the world,” according to the complaint.

An extract from the 30-page search warrant application reads, “He said visions and signs revealed his wife, A.C. [Abby Coleman], possessed serpent DNA ([He] 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.”

The former surf instructor is currently locked up in a federal medical facility in Southern California (not revealed to the public). Coleman was charged with two counts of murdering US nationals on foreign soil. He has not pleaded guilty.