- Troy Burke, 45, admitted to killing his wife last year by shooting her three times in the head.
- Burke told prosecutors QAnon members convinced him his wife was a child sex trafficker working for the CIA.
- Burke was charged for her murder but given a not-guilty verdict by reason of insanity.
Prosecutors say a man in Michigan killed his wife after receiving messages from QAnon members that she was a child sex trafficker working for the CIA.
Troy Burke, 45, admitted to shooting and killing his wife Jessica Burke, 29, on January 27, 2021. Burke was found not guilty of one charge of homicide and one felony weapons charge by reason of insanity on February 7, according to court records obtained from the Gratiot County Circuit Court.
Burke underwent two psychiatric evaluations, both of which determined he was not competent for trial, reported ABC affiliate ABC-12 News, He will be sent to the Michigan Center for Forensic Psychiatry for more testing after and may spend the rest of his life in a mental institution, per the outlet.
According to court records seen by NBC-25 News, Burke was convinced he was getting messages from people in QAnon circle telling him to eliminate his wife. According to prosecutors, Burke believed his wife was a transgender offspring of President Joe Biden and that she was a CIA-linked child sex trafficker. He also told authorities that a neuro-link had been inserted into his brain that allowed people to access his thoughts.
Gratiot County Prosecutor Keith Kushion also told the court that Burke had a documented history of hospitalizations for mental health issues, per NBC-25 News.
"He believed [these conspiracies]," Burke's attorney Sarah Huyser told the court, per ABC-12 News. "They may sound illogical to us. They may, when we hear them, we are thinking that's crazy for the lack of a better way to say that, but imagine being in the mindset where all of that is very real and very scary."
The QAnon movement is a baseless conspiracy theory alleging that former President Donald Trump is leading a fight against a deep-state cabal of pedophiles and child sex traffickers. Adherents to the movement, however, have been embroiled in serious crimes.
In December 2020, Nashville bomber Anthony Warner injured three people and killed himself after detonating explosives inside his RV. Before the incident, Warner had espoused beliefs in the QAnon-linked fringe belief that reptilian humanoids control the world.
Last June, Anthony Beckett, a QAnon believer in the UK, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for attempted murder after attacking his pregnant partner in January 2021. Beckett was convinced that he needed to kill his family ahead of the "great revelation" on January 20, 2021 — Biden's inauguration day.
And in August 2021, California surf instructor and QAnon follower Matthew Taylor Coleman was indicted in the deaths of his children — a 2-year-old boy and 10-month-old girl — with a spearfishing gun. Coleman told authorities the children had DNA from "lizard people" and would become monsters.
