Kevin Purfield is an insane conspiracy nut whose main claim to fame is being arrested, apparently for harassing the families of the victims of the Aurora shootings to tell them that their loved ones didn’t really die and that it was all part of a grand conspiracy. The reason he concludes it was a conspiracy is that it is all conspiracies. Purfield also has a youtube channel where he delves into them: 9/11 was a hoax, there are military bases on the moon and what have you. He has earlier been apprehended for trespassing at a shopping center while talking about teleportation and “security bases on the moon.”
Apparently Purfield has also been harassing the families of the Newtown shootings, calling them up to tell them that there was no shooting. This is, of course, a theme that has become so pervasive among fringe lunatics that it has even drawn the attention of mainstream media.
Diagnosis: Ok, so we are talking about diagnosed mental illness here, and we tend to avoid calling those out. But mental illness doesn’t quite absolve you from agency and responsibility. Probably ultimately harmless, but he was certainly not perceived that way (justifiedly so) by the families he harassed.
Hat-tip: Dispatches from the Culture Wars