Still Seeking Sanity in the Matthew Coleman Case

More than four years have passed since Matthew Taylor Coleman committed a crime that stunned and sickened Santa Barbara.

In the early morning hours of August 9, 2021, outside the Mexican resort town of Rosarito where he liked to surf, Coleman stabbed his two young children to death with a fishing spear. He was arrested the same day driving across the U.S. border in his Mercedes Sprinter van. 

The surf school owner and QAnon follower who lived with his family on the Westside told FBI agents that his 2-year-old son and 10-month-old daughter were infected with “serpent DNA.” He needed to kill them, he said, to protect other people from the monsters they would become. 

When asked if he knew what he did was wrong, Coleman confessed that he did, “but it was the only course of action that would save the world.”

Coleman, 44, remains in custody and, mired in a sort of legal limbo, has yet to be tried for the murders. Diagnosed with an unspecified form of schizophrenia and “Other Psychotic Disorder,” his behavior over the last four years has oscillated between manic and catatonic. A judge determined he was unable to assist in his own defense and therefore “incompetent to stand trial.” He won’t speak with doctors or his attorneys, and refuses to take any medications.

This summer, eager to finally move the case forward, federal Judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo made the rare order to forcefully medicate Coleman in the hopes of restoring him to an acceptable level of sanity. “There’s a very serious issue in this case,” Bencivengo said during what’s known as a “Sell” hearing, named after a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that set the legal standard for the involuntary administration of antipsychotic drugs to a criminal defendant.

“He is just floundering right now in prison, which isn’t helping anybody,” Bencivengo said. “Witnesses are getting cold. The situation is getting cold.” Coleman’s defense team appealed the order, which stayed the judge’s decision, arguing prosecutors have not proven that forced injections will bring their client back to competence. 

The appeal will be heard next week by the Ninth Circuit Court. Bencivengo is skeptical that her ruling will be reversed. “What is the alternative?” she asked.

‘He Just Stares at the Wall’

Coleman’s first year of custody at a federal holding facility in San Diego was uneventful. His attorney described a working relationship of “trust and confidence.” Guards didn’t record any disturbances.

But in late 2022, Coleman started to unravel. He was observed “stripping naked in his cell and praying to something in the sky,” “standing on the sink and diving into the toilet,” and “karate-chopping the air,” court records show. As his condition worsened, he began cutting himself with a razor and slamming his head into the ground. 

Coleman was treated on an emergency basis with a cocktail of Haldol, ketamine, and other powerful sedatives. After that, and despite not receiving any more medication, Coleman’s behavior changed dramatically. 

He now spends his days “sitting quietly in his cell,” which he keeps “neat, clean, and nice,” Bencivengo said. “His hygiene is good. But he just won’t talk to anybody.” Other than communicating with orderlies about food and other basic needs, he refuses to engage. “He just stares at the wall,” Bencivengo said.

Coleman is being held at the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, otherwise known as the “Fed Med,” in Springfield, Missouri. As the nation’s largest and oldest federal prison hospital, it houses more than 1,000 male inmates with acute medical conditions. Case studies put the success rate of forced medication to restore competency at approximately 80 percent.

In her ruling, Bencivengo cited the “incredibly exhaustive and thorough” analysis performed by prison psychiatrists as they crafted a possible medication plan for Coleman. They observed him for 21 weeks straight (without his participation), dug into his medical history, and interviewed his parents. They also noted “some very salient features of his particular illness,” namely that “the duration of his untreated psychosis likely spanned months or years before the charged conduct.” The details of the proposed treatment plan remain under seal.

Federal prosecutors declined to pursue the death penalty against Coleman for murdering U.S. nationals on foreign soil. He instead faces a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole. 

Coleman’s defense team has not said if they will argue that he was legally insane at the time of the killings. If they do, they must meet the high legal burden of proving Coleman was unable to understand the wrongfulness of his actions as a result of a severe mental disease.

Satanists and Lizard People

According to the detailed confessions Coleman provided authorities, it was a dark mashup of paranoia and conspiracy theories that drove him to take the lives of his children, Kaleo and Roxy. In the months leading up to the murders, he and his wife, Abby, had delved into the world of QAnon together, embracing the idea that President Donald Trump is secretly fighting a cabal of Satanic elites who operate a sex trafficking ring across the globe, and in Santa Barbara.

“We are doing this together babe. Everything you’ve believed and known to be true is happening right now,” Abby texted her husband shortly before the killings. “Let’s take back our city. … You were created to change the course of world history.”

What Coleman didn’t tell his wife was that he also believed the shadowy cabal had infiltrated his inner circle, from his church to his friends to his own family. Specifically, he thought Abby had passed serpent blood from “lizard people” onto their children who would spread carnage across the Earth, an apparent reference to another conspiracy theory that evil reptilian beings are slowly taking over society. 

Abby told investigators she didn’t think their children were in danger when Coleman drove off with them to Mexico, though she was concerned he hadn’t taken a car seat for their youngest. She was never charged with a crime and has since moved to Texas to live with family. The couple remains married.

Those who knew Coleman were shocked by what he had done. They couldn’t square the loving family man rooted in Christian faith with the brutality of his crime. There had been no prior signs of mental illness and no contacts with police. Even so, records show Coleman making grandiose declarations about humanity and the world well before 2021.

After Kaleo was born in October 2018, Coleman wrote on Instagram that his name meant “voice” in Hawaiian and that his son was “appointed to bring the sound of heaven’s dove.” In an October 2020 post, Coleman wrote that Roxy “would represent a dawn, or even awakening, to years of great blessing for our family and nation.”

Prosecutors acknowledge that if Coleman is not put on trial in the coming months, he could be civilly committed to a mental institution for an indefinite period of time. “It might keep Coleman off the street (until he recovers) but disserves other interests,” they said. “No special circumstances make Coleman’s prosecution unimportant.”

The appeal hearing will take place November 19 in the Ninth Circuit’s Pasadena courthouse.