Matthew Taylor Coleman, the California man accused of killing his two kids in Mexico, is still delusional — and sometimes doesn’t even comprehend his children are dead, sources told The Post.
“He talks about them in present tense sometimes,” a family friend who has been in contact with Coleman said. “There are times that he just doesn’t seem to grasp that they’re gone.”
On Aug. 7, 2021, Coleman was packing for a family trip with his wife, Abby. Authorities say he then abruptly and wordlessly put the two kids — Kaleo, 2, and Roxy, 10 months — into his van and drove away from their Santa Barbara home.
Authorities allege Coleman took his kids over the border into Mexico and stayed at a resort hotel for two days. Then investigators say he drove his kids to a farm where he stabbed them both with a spearfishing gun.
He was arrested as he attempted to re-enter the US.
Now 42, Coleman has been charged with two counts of murdering US nationals on foreign soil. He is being held in an undisclosed federal prison medical facility in Southern California and has pleaded not guilty.
Last October, Judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo ruled Coleman was not competent to stand trial and committed him for intensive treatment. His next competency hearing will be on March 8.
But members of Coleman’s family still don’t believe he is fit to stand trial. “I don’t think there has been much improvement,” says the family friend, who also speaks regularly with Coleman’s family. “Nothing seems to be working.”
The Post has learned Coleman has undergone intensive psychological testing over the past several months, including interviews with multiple psychiatrists.
His defense team has also ordered psychological assessment of their client.
When Coleman was arrested in 2021, he allegedly told the feds he killed his kids because he believed in a QAnon conspiracy theory that they possessed serpent DNA and needed to be killed to protect the human race, according to a 30-page search warrant application released at the time.
Sometimes rambling incoherently, Coleman allegedly told FBI agents that he was “seeing all the pieces being decoded like “The Matrix”, and that he was Neo,” the movie’s main character.
“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,” reads the affidavit.
After Coleman’s arrest, his wife, Abby, left California and returned to her home state of Texas, where she currently lives, surrounded by her family.
She now goes by another name, but there is no record she has divorced her husband. She has never spoken publicly about the murders.
The murders have rocked Coleman’s tight-knit community in Santa Barbara, who knew him as an outgoing, friendly surf instructor who was passionate about his faith and doted on his wife and kids.
“He’s my friend and I want what’s best for him,” says his childhood friend. “I really want him to face trial, because maybe that’s the only way we’ll get the answers to why he did what he did.”
