Kelley Watt, a grandmother of two from Tulsa, Oklahoma sparked outrage online after she said she is "proud" to harass families of the victims of the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
Watt, whose words were featured in the book Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth, claimed she spent a significant part of the last decade "researching" mass shootings.
Her "research," however, amounts to little more than digesting and regurgitating conspiracy theories. She concluded mass shootings are little more than "false flag" operations designed to strike fear and convince people to support comprehensive gun control legislation.
Speaking to Elizabeth Williams, the book's author, Watt said she has a "strong sense" the Sandy Hook shooting–which claimed the lives of twenty children between six and seven years old as well as six adult staff members–"didn't happen," adding the parents of the children "just rub me the wrong way."
Watt—who attacked the families of victims online under the username "gr8mom"—claims the shooting could not have happened because:
- photos of the shooter's bedroom do not show signs a teenager lived there
- one pair of parents did not cry convincingly enough after having lost a daughter
- other parents were "too old" to have children that age
So extreme are Watt's beliefs they ended her marriage and harmed her relationships with her own children. Her daughter, Madison, told Williams her mother is a narcissist who will never admit she is wrong.
Madison said:
"There's a great deal of narcissism in this idea that 'everyone's got it wrong and we're in this select group of people that knows'."
"It would explode her own persona to allow any doubt to come in. Her whole identity has been built on this for so many years."
"She's invested so much."
Watt was harshly criticized after the books release.
The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary received renewed attention in the wake of last month's mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas in which a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers in a fourth and fifth grade classroom.
The Sandy Hook shooting—notorious for being the deadliest mass shooting at a school in United States history—continued to live in infamy in light of the seemingly endless number of conspiracy theories about the event.
In April 2018, Infowars host and noted conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was sued for defamation by three parents whose children were killed in the shooting. Jones said the shooting was "completely fake" and a "giant hoax" perpetrated by opponents of the Second Amendment.
Last year, Jones was ordered to pay damages and criticized by a judge for failing to hand over documents requested by the courts. In April 2022, three companies affiliated with Jones filed for Chapter 11 protection on Sunday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, according to court documents.
The move was widely perceived as a gambit to avoid paying damages in relation to defamation lawsuits from families of victims of the shooting.
Jones ultimately withdrew his bankruptcy filing following scathing criticism.
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