A convicted burglar was arrested for murdering an elderly couple, a mother and her 15 year-old daughter then taking to Facebook to claim they’d been controlling his mind by using telepathy.
Stephen Marlow ranted after he allegedly killed Clyde Knox, 82, Knox’s wife Eva, 78, Sarah Anderson, 41, and Anderson’s daughter Kayla, 15, in Butler Township, Ohio on Friday.
He said: ‘I will be launching the first counter-attack against mind control in human history.
‘I want to be very clear, this will not be an active shooter event. I will be executing some of the people responsible for activating active shooters.
‘If I happen to survive, please visit me in prison, only to see the same man you’ve almost known. I will gladly die to expose this.
‘If I can help another targeted individual fight back against telepathy, then the sacrifice will be worth it.’
Marlow lived close to his victims, although it is unclear if he knew them personally. It is also unclear if the two families killed knew one another.
The burglar, who completed probation earlier this year, was arrested by local police in Kansas Saturday after the FBI launched a manhunt to find him.
He also claimed during his rant that his supposed mind controllers used ‘ventriloquism’ to ‘move thoughts and mouths’ and that he’d been persecuted more than any other person in human history.
Officers were called to the Ohio neighborhood shortly before noon Friday on a report of shots fired and found four victims with gunshot wounds at multiple crime scenes, police said.
The Dayton Daily News reported that the victims were found in two separate homes where they lived, near the home owned by Marlow’s parents.
All four victims were pronounced dead at the scene.
The Knoxes had shared 60 years of marriage at the time of their death, according to an obituary, while a Go Fund Me page has raised nearly $34,000 for the funeral costs of the Andersons.
Police had warned anyone seeing Marlow, who had fled, to ‘not approach him as he is still likely to be armed and dangerous.’
Porter called the shootings ‘the first violent crime in this neighborhood in recent memory’ and said investigators were trying to determine a motive and whether ‘mental illness played any role.’
He expressed gratitude to residents for their support and tips and also thanked other law enforcement agencies involved in the case.
The Dayton Daily News reported that Marlow had gotten off probation in February on aggravated burglary and aggravated menacing charges stemming from a July 2019 incident in the Dayton suburb of Vandalia, according to Montgomery County court records. Vandalia closed a number of public areas Saturday as a precaution.
Court documents don’t list an attorney representing Marlow. A court date for a pre-trial has not been released.
Meanwhile, Vandalia school superintendent Robert O’Leary said the district provided counselors and therapists for students and their families following the Anderson’s death and would continue to do so through the following week.
He called her a ‘ray of light’ who was ‘as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside.’
An investigation tied to the killings is still ongoing, of which the FBI field office in Cincinnati said it was part of.