A missing family of four has been found safe… maybe not so sound?
Last Thursday Michigan State Police put out a public statement requesting help in locating the Cirigliano family: Anthony and Suzette (above, left) and their teenage sons Brandon and Noah. The entire family had been missing from their home in Fremont, Michigan since Sunday, according to the release. That’s also when patriarch Anthony was “exhibiting paranoid behaviors.”
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Specifically, the 51-year-old called 911 and began by telling the dispatcher “everyone is OK” — but then launched into a very strange series of statements. He told her:
“I need some police protection immediately… It is of vital national interest. It is related to September 11th and people want to erase me from the face of the earth. I’m not crazy.”
Well, that’s a relief. He added that an officer in the Fremont Police Department “knows” him and also that he was “a Christian,” so everything was OK. He continued:
“I just need some help. And then the US government will take it from here. I know this sounds crazy, you don’t have instructions for this.”
He then asked again for her to send help. Reasonably, the 911 operator asked if there were weapons in the home, to which the father responded, “Not even a BB gun.” You can hear the full call (below):
According to Fremont Police Chief Tom Rodwell, a couple officers did stop by and speak with Tony “at length” after which they “just were concerned about his mental well-being.” They also checked to make sure his family was safe. However, the cops did not stay and offer him protection.
It wasn’t until later they learned no one had heard from them since that time. Family members told the Fremont police they were “very concerned.” According to the Michigan State Police, the family turned off all their cell phones and vanished from the home, and in the process “left family pets and a family member who requires full-time care, unattended.” That would apparently be Suzette’s mother, who has dementia and was found wandering the neighborhood the next day.
After multiple reported sightings, the Ciriglianos were finally found safe in Steven’s Point, Wisconsin — over six hours away from their home in Michigan — on Sunday, October 23, a week after they disappeared.
The Fremont Police Department spoke with each member of the family and determined they were all safe. In a new press release, authorities said the family are “still of the opinion that people are after them.” However, nothing in Anthony’s 911 call or subsequent police interview was deemed credible (or even sensible), so the “elements of the investigation do not meet the criteria for protective custody.” Chief Rodwell spoke to local network WZZM, assuring:
“What I can tell you right now is that they’re safe and their family’s working with them to help them out.”
As for the fact they left that poor elderly woman unattended, Rodwell says he thinks that was an accident — and that no criminal charges will be filed:
“Luckily, Tony Cirigliano was able to explain what procedures he had taken to make sure that she was safe. I think it’s just a big misunderstanding. I do not foresee any criminal charges because nothing in the investigation would lend us to request charges with the prosecutor’s office.”
What procedures he didn’t elaborate, but he says the mother is now “being cared for by other family members.” Perhaps that was always the intention. As for the four members of the Cirigliano family who believe they have special 9/11 information and that people are after them… We mean… How do you handle that??
Obviously we’re happy no one was hurt. We don’t know for sure how the father in this news story came to such conclusions. But we do know 9/11 is a very popular topic for conspiracy theorists, and if we’ve learned anything over the past couple years, it’s that conspiracy theories are being taken too seriously — to the point where it can become dangerous. How do we not think about another happy husband and father of two — so-called “QAnon Dad” Matthew Taylor Coleman — who one day broke from reality after digesting conspiracy theories and took his children to Mexico, where he allegedly murdered them because he’d been brainwashed to believe they were monsters? And the other dad earlier this year who was also radicalized by online conspiracy theories — so much so it drove him to kill his wife, his daughter, and his dog?
This is becoming worryingly common. If families fall under paranoia and delusions, that alone means they aren’t totally “safe.”
In any case, we’re obviously so glad nobody was hurt here. See more on the story (below):
[Image via Fremont Police Department/13 On Your Side/YouTube.]
