SAN DIEGO (Border Report) — Federal prosecutors have decided not to seek the death penalty against Matthew Taylor Coleman, who is accused of killing his two young children with a spearfishing gun because he believed their blood was tainted with lizard DNA.
Coleman was a surf instructor in Santa Barbara.
Federal prosecutors say he murdered his children, a 2-year-old boy and a 10-month-old girl while in Rosarito, Baja California back in August 2021.
They say he shot the children with a spearfishing gun.
Coleman was arrested at the San Ysidro Port of Entry while trying to return to the United States.
His wife had notified police about how she worried the children might be in danger after Coleman took them to Mexico.
The toddlers were found dead under some bushes by a laborer at an isolated ranch near Rosarito, located about 30 miles south of the border.
Prosecutors say Coleman believed in QAnon conspiracy theories and confessed to killing the children because he suspected his wife carried serpent DNA and had passed it on to their kids, who would grow up to be “monster lizard people.”
Coleman is charged with the foreign murder of U.S. nationals according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
But on January 30, prosecutors filed a motion stating they would not seek the death penalty.
Coleman had been going through a six-month mental evaluation to gauge his competency to understand the charges against him.
Specific reasons as to why prosecutors won’t seek the death penalty against Coleman won’t be released.
In a statement to Border Report, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego said: “The decision-making process preliminary to the department’s final decision is confidential. Information concerning the deliberative process may only be disclosed within the department and its investigative agencies as necessary to assist the review and decision-making process.”
Baja California investigators reported each child had also been stabbed more than a dozen times with a wooden stake.
Coleman owned Lovewater Surf Company in Santa Barbara.