‘American Madness’ details how conspiracy theories took over one troubled man’s life

A medical examiner ruled that Richard McCaslin ended his own life. But Milwaukee writer Tea Krulos has a different view.

“Whatever the cause, conspiracy theory killed Richard,” Krulos writes in “American Madness: The Story of the Phantom Patriot and How Conspiracy Theories Hijacked American Consciousness” (Feral House). 

Conspiracy theories entered McCaslin’s life “at a point when he was weak with emotional devastation” and shaped his behavior until the end, Krulos argues in his book. In documenting and attempting to explain McCaslin’s actions, Krulos calls out InfoWars broadcaster Alex Jones and conspiracy theorist David Icke as two pernicious influences.

“American Madness” is both a biography of McCaslin and a disturbing tour of the power of conspiracy-mongering, from the JFK assassination to QAnon and the prevalence of “crisis actor” theories. 

While researching his first book, “Heroes in the Night: Inside the Real Life Superhero Movement” (2013), Krulos heard from McCaslin, who created his first costumed persona, The Lynx, in 1985.  

Born in Ohio in 1964, McCaslin coped with a controlling, abusive father growing up, finding refuge in comic books. “I have read thousands of comics since the late 1960s,” he wrote Krulos. Throughout his life, McCaslin wrote and drew his own comics, too. 

After graduating from high school, McCaslin enlisted in the Marines, where he spent most of his three-year stint guarding nuclear weapons in Florida, a job he considered boring. After leaving the Marines, he went to a stuntman school in California. He struggled to find his footing but spent two happy seasons as a costumed stuntman in Six Flags AstroWorld’s Batman show. 

However, in the late 1990s, both of his parents died, and his life began spiraling downward. Although he inherited about $675,000, McCaslin was lonely and without purposeful work. While watching community-access TV, he saw the Alex Jones special “Dark Secrets: Inside Bohemian Grove,” and swallowed its suggestions that members of an elite California private club were practicing satanic rituals, possibly even child sacrifice. 

“His life fell apart with nothing to lean on but the words of Alex Jones,” Krulos writes.

Convinced his real-life superhero activities now had a purpose, McCaslin costumed himself as the Phantom Patriot and infiltrated the Bohemian Grove grounds bearing a Crossfire MK-1 rifle-shotgun hybrid, a .45-caliber Glock automatic, a ninja sword and a combat knife, plus more than 100 pounds of ammunition. 

His goals included rescuing any intended victims of satanic rituals, but he discovered the grounds were nearly deserted in January. He halfheartedly set a banquet table on fire, triggering alarms that brought local sheriff’s deputies and highway patrol officers, leading to a tense standoff before McCaslin surrendered. 

During that standoff, one of McCaslin’s other obsessions may have saved his life — or the lives of those officers. Obsessed with country singer Chely Wright, he did not want to die in a firefight for fear of what she would think. (He didn’t know that Wright was struggling herself to come out of the closet as a lesbian.)

McCaslin served six years in San Quentin and Soledad state prisons on multiple felony convictions with enhancements. He was also interviewed extensively by the Secret Service, likely because then-President George W. Bush was a Bohemian Club member (as Presidents Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon also had been).

After his release from prison, McCaslin toured the country in 2011 as a new superhero, Thoughtcrime, protesting that President Barack Obama and many other public figures were “Reptoid Royalty” — shape-shifting aliens from another world, a notion he absorbed from Icke’s writings. 

Krulos writes that McCaslin had “a consistent desperation for media attention,” but received it only once on his Thoughtcrime tour. The Quad City Times published a photo of McCaslin in costume talking to a teenage girl.

Krulos met McCaslin in person three times, including a hair-raising adventure filming a video in the Nevada desert, and had a long correspondence with him. In the book, Krulos takes a compassionate view of McCaslin as a person while detailing how strange the man’s thinking had become.

“As Richard’s conspiracies began to network, they formed a ‘super-conspiracy’ which ran to all corners of his life,” Krulos writes. “He began to see intricate weavings of theories and symbolism everywhere.”

When McCaslin killed himself, he deliberately chose to do so in front of the Washington headquarters of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, as “an act of defiance against the corrupt, Masonic establishment.” His tragic death did help five people: the recipients of his donor kidneys, lungs and liver. 

Troubled by ‘crisis actor’ theories

In a recent interview, Krulos said he expects there will be more stories like McCaslin’s in the future.

Conspiracy theory is “a way for people to try to make sense of this crazy world and all the stuff going on. People are afraid. And they’re angry. And (those are) really the key ingredients to getting a conspiracy going,” he said.

He cites the story of Edgar Maddison Welch, a North Carolina man who stormed a Washington pizzeria, convinced by Internet rumors that it was a front for a pedophilia ring linked to Hillary Clinton and other Democrats. Like McCaslin, Welch became obsessed with conspiracy theories during a vulnerable time in his life. Unlike McCaslin, Welch realized after his arrest that he was wrong. 

The far-right QAnon movement, which promotes many “Deep State” conspiracy theories, particularly troubles Krulos, as do “crisis actor” theories, which claim, for example, that the Sandy Hook shooting was faked. Alex Jones promoted that thinking, to the point of releasing personal information about grieving Sandy Hook parents, leading to those parents filing multiple lawsuits against him.  

“I believe the First Amendment must be protected, but if you engage in libel or slander by telling people they are crisis actors and that their murdered children never existed, you should be sued, and that private companies have the right to decide to drop you from their platforms for violating their terms of agreement,” Krulos writes. 

More than once, Krulos points out the interplay between conspiracy theorists and President Trump. “When the president of the United States is retweeting a post that suggests (Jeffrey) Epstein was murdered as part of the Clinton Body Count, and hosting conspiracy theorists in a social media summit, I have to think that Richard (McCaslin) is a zeitgeist.”

Contact Jim Higgins at jim.higgins@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @jhiggy.

LAUNCH EVENT

Tea Krulos will have a socially distanced outdoor launch party for readers who pre-order a copy of “American Madness.” Visit lionstoothmke.com for details. 

*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel can be found here ***