The person who allegedly attacked Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband early Friday posted memes and conspiracy theories on Fb about Covid vaccines, the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol and an acquaintance instructed CNN that he appeared "out of contact with actuality."
David DePape, 42, was recognized by police on Friday because the suspect within the assault on Paul Pelosi on the speaker's San Francisco residence.
Two of DePape's family members instructed CNN that DePape is estranged from his household, and confirmed that the Fb account, which was taken down by the social media firm on Friday, belonged to him.
His stepfather, Gene DePape, mentioned David DePape grew up in Powell River, British Columbia, and left Canada about 20 years in the past to pursue a relationship that introduced him to California.
"I actually do not know what to suppose," the suspect's uncle, Mark DePape, mentioned of his nephew's alleged assault on Pelosi.
"Hopefully it is a rip-off. I do not need to hear one thing like that."
Final yr, David DePape posted hyperlinks on his Fb web page to a number of movies produced by My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell falsely alleging that the 2020 election was stolen.
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Different posts included transphobic photos and linked to web sites claiming Covid vaccines have been lethal.
"The dying charges being promoted are what ever 'THEY' need to be promoted because the dying price," one publish learn.
DePape additionally posted hyperlinks to YouTube movies with titles like "Democrat FARCE Fee to Examine January sixth Capitol Riot COLLAPSES in Congress!!!" and "World Elites Plan To Take Management Of YOUR Cash! (Revealed)".
Two days after former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin was discovered responsible of killing George Floyd, DePape wrote that the trial was "a contemporary lynching," falsely indicating that Floyd died of a drug overdose.
He additionally posted content material concerning the "Nice Reset", the sprawling conspiracy concept that world elites are utilizing coronavirus to usher in a brand new world order wherein they acquire extra energy and oppress the plenty.
And he complained that politicians making guarantees to attempt to win votes "are providing you bribes in trade in your additional enslavement".
A lot of the public posts on DePape's Fb web page have been from 2021.
In earlier years, DePape additionally posted lengthy screeds about faith, together with claims that "Jesus is the anti christ".
Not one of the public posts appeared to say Pelosi.
Two former acquaintances of DePape's in California instructed CNN he exhibited regarding behaviour over time.
Linda Schneider mentioned she received to know DePape roughly eight years in the past and that he often housesat for her.
Once they met, she mentioned, DePape was residing in a storage unit within the Berkeley space and instructed her he had been combating arduous medicine however was "attempting to create a brand new life for himself".
Schneider later obtained "actually disturbing" emails from DePape wherein he gave the impression of a "megalomaniac and so out of contact with actuality," she mentioned.
She mentioned she stopped speaking with him "as a result of it appeared so harmful," including that she recalled him "utilizing Biblical justification to do hurt".
Laura Hayes, who additionally lives in California, mentioned she labored with DePape for a number of months roughly a decade in the past making hemp bracelets when he was residing in a storage shed within the Berkeley space.
She mentioned DePape bought the bracelets as a enterprise.
"He was very odd. He did not make eye contact very effectively," Hayes mentioned.
She recalled him saying that "he talks to angels and there shall be a tough time coming."
However she did not bear in mind any significantly threatening feedback, and mentioned she did not suppose a lot of it as a result of "it is Berkeley," a spot the place eccentric characters aren't unusual.
Hayes, who was Fb buddies with DePape, known as his newer posts "so phobic in so some ways" and stuffed with "a lot anger."