WALLED LAKE, Mich. – The 21-year-old daughter of a man who police said killed his wife, the family dog and severely injured his 25-year-old daughter said her father was radicalized by QAnon.
QAnon is an online conspiracy that believes in a pedophilic cult of the elite that planned the COVID pandemic and stole the election. Rebecca Lanis, 21, said QAnon radicalized her father and sent him over the edge.
“He started reading about the stolen election and Trump and then he started getting deeper into it and then when the vaccines came out and COVID, he started reading all that,” Rebecca Lanis said.
Rebecca Lanis is the youngest of the Lanis family from Walled Lake. She was at a birthday party over the weekend when she learned her parents were dead and her sister was hospitalized. She got the call from her grandmother Sunday morning about four hours after the shooting. When Lanis arrived at her grandmother’s home, she was told about her father’s crimes and that he was shot and killed by officers on scene after he opened fire on them.
The shooting happened at 4:11 a.m. on Sept. 11 at the Lanis’ home in Walled Lake. Police said 53-year-old Igor Lanis killed his 56-year-old wife and the family dog, and also shot his 25-year-old daughter.
Police were dispatched to the home after receiving a call from the 25-year-old stating that her father just shot her and she was unable to feel her legs. When deputies arrived at the home, Igor Lanis exited through the front door with a Remington 870 shotgun and opened fire on the officers at the scene, according to police.
Police said officers fired back, shooting and killing Igor Lanis. The 25-year-old was rushed to a hospital and is listed in stable condition.
“This is an unbelievably horrific act,” Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said in a press conference Sunday night. “It is so sad on so many levels but due to the response and professionalism of our dispatch, the Walled Lake officers and Oakland County Sheriff’s Office Deputies at least one victim was saved. We will actively pursue information to gain insight into what set this into motion.”
Hours after learning about the fatal shooting, Rebecca Lanis posted on a Reddit forum called “QAnon casualties” where people who have friends or family that they believe are a part of the viral conspiracy can learn how to heal, deal and “deprogram.”
In Rebecca Lanis’ Reddit post she stated that the internet ruined him and how her father was sucked into the conspiracy and increasingly growing more agitated over the last two years. Rebecca Lanis also wrote that her father started to become more radicalized after the 2020 election.
The Qanon conspiracy began in 2017 claiming that global elites and members of the Democratic party were members of a pedophilic, Satanic cult that trafficked children. In 2020 the conspiracy which reached mainstream American politics grew to include the false conspiracy the 2020 election was stolen, Former President Trump would be reinstated to begin executions of political opponents and the COVID-19 pandemic was planned. The conspiracy also believes the vaccines are meant to be a form of population control.
The views have also become mainstream for supporters of Trump in Michigan including at least one member of the Michigan House being seen wearing a “Q” pin at a pro-Trump rally last year. Current GOP candidate for Secretary of State Kristina Karamo was also a featured speaker at a QAnon Convention in 2021. Members of Qanon were also present at the January 6th insurrection.
“In 2021 I could see him starting to spiral. Then in 2022, he was completely spiraled off the deep end. Every conversation we had he had to bring up vaccines or COVID or 5G or EMFs or something or just anything ridiculous you could think of,” Rebecca Lanis said. “If any of you have relatives like this you need to start monitoring them,” she said. “If they have guns you should hide them or something because these people are dangerous.”
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