‘BIGGER THAN MYSELF’

Man Says He Burned Two Kids Alive to Expose Celebrity Human Trafficking and Cloning Ring

Filimon Hurtado said he wanted to draw attention to the ring after claiming to have been abducted by a 13-year-old Netflix star.

Warning: This story contains graphic details of a horrific crime.

A California man who allegedly admitted to deliberately burning two young children alive told investigators that he did so in order to expose a celebrity human trafficking and cloning ring, authorities said.

Filimon Hurtado, 29, of Fresno, also said that he did not regret the killings. His attorneys are now preparing an insanity defense against the charges, which could carry the death penalty.

In May, 5-month-old Calyx Hurtado and Cataleya Hurtado, 18 months, died when their uncle set fire to their home in west central Fresno. Firefighters responding to the scene found the remains of the two young children on a bed in the main bedroom of the property.

“Both of them had a lot of heat damage on the top side of their bodies,” Fresno Fire Department investigator Nathan Dansby said, ABC 30 reports. As the blaze was extinguished, Dansby spoke to Filimon Hurtado in the back of an ambulance. The victims’ uncle is said to have freely admitted that he had started the deadly fire, adding that he had watched the children as they struggled to breathe before their mother tried to intervene.

“I poured gasoline at the bottom of the door,” Hurtado said during a conversation recorded in the back of the ambulance. “I started the fire. She tried to put it out. She was acting very nonchalant. She didn’t know what was wrong. She was asking me what was wrong. I knocked her over and poured gas all over her body.”

The mother was seriously burned in the attack but survived.

When questioned about why he had started the fire, Hurtado told investigators he needed to do something more extreme than killing himself in order to expose a celebrity human trafficking and cloning ring that he claimed had victimized him in 2017. “Millie Bobby Brown and Jake Bongiovi, they both abducted me from the hookah bar,” Hurtado said in a recorded interview.

Stranger Things star Brown would have been about 13 years old in 2017, while her current boyfriend Bongiovi—the son of rock star Jon Bon Jovi—was about 15. In the days leading up to the fire, Hurtado made similar allegations in a video which he posted online. “It’s all tied to the occult,” Hurtado said in the clip. He added that the pair “murdered me a few times” and “teleported me here and there,” adding, “I’m not real. I’m really not real.”

“Do you regret any of this stuff here?” Dansby asked Hurtado after the fire. “No,” he answered. “This task is much bigger than myself.”

On Monday, Judge Michael Idiart ruled there is enough evidence for Hurtado to be tried for the arson and murders. Hurtado’s defense team says he’ll likely plead not guilty by reason of insanity.