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A Michigan man who allegedly became absorbed in QAnon and other far-right conspiracy theories reportedly fatally shot his wife and also shot one of his daughters. Police shot and killed the 53-year-old man after he left his house and began allegedly firing a shotgun at police officers, according to a statement from the Oakland County, Michigan Sheriff's office.
Police were alerted of the incident after the injured daughter, Rachel Lanis, dialed 911 just after 4am on Sunday and said her father Igor Lanis had shot her, according to the statement from the sheriff's office.
Rebecca Lanis, another daughter who was not at the house during the shooting, wrote a Reddit post about the incident on r/QAnonCasualties, a hub for people to discuss family members and friends who have fallen down the QAnon rabbit hole. (QAnon refers to a web of baseless conspiracy theories that began with the false claim that former President Donald Trump was crusading against a global cabal of deep state human traffickers.)
In the post — published on the day of the shooting and titled "My Qdad snapped and killed my family this morning." — Rebecca described how her dad began reading conspiracy theories about QAnon, vaccines, and election rigging after Trump lost the 2020 election. She wrote that it kept getting worse, and "he verbally snapped at us a few times" though there was never any physical harm.
In a series of comments, Rebecca described how she "slowly started distancing" herself from her father as he "would spend all day and night reading stuff on his phone and laptop and would get really pissy over the smallest things," she wrote. "His carefree and fun persona was gone. He started talking about 5g and emfs being bad, and modern medicine being a sham."
Despite the warning signs, she wrote, "Sadly, my sister and mother were too loving to believe that he could actually lash out like this."
In the main post, she described how the incident allegedly unfolded.
"At around 4 AM on September 11, he had an argument with my mother and he decided to take our guns and shoot her, my dog and my sister," Rebecca wrote. "My mother succumbed to her wounds and my sister is in the hospital right now."
The statement from the Oakland County Sheriff's Office states that a 25-year-old female victim in the shooting received emergency surgery and that her condition was upgraded to stable. It states that a 56-year-old woman was shot multiple times in the back and killed while apparently attempting to flee the shooting, and that the family dog was also shot multiple times and killed.
Rebecca wrote in the Reddit post that she was "shocked" and was currently staying with her grandparents.
"Fuck you, Qanon," she wrote. "I hope the FBI tightens its grip on you and that your lackies rot in prison (and hell) for poisoning so many people."
QAnon adherents have been tied to multiple violent acts before, including a man from California who took his two children to Mexico and fatally shot them with a spear fishing gun after he fell deep into the baseless conspiracy theory movement and reportedly believed his children had serpent DNA.
