User:Geo Swan/David Crowley (filmmaker)

David Crowley was a film-maker in Minnesota, whose mysterious death, in 2014, triggered controversy. An inquiry eventually concluded that Crowley had murdered his wife and five-year-old daughter, and then killed himself. Nevertheless, many of Crowley's fans and followers speculated that he had been assassinated, because the covert government conspiracy that would have been at the heart of his film was real, and the real conspirators felt compelled to silence him.

The three died on December 27, 2014. A neighbor, concerned over lack of activity at their home, saw the bodies when they looked through a window, on January 17, 2015. By January 28, 2015, local law enforcement officials were prepared to inform the public they believed the deaths were a murder suicide.

Early life
Crowley's notes indicate he shared an apparently happy childhood, with his sister Alison and brother Dan. He completed his first film while a student at the Owatonna High School in southern Minnesota. Crowley joined the US Army and served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Army career
Crowley served several successful overseas hitches, prior to meeting Komel Amal, a recent muslim immigrant to the United States. Crowley met Komel in Texas. They married in 2008. Crowley was deployed on one more hitch in a war zone, in 2009.

Crowley found his involuntary deployment and separation from his wife, hard.

During his deployment Amal enjoyed professional success.

Civilian life
After his discharge from the Army the Crowley family returned to Minnesota. They both studied. Crowley enrolled as an undergrad and studied film at the Minnesota School of Business. Komel earned a Masters degree in public health nutrition.

Crowley dropped out to work on a feature film, entitled Gray State, where shadowy forces take over the machinery of the US government, in order to enslave ordinary Americans, and take away their guns.

After they had been married for several years Komel came out as a "born again christian".

Gray State
Crowley raised $60,000-$70,000, through crowd-funding, to create a concept trailer, which he released, on YouTube, on August 7, 2012. Footage shot for the trailer show Federal forces, under the command of the shadowy forces that usurped the US government, lining up ordinary Americans for summary execution, and show their children being branded, as an initial step in being used as slaves.

According to The New York Times, Crowley met with Alex Jones, publisher of the infowars.

In Apple Valley, Komel was self-employed, and worked from home, as a registered dietitician. Neighbors described their daughter, Rani, as bright and cheerful.

Law enforcement officers found no sign of a break-in. They found a Koran opened between the bodies, and the phrase "Allah Akbar" scrawled on a nearby wall.

Crowley had begun work on a feature film, entitled Gray State, in 2010. Crowley raised $60,000, through crowd-funding, to create a concept trailer, which he released, on YouTube, on August 7, 2012. The film was set in a "dystopian near-future where civil liberties are trampled by an unrestrained federal government." A & E broadcast a documentary, about Crowley's life, and death, titled A Gray State, from film-makers Erik Nelson and Werner Herzog. According to the documentary some fans speculated that Crowley had been assassinated by shadowy government agencies because his fictional film too closely paralleled covert government programs to strip Americans of their civil liberties.

According to The New York Times, Crowley met with Alex Jones, publisher of the infowars website, prior to his death.

Their family home stood empty for over two years, following the deaths. The St. Paul Pioneer Press reported that neighbors felt its presence oppressive, and had hoped that, after the bank foreclosed, it had ordered the home bulldozed.

Local journalist Cory Zurowski called the deaths “catnip for conspiracy theorists.”