A prolific YouTuber and Redditor has been arrested after he stabbed his father to death because his father called him a Nazi.
33-year-old Lane Davis leans towards far-right politics and can be
described as a radicalized one. The unemployed college dropout spent a
lot of time on the internet peddling conspiracy theories. He was a
prolific poster on the Donald Trump subreddit, a former intern for Milo
Yiannopoulos, who was then the tech editor at Breitbart, and an editor
for a prominent GamerGater’s conspiracy site.
He also began “investigating” GamerGate by calling the employers of
women game developers and their allies, in an attempt to get them
fired. After a fallout with Yiannopoulos, Davis began writing for The
Ralph Retort, another far-right site whose founder is currently serving a
prison sentence for assaulting a police officer.
Simply put, Lane Davis, known online as Seattle4Truth, is against
everything that has to do with the liberals and Democrats. He is
extremely conservative and supported Donald Trump to the point of
obsession.
On the morning of Friday, July 14, Lane who still lived with his
parents on Samish Island, Washington, did what he did most mornings; he
passed the time on the internet.
Lane read and retweeted posts
celebrating the Second Amendment, bemoaning diversity, and spreading
conspiracy theories that alleged Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman
John Podesta was involved in a child sex ring and DNC staffer Seth
Rich had been murdered for leaking sensitive emails to WikiLeaks.
That week had been busy for Lane. During the week, he contributed to
the Donald Trump subreddit, and over on The Ralph Retort, a fringe blog
where he worked as a political editor. He also celebrated the idea of a
Kid Rock Senate run, claimed America was under threat of Sharia law, and
wondered whether CNN was “literally ISIS.”
That fateful Friday morning, Lane continued in his usual way. He
spread Seth Rich conspiracy theories and complained about diversity on
Twitter, then at a point, he began screaming and going on a tirade. His
parents, Catherine and Charles Davis, were used to such behavior from
him but that afternoon, they were tired of Lane’s screaming. They wanted
him to leave and told him as much but he flared up and began chasing
his parents around their home, spitting in his father’s face while
screaming that he wasn’t threatening to kill them, but “pedophiles who
were taking over the country.”
His mum, Catherine was recording what was going on. She eventually
called 911 when her son was out of control and this enraged Lane.
“He’s not physically threatening us or anything,” Catherine told the
911 dispatcher. “He just gets out of control and he’s ranting about
stuff from the internet.”
The dispatcher asked if Lane was drunk, on drugs or has any history of a mental disorder.
“No, not reported, but he’s not working and he gets on these rampages and he just needs to move on,” Catherine replied.
The dispatcher suggested Catherine and Charles stay away from Lane until the police arrived.
Catherine replied: “We’re trying to but he’s chasing us around the
house. He’s mad about something on the internet about leftist pedophiles
and he thinks we’re leftist and he’s calling us pedophiles. And I don’t
know what all.”
Catherine laughed: “He just lives on the internet and he gets really
worked up about everything that’s going on. He needs an intervention of
some kind here.”
The dispatcher told Catherine that police were on their way and she
hung up. But Charles’s phone kept recording all that was going on in the
house. The recording shows that Lane was enraged by the call his mother
made to 911.
He says: “OK well, so here’s the deal. If I am going to go to prison for threatening to kill somebody, I mean…”
He then picked up a knife.
“Leave the knife alone,” Charles told Lane while his mother tries to reassure him.
She told him no one wanted to send him to prison and they just wanted
to get him help but he didn’t seem to hear or believe his mother.
He said: “So, you are going to send me to prison? My life is over.”
Minutes later, Catherine called 911 again. The audio recording is
hard to hear. In it, Catherine is running and the portable phone she’s
using breaks up. Catherine screams, “He stabbed him!” before the
connection is lost.
As Charles, a 73-year-old maritime lawyer and grandfather of two lay
bleeding on the back deck after his son stabbed him in the chest and the
back with a chef’s knife, Lane walked outside, dropped his weapon and
stood with his hands in the air, waiting for police to arrive.
Catherine called 911 once more, saying: “He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead.”
In a confession, Lane Davis told detectives that the fight had
started over “whether toddlers could consent to sex or not,” and his
father had called him a Nazi and a racist. Lane is being held on a $1
million bail. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. His
trial is slated for January.