Owner Of Popular Surf School In Custody For Killing Children
The children, aged 1 and 3 were found on a ranch south of Tijuana with multiple stab wounds.
The founder of a California surfing school for children is accused of stabbing and killing his two young children in Mexico, the Baja California State Attorney General announced Tuesday.
Matthew Taylor Coleman, 40, who runs Lovewater Surf Co in Santa Barbara, California, was arrested as he tried to cross from Tijuana into the U.S. at the San Ysidro Port of Entry on Monday.
According to the San Diego Union Tribune:
Hiram Sánchez (Baja California prosecutor) stated investigators found Taylor left the hotel on Monday morning at 2:54 a.m. with both children. A few hours later, Taylor returned to the City Express at 6:33 a.m. without them.
At 7:27 a.m., Baja California police received a 911 call about the shocking discovery of the bodies of two babies in diapers who had been repeatedly stabbed with a wooden stake. Their remains were discovered by a farmworker near the El Descanso ranch, which is located at kilometer marker 55.4 on the scenic road between Tijuana and Ensenada.
Sánchez said the girl had been stabbed approximately 12 times in the area around her thorax, and the boy had 17 stab wounds in a similar area.
Sánchez said agents with Baja California’s State Security and Investigation Guard alerted U.S. authorities that Taylor would likely be trying to make his way to the border and back to the United States. U.S. border officers stopped him as he approached the San Ysidro Port of Entry and arrested him, he added.
Customs and Border Protection did not respond to a request for further information about the arrest.
The FBI said it is working with the Santa Barbara police following a report of three missing people believed to have crossed into Mexico.
According to the surfing school’s website, Taylor earned a master’s degree in Spanish from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He completed his undergrad studies at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, where he was on the surf team.
Mexican and U.S. authorities are working to return the bodies to California.
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