John David McAfee was a British and American computer programmer, businessman, and two-time presidential candidate who unsuccessfully sought the Libertarian Party nomination for president of the United States in 2016 and in 2020. In 1987, he wrote the first commercial anti-virus software, founding McAfee Associates to sell his creation. He resigned in 1994 and sold his remaining stake in the company. McAfee became the company's most vocal critic in later years, urging consumers to uninstall the company's anti-virus software, which he characterized as bloatware. He disavowed the company's continued use of his name in branding, a practice that has persisted in spite of a short-lived corporate rebrand attempt under Intel ownership.
Michael M. Baden is an American physician and board-certified forensic pathologist known for his work investigating high-profile deaths and as the host of HBO's Autopsy. Baden was the chief medical examiner of the City of New York from 1978 to 1979. He was also chairman of the House Select Committee on Assassinations' Forensic Pathology Panel that investigated the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
QAnon is a far-right American political conspiracy theory and political movement that originated in 2017. QAnon centers on fabricated claims made by an anonymous individual or individuals known as "Q". Those claims have been relayed and developed by online communities and influencers. Their core belief is that a cabal of Satanic, cannibalistic child molesters is operating a global child sex trafficking ring that conspired against President Donald Trump. QAnon has direct roots in Pizzagate, an Internet conspiracy theory that appeared one year earlier, but also incorporates elements of many different conspiracy theories and unifies them into a larger interconnected conspiracy theory. QAnon has been described as a cult.
Jeffrey Edward Epstein was an American financier and child sex offender. Born and raised in New York City, Epstein began his professional life as a teacher at the Dalton School despite lacking a college degree. After his dismissal from the school in 1976, he entered the banking and finance sector, working at Bear Stearns in various roles before starting his own firm. Epstein cultivated an elite social circle and procured many women and children whom he and his associates sexually abused.
The Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York is a temporarily closed United States federal administrative detention facility in the Civic Center of Lower Manhattan, New York City, located on Park Row behind the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse at Foley Square. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice.
On April 8, 1994, Kurt Cobain, the lead singer and guitarist of the American rock band Nirvana, was found dead at his home on Lake Washington Boulevard in Seattle, Washington. Forensic investigators and a coroner later determined that Cobain had died on April 5, three days prior to the discovery of his body. The Seattle Police Department incident report stated that Cobain was found with a shotgun across his body, had suffered a visible gunshot wound to the head and that a suicide note had been discovered nearby. Seattle police confirmed his death as a suicide.
Leon David Black is an American private equity investor. He is the former CEO of Apollo Global Management, which he co-founded in 1990 with Marc Rowan and Josh Harris. Black was the chairman of the Museum of Modern Art from 2018 to 2021.
The Clinton body count is a conspiracy theory centered around the belief that former U.S. President Bill Clinton and his wife, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have secretly had their political opponents murdered, often made to look like suicides, totaling as many as 50 or more listed victims. The Congressional Record (1994) stated that the compiler of the original list, Linda Thompson, admitted she had 'no direct evidence' of Clinton killing anyone. Indeed, she says the deaths were probably caused by 'people trying to control the president' but refuses to say who they were."
Ghislaine Noelle Marion Maxwell is a British former socialite and convicted sex offender. She was found guilty of child sex trafficking and other offences in connection with the deceased financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2021. She was sentenced in federal court in New York City to twenty years' imprisonment in June 2021.
Charles Carlisle Johnson is an American political activist who was a public figure in the years 2013 to 2019. A self-described "investigative journalist", Johnson is often described as an internet troll and has been repeatedly involved in the proliferation and spread of multiple fake news stories. Johnson was owner of the alt-right websites GotNews.com, WeSearchr.com, and Freestartr.com, all of which were short-lived. He wrote two books, both published by Encounter Books in 2013.
Michael Cernovich is an American right-wing social media personality, political commentator, and conspiracy theorist. Though he initially called himself alt-right, he dissociated from the movement after Richard Spencer became its public face. Cernovich describes himself as part of the new right and some have described him as part of the alt-lite.
Michael B. Ritland born in Waterloo, Iowa is a former United States Navy SEAL, public speaker and dog trainer. He created the Warrior Dog Foundation, to provide care to dogs that have ended their service in battle front, and the Team Dog Online Training Community.
On August 10, 2019, guards found American financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein unresponsive in his jail cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City, where he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. After prison guards performed CPR, he was transported in cardiac arrest to the New York Downtown Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 6:39 am. The New York City medical examiner and the Justice Department Inspector General ruled that Epstein's death was a suicide by hanging. Epstein's lawyers challenged the medical examiner's conclusion and opened their own investigation, hiring pathologist Michael Baden.
TrueAnon is an American politics and gossip podcast hosted by Brace Belden and Liz Franczak. The podcast initially focused on deceased financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The title of the podcast is a parody of the QAnon conspiracy theory.
Virginia Louise Giuffre is an American-Australian campaigner who offers support to victims of sex trafficking. She is an alleged victim of the sex trafficking ring of Jeffrey Epstein. Giuffre created Victims Refuse Silence, a non-profit based in the United States, in 2015, which was relaunched under the name Speak Out, Act, Reclaim (SOAR) in November 2021. She has given a detailed account to many American and British reporters about her experiences of being trafficked by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Jean-Luc Didier Henri Brunel was a French model scout. He gained prominence by leading the international modelling agency Karin Models, and founded MC2 Model Management, with financing by Jeffrey Epstein. The subject of a 60 Minutes investigation in 1988, Brunel faced allegations of sexual assault spanning three decades.
In United States politics, conspiracy theories are beliefs that a minor political situation is the result of secretive collusion by powerful people striving to harm a rival group or undermine society in general.
A conspiracy theory that originated in 2011 states that Canadian singer Avril Lavigne died in 2003, shortly after the release of her debut album, Let Go (2002), and was replaced by a body double named Melissa Vandella. Evidence used to support the theory include changes in Lavigne's appearance between 2003 and the present, supposed subliminal messaging in her follow-up album, Under My Skin (2004), and a photoshoot in which Lavigne has the name "Melissa" written on her hand. The theory is the subject of the BBC Sounds podcast Who Replaced Avril Lavigne?
