An Indiana man charged with murdering his father and brutally beating his mother told police that he is Donald Trump and his parents are Bill and Hillary Clinton, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by The Daily Beast.
After stabbing his dad to death with a switchblade, 40-year-old Christopher Brian Claerbout planned to arrest his mom and deliver her to Guantanamo “under the war crimes act for the crimes that she committed against him and the crimes that she committed against the country,” the filing states.
Claerbout, who authorities say stole his handcuffed mother’s wallet before fleeing from cops in his dying father’s SUV, is now facing charges of murder, criminal confinement, domestic battery resulting in serious bodily injury, intimidation, two counts of theft, and one count of auto theft. Shortly after 6 p.m. on Feb. 21, a neighbor called the police to report a domestic dispute at a house across the street, the affidavit explains. When the neighbor said 75-year-old David Claerbout “was down in the driveway,” the dispatcher asked if it looked like he needed an ambulance.
“I’m not sure that he is alive,” the neighbor replied.
Claerbout’s wife, Marcia, looked like she had been beaten, the neighbor continued, saying that it appeared “she had been tied up with a cord and that her face was black and blue.”
The neighbor, who asked that his name not be published, said he remains extremely shaken up over the incident.
“We came upon the body, and we’re having a really bad week this week,” the neighbor told The Daily Beast on Friday.
A few minutes after the 911 call, officers from the Carmel, Indiana, Police Department arrived on the scene. David Claerbout was lying motionless in the driveway, with his intestines protruding from his abdomen, the affidavit states. Medics from the Carmel Fire Department showed up and attempted to resuscitate the elder Claerbout, but were unsuccessful. He was pronounced dead a short time later.
As first responders were attending to David Claerbout, a second neighbor was helping a battered, handcuffed, and tied-up Marcia Claerbout out of the home.
There were lacerations to her arm and face, and the area around her left eye was bruised and swollen, according to the affidavit. She told officers her son was the attacker, and that he had lifted her wallet from her purse before taking off in his father’s white Chevy Traverse, leaving behind his own car, a Lincoln with a license plate reading “PRODIGY,” the documents state.
“I want to get these handcuffs off!” she pleaded, adding, “I’ve been in them since 9 this morning.”
Christopher, the Claerbouts’ son, had shown up earlier that day, letting himself into the house through the garage as Marcia was about to leave for a class at a local seniors’ center, the affidavit states. When she started down the stairs, Christopher “gave her a huge shove and she fell down approximately ten stairs and fell to the landing of the staircase,” it explains, adding, “[S]he was then handcuffed by Christopher Claerbout and that he tied her up with an extension cord.”
In an interview with detectives, Marcia Claerbout said Christopher “was ranting and raving throughout the day,” the filing goes on, saying that Christopher pulled a knife on her “several times” during the ordeal, demanding she answer his questions. “She stated that Christopher thinks that she is not his mother and that he has other conspiracy theories, to include thinking that he is Black. She stated that Christopher believes that he is Donald Trump and that she and her husband are Bill and Hillary Clinton. She stated that during the event, Christopher would spit on her and hit her in the face. She further advised that Christopher knows that she has had problems with her feet and that Christopher also stomped on her feet during the day.”
At around 6 p.m., David Claerbout returned home and demanded to know what was going on, says the affidavit. He and Christopher stepped outside and argued “heatedly,” according to Marcia Claerbout, who recalled hearing screams coming from the driveway. After managing to loosen her restraints enough to go outside, Marcia saw David sprawled out, unconscious.
Officers contacted OnStar and located the white Traverse Christopher was driving, which OnStar then disabled. As the vehicle was coming to a stop, Christopher ran into a wooded area in an escape attempt, but was tracked down by a police K9, the affidavit explains. He was booked into jail and cops cataloged his property, which included “necklace pendants [that] appeared to be rounds of ammunition that were fashioned in the shape of a cross.”
The pendants were identical to one that was recovered near David Claerbout’s body, according to police.
Several hours later, investigators sat Christopher Claerbout down for a jailhouse interrogation. He insisted that “his parents passed him around for sex as a child to a lot of politicians,” the affidavit states. “Mr. Claerbout stated during the interview that he is Donald Trump and that his mother is Hillary Clinton, and his father is Bill Clinton.”
He explained to the detectives that “he was going to arrest his mother in order to take her down to Florida,” after which she would be “going to Guantanamo Bay” as a “prisoner of war.” He said Monday “was the day that he needed to get this done.”
The Clintons and other Democratic politicians have been the focus of countless outlandish threats by conspiracy theorists who think they are sex traffickers, child abusers, and the heads of a global cabal made up of “deep state” operatives. Last month, a U.S. Army veteran was arrested by the Secret Service as he made his way to the White House to “lop off the head of the serpent in the heart of the nation,” specifically President Joe Biden. Former President Donald Trump has long delighted in falsely portraying Hillary Clinton as a criminal, leading his rallygoers in chants of “Lock her up!” and recently saying she deserved the death penalty for “spying” on his campaign. (She didn’t.)
An autopsy determined that David Claerbout had been stabbed some 20 times in the hand, chest, back, and abdomen, perforating his left lung, aorta, and pulmonary artery. His death was declared a homicide.
Christopher Claerbout’s court-appointed lawyer, Mario Massillamany, told The Daily Beast that “there might be some mental health issues [with Claerbout] that might need to be addressed…The two things that my co-counsel and I will look at are, was he mentally insane at the time of the offense, and is he mentally capable of assisting in preparing a defense? But until we get all the discovery from the State of Indiana and properly have a conversation with our client, it’s too early to tell.”
The neighbor who originally called 911 is doing everything he can to push the brutal scene out of his mind, for now.
“They were very nice people. I didn’t see it coming. I’m not going to blame anybody, they’re neighbors of ours and we’re trying to be very respectful,” he told The Daily Beast.
Claerbout is being held without bond at the Hamilton County Jail.