Photo: Matthew Taylor Coleman
August 12, 2021 – Santa Barbara
In what may go down in the annals of local area crime as one of the more tragic mental health outcomes in recent memory, 40-year-old Santa Barbara resident Matthew Taylor Coleman was arrested by FBI agents while re-entering the U.S. at the Tijuana-California border crossing on August 9th.
According to FBI Special Agent Nathaniel Dingle, just two days prior to his arrest, Coleman—the founder of Santa Barbara’s Lovewater Surf School—drove his two children from their home and headed to the Baja California town of Rosarito Beach. Later that same day, Coleman’s wife called the Santa Barbara Police Department to report him and their 3- and 1-year-old children missing but “did not think the children were in danger.”
SBPD detectives managed to determine Coleman’s whereabouts tracking his cellphone and determined that he was “at a ranch near Rosarito.” He subsequently arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border crossing and was “intercepted” by FBI agents who immediately discovered “the children were not in the van at the time.”
A subsequent investigation into Coleman’s recent travels lead Mexican authorities to discover “the bodies of two young children who had suffered large puncture wounds.” Both bodies were identified by photos as Coleman’s children. While in custody, Coleman reportedly confessed killing his children, telling FBI Special Agent Jennifer Bannon that “his wife possessed serpent DNA and had passed it on to his children who were going to grow in to monsters so he had to
kill then.”
Coleman was transported to Los Angeles County Jail, where he is currently charged with “the foreign murder of U.S. nationals under federal law.” He remains in custody at this time.
Photo: Courtesy www.lovewatersurfschool.com
