David DePappe: Who is the suspect who attacked Paul Pelosi?

SAN FRANCISCO (CHRON) — A 42-year-old man from Berkeley, California, is accused of breaking into the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s house in San Francisco and beat her husband with a hammer before dawn on Friday.

San Francisco Police Chief William Scott identified the man as David Wayne Depapp.

“Our officers engaged the suspect, disarmed him and took him into custody,” the police chief said. In the hours after DePape’s name was announced, a firestorm erupted on social media over who DePape was and whether he was on the left or right of America’s political spectrum.

Here’s what we know so far about DePape.

Depape is a nudist enthusiast

DePape is part of a nudist advocacy group in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood.

“I’ve known him for a long time because he was associated with the public nudity people in the Castro. It’s a long history with him,” state Sen. Scott Wiener told KRON4.

DePape is also known in Berkeley as a nudity activist. He picketed naked at protests against laws requiring people to be clothed in public.

He went Democrat

His target was Nancy Pelosi, sources told The Associated Press. De Pape yelled, “Where’s Nancy at?” before viciously attacking the speaker’s 82-year-old husband, Paul Pelosi, the AP reported.

Nancy Pelosi was not home. She was in Washington, D.C., scheduled to deliver a keynote address Saturday with Vice President Kamala Harris. Paul Pelosi was home and suffered blunt force injuries, police said.

The spokeswoman flew back to San Francisco after being notified of the attack. She issued a statement that her husband had undergone surgery for a fractured skull.

He is a conspiracy theorist

DePape is a fringe conspiracy theorist. “We know that this person has a long history of conspiracy theory bias,” Wiener said.

A blog titled “God Is Loving” is written by an author named David Depapp. The blog focuses on Big Brother conspiracy theories and censorship. The author rails against the “elite ruling class” of mainstream media and tech companies for censoring people who are not in power.

In a post written in August, the author wrote: “The elites/ruling class never censor themselves. You can still turn on any major news channel to listen day and night to the narrative delivered by the people who run you. The founding fathers built defenses against censorship coming from the government because they never imagined a day when the tech giants and private industry would be so powerful that they could single-handedly silence people.”

The blog was removed from WordPress on Friday. It is not clear why it was removed.

DePape appears to have posted racist and often indiscriminate posts online, including some questioning the results of the 2020 election, defending Donald Trump and repeating QAnon conspiracy theories.

Online posts under DePape’s name repeated false claims about COVID vaccines, questioned whether climate change was real, and showed an illustration of a zombified Hillary Clinton eating human flesh.

He was estranged from his family

Depapp once lived in a public warehouse and was estranged from his children and partner, according to Linda Schneider. Schneider said De Pape helped with her urban farm, stayed with her boyfriend and struggled with communication.

“David was too shy and told me he had a history of not being able to communicate with anyone at all. He was afraid to speak. He [was] probably a mindless follower of something he saw on social media because I don’t think he had the guts to be part of a political or terrorist group,” said Schneider, who was also interviewed by CNN.

DePape’s drug use caused Schneider to later distance himself from him. “His drug use started again and he freaked out,” she told KRON4.

Born in British Columbia

He grew up in Powell River, British Columbia, before leaving two decades ago to follow an older girlfriend to San Francisco. The girlfriend, named Gypsy, and Depapp have two children together, his stepfather told The Associated Press. DePape also has a child with another woman, his stepfather said.

He remains in custody

DePape was arrested by the San Francisco Police Department without bond, inmate records show. He is being treated for injuries at a hospital, SFPD said, and will eventually be booked into jail.

He faces a slew of charges including: attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, first-degree burglary, threatening a family member of a public servant, battery to an adult, battery with serious bodily injury and witness tampering.

District Attorney Brooke Jenkins wrote, “At this time, we believe there will be sufficient evidence to charge him with multiple felonies: attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and elder abuse.”

Jenkins added, “While DePape’s motives are still under investigation, there is absolutely no place for violent attacks like this in our community. No one should be subject to this kind of violence, let alone our leaders and their families in their own homes. The investigation into this horrific attack is ongoing.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.