“She was in danger and didn’t even know it,” a family friend who has known the couple for several years tells PEOPLE. “But she also knows that he doesn’t seem to be in his right mind, so she believes that he was delusional. You can’t hate someone for a delusion. So she still loves him, but she fears him. She doesn’t know what his intentions were, but she knows they couldn’t have possibly been good.”
Kaleo and Roxy Coleman.Matthew Taylor Coleman/instagram
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But police say he didn’t return, instead driving the children into Mexico. Two days later, authorities allege, he took the kids to a ranch, where hekilled them with a spearfishing gunand returned to his hotel a few hours later. He was arrested when he attempted to cross the border back into the United States.
Coleman has been charged with two counts of foreign murder of United States nationals. If convicted, he would be eligible for the death penalty. He has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bond in an undisclosed federal prison. His public defender has not returned PEOPLE’s calls for comment.
“She does believe some of the same things that he believes,” says the friend. “She believes them to this day.”
“What she doesn’t believe is the lizard people,” the friend adds. “She knows who she is, and knows that Matthew’s belief was wrong. She just doesn’t know what he was going to do about it. But once your husband kills your kids with a spearfishing gun, you know that you’re in danger. And she is smart enough to realize that she very well could have been his third victim.”
source: people.com
