1 of 2 | A man holds a QAnon conspiracy flag while walking atop a Black Lives Matter mural in Hollywood, Calif., in 2020. QAnon is the name for a series of conspiracy theories that largely suggest that a man, or group of people, known as "Q," has knowledge and evidence that cannibalistic child molesters that are seeking to take down former President Donald Trump. File Photo by Christian Monterrosa/EPA-EFE
July 6 (UPI) -- A man died Friday leaving thousands of followers of his QAnon-related conspiracy group believing his death was a part of a plan to reveal the so-called "truth" about the fates of former President John F. Kennedy and his son, John F. Kennedy Jr.
Michael Brian Protzman, 60, died Friday at the St. Mary's Campus of the Mayo Clinic Hospital in Rochester, Minn., from multiple blunt force injuries caused by a motocross accident, according to a death record obtained by Vice News. His death was confirmed by The Dallas Morning News, which described Protzman as head of QAnon activities in the Dallas region.
QAnon is the broad name for a series of conspiracy theories that emerged in far-right online forums in 2017 and that largely espouse that a man, or group of people, known as "Q," has knowledge and evidence that cannibalistic child molesters seeking to take down former President Donald Trump.
Protzman rose to prominence in the QAnon movement in 2021. Then, under the name Negative 48, he convinced thousands of supporters to go to the site where JFK was assassinated in Dallas in 1963 and said the former president would appear there with his son, who died in a plane crash in 1999.
Protzman amassed a cult-like following by manipulating a version of the Jewish numerology system known as Gematria to convince others of alleged deep state plots, Vice News reported, while adding that Protzman made his followers pay for his food and hotel costs to travel to Trump campaign rallies.
It was not immediately clear if Protzman believed his own messages or if the group's activities and pronouncements were simply a mockery of the broader QAnon conspiracy from which it splintered.
One woman told Vice News in 2021 that her sister was missing family holidays in order to follow Protzman.
"If that was the plan that God had for him, I know that everything is going to be revealed soon," Shelly Mullinax, a follower of Protzman, told Vice News.
