ROSARITO, BAJA CALIFORNIAROSARITO, BAJA CALIFORNIA — U.S. border authorities arrested the founder of a Santa Barbara surfing school on suspicion of killing his two young children in Mexico, the Baja California State Attorney General announced Tuesday.
Border agents arrested a 40-year-old U.S. citizen, identified as Matthew Taylor, as he tried to cross from Tijuana into the U.S. at the San Ysidro Port of Entry Monday, according to Baja California officials, who don’t typically release the last names of arrestees. Authorities said he runs the Lovewater Surf Co., a surfing school based in Santa Barbara.
According to his Facebook and Instagram s, the school founder’s full name is Matthew Taylor Coleman.
Baja California prosecutor Hiram Sánchez Zamora said the man traveled to Rosarito, which is about a 30-minute drive south of Tijuana, and checked into a City Express hotel on Saturday with his 1-year-old son and his 3-year-old daughter.
Sánchez said investigators found he had left the hotel on Monday morning at 2:54 a.m. with both children. A few hours later, he returned to the City Express at 6:33 a.m., but without his children, according to Sánchez, who gave details at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
At 7:27 a.m., Baja California police received a 911 call about the shocking discovery of the bodies of two babies in diapers who had been repeatedly stabbed with a wooden stake. Their remains were discovered by a farmworker near the El Descanso ranch, which is located at kilometer marker 55.4 on the scenic road between Tijuana and Ensenada.
Sánchez said the girl had been stabbed approximately 12 times in the area around her thorax, and the boy had 17 stab wounds in a similar area.
Sánchez said agents with Baja California’s State Security and Investigation Guard alerted U.S. authorities that the suspect would likely be trying to make his way to the border and back to the United States. U.S. border officers stopped him as he approached the San Ysidro Port of Entry and arrested him, he added.
Customs and Border Protection did not respond to a request for further information about the arrest.
On Sunday, a woman filed a missing person’s report with the Santa Barbara Police Department indicating her husband and two children had been gone for 24 hours and were concerned for their well-being, according to a police bulletin. The police developed information that the three had gone to Mexico and ed the FBI.
“A t investigation is underway among the Santa Barbara Police Department, the FBI in Los Angeles and San Diego, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Mexican authorities,” an FBI spokesperson said in a statement Tuesday. “Currently the adult male is in federal custody and the investigation is continuing.”
According to the surfing school’s website, Coleman earned a master’s degree in Spanish from the University of California Santa Barbara, where he was born. He completed his undergrad studies at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, where he was on the surf team.
His social media s show mostly photos of his family, including two small children.
Mexican and U.S. authorities are working together to return the bodies of the children to California.
