When Online Conspiracies Turn Deadly: A Custody Battle and a Killing

Christopher Hallett spent years helping Neely Petrie-Blanchard fight for custody of her daughters. Then on the evening of Nov. 15, she shot him in the head in his Ocala, Fla., home. While blood pooled beneath Mr. Hallett’s dying body, Ms. Petrie-Blanchard declared her motive. She was convinced Mr. Hallett had joined a cabal of government Satanists to steal her children.

Mr. Hallett was a self-appointed expert in child-custody law, with no formal legal training, whose theories about corruption in the legal system attracted thousands of followers on YouTube and Facebook .

He used what he called calculus equations to prove his legal arguments and said he was helping to advise President Donald Trump on a new Justice Department, according to his followers.

Some of Mr. Hallett’s followers said in comments and on regular video calls that pedophiles in the Pentagon steal children. Some ascribed to QAnon, which claims a high-ranking whistleblower is exposing the activity. Some said the Earth is flat.

Ms. Petrie-Blanchard, who is now 34 years old, posted photos online in a QAnon shirt and claimed her own custody troubles were connected to dark government machinations. At one point, said a person close to her, she said Mr. Hallett might be Q—the shadowy figure whose online postings form the basis for the QAnon ideology.

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