Oklahoma man accused of killing baby made violent, anti-pedophilia posts endorsing the QAnon-affiliated #SaveOurChildren movement
- The man accused of killing a 10-month-old baby in Oklahoma spread "Save Our Children" rhetoric on Facebook, which has been linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory movement.
- Joshua Jennings, 33, was arrested on a first-degree murder charge for the death of his girlfriend's child Friday.
- Jennings' Facebook page is full of passionate anti-pedophilia posts that are connected to the "#SaveOurChildren" or "#SaveTheChildren" movement.
- The popularity of this anti-trafficking movement is a rebranding of the QAnon conspiracy theory that human-trafficking experts say is misguided.
An Oklahoma man accused of killing his girlfriend's 10-month-old infant has repeatedly made Facebook posts in support of the #SaveOurChildren movement, which is linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory.
The man, Joshua Jennings, 33, was arrested by the Canadian County Sheriff's Office in El Reno, Oklahoma, Friday on charges of first-degree murder. As of Tuesday morning, it appeared that Jennings was still being held in the Canadian County Jail, according to the jail's records.
The Oklahoma City Police Department said in a statement provided to Insider that the infant, the child of Jennings' girlfriend, was brought to the emergency room with critical injuries before she died.
Jennings' Facebook page is filled with anti-pedophilia paranoia, as local news outlet KFOR first reported.
Insider has reviewed several posts from the Facebook page that appears to belong to Jennings promoting the "Save Our Children" or "Save the Children" movement, which has recently been co-opted and amplified by QAnon conspiracy theorists.
The QAnon conspiracy theory centers on the belief that President Trump is fighting to destroy a deep-state cabal of elite figures who run a child trafficking ring. That obsession with false allegations of human trafficking, which experts say is misguided, has helped bolster QAnon throughout the country and the world, as the easily digestible anti-pedophilia messaging spreads rapidly.
Jennings appeared to become interested in the movement in August, when the QAnon rebrand started to take over social-media platforms, particularly Facebook.
Jennings does not appear to have directly referenced QAnon on his Facebook page. There is currently no evidence indicating that the killing was related to QAnon or Jennings' anti-pedophilia ideology.
On August 12, Jennings wrote, "This #SaveOurChildren movement train I will GLADLY hop on."
Many of the posts were violent in nature. On August 16, he shared a post from another user that said, "Touch my kids and I will murder you with my bare hands and smile in the courtroom." On August 19, he shared a post that said, "It's time for pedophiles to 'go missing' like our children are."
The next day, Jennings shared someone else's post that again referenced murder. "I'd kill for your kid, I hope you'd do the same for mine," it said.
While the rest of Jennings' Facebook page is largely innocuous, one April 2016 post said, "F---ing pissed right now... It's going to take a miracle for me to not go to prison for murder tonight."
- Read more:
- How QAnon is hooking Americans with its 'save the children' anti-pedophilia rhetoric
- QAnon conspiracy theorists have been linked to a killing and multiple armed stand-offs. Here are the criminal allegations connected to the movement and its followers.
- Scam USPS texts falsely linked to human trafficking in viral posts
- Wayfair conspiracy theorists are overwhelming the National Human Trafficking Hotline