A man in California allegedly confessed to intentionally burning two young children alive in an effort to uncover a celebrity human trafficking and cloning ring, police said.
ABC30 reports that Filimon Hurtado, 29, of Fresno, allegedly admitted to burning his 5-month-old nephew and 18-month-old niece alive and that he had no remorse for doing so. He told investigators he did not regret killing the children, saying "this task is much bigger than myself."
In May, Mr Hurtado reportedly started the fire at the children’s family home in Fresno. Firefighters responding to the blaze found the children’s bodies on a bed in the master bedroom. Per a Facebook post by the Fresno Police Department at the time, the victims were identified as Cataleya Hurtado and Calyx Hurtado.
“When investigators interviewed the suspect, he made admissions to setting the house on fire because he wanted to kill everyone in the home. He had no reasonable explanation as to why he committed this horrendous act,” the post continued, before adding that Mr Hurtado “did not have any prior criminal history.”
During a conversation recorded in an ambulance, Mr Hurtado allegedly explained how he carried out the murders.
"I poured gasoline at the bottom of the door," he said, per ABC30’s report. "I started the fire. [His sister] tried to put it out. She was acting very nonchalant. She didn’t know what was wrong. She was asking me what was wrong. I knocked her over and poured gas all over her body."
He then allegedly set his sister — the children’s mother — on fire as well. She suffered burns to her body but survived the attack. Mr Hurtado also admitted to watching the children struggle to breathe as the room caught on fire.
When investigators asked Mr Hurtado why he started the fire, he allegedly said he needed a more extreme spectacle than self-immolation to draw attention to a ring of celebrity human traffickers and cloners who, he claimed, abducted and victimised him in 2017.
"Millie Bobby Brown and Jake Bongiovi, they both abducted me from the hookah bar," he told investigators.
Brown, the star of Netflix’s Stranger Things, would have been 13-years-old in 2017, and her current boyfriend, Bongiovi, the son of rocker Jon Bon Jovi, would have been around 15-years-old.
He told investigators that the duo "murdered me a few times" and "teleported me here and there," before claiming "I’m not real. I’m really not real."
Mr Hurtado claimed the entire ring is "tied to the occult."
He shared a video to his YouTube page detailing his conspiracy theory in the days before he set the fire. While his story does seem to echo similar claims made by conspiracy groups like QAnon — like celebrity human trafficking rings — it does not appear that his theory is tied to any specific ideology.
Fresno Fire Department investigator Nathan Dansby told ABC30 that both of the children were dead by the time they arrived, and that they had suffered "a lot of heat damage on the top side of their bodies."
On Monday Judge Michael Idiart ruled that there was enough evidence for Mr Hurtado to stand trial for the murders and arson. The district attorney has not determined if it will pursue a death sentence should if Mr Hurtado is convicted.
Mr Hurtado’s defense team believes he will plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
