Blaze News exclusive: Suspect in anti-Trump ATV attack had gender issues, took estrogen, friend says



Last July, a young man driving an ATV committed a series of attacks in Hancock, a small city in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, including slashing tire valves, breaking car windows, and even running down an elderly man putting up yard signs in support of President-elect Donald Trump.

Hancock police almost immediately claimed that the incidents were "politically motivated" since the driver seemingly targeted the property of those who openly supported Trump and/or law enforcement.

In an effort to learn more details about the incidents and the suspect, Blaze News obtained multiple police reports as part of a Freedom of Information Act request. We also spoke with several individuals associated with the incidents. From these conversations, Blaze News learned not only that the suspect had serious mental health issues but that he even struggled with his gender identity and took female hormones prior to the attack.

'Kind of ran me down': Political rage leads to violence

On the afternoon of July 21, 81-year-old Carl Nelson and his brother, 78-year-old Paul Nelson, were outside Paul's home in Hancock, minding their own business, when a man on an ATV came barreling down the street, full of rage apparently directed at then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.

"I was out in the front yard a little bit," Carl Nelson recalled to Blaze News, "and there had been some political signs that had been put up in the yards up and down the street there, and some guy comes along on a little four-wheeler — riding on it, dressed in all black — and comes whipping through, grabbing all the signs, runs across the street with them, and throws them in a swamp pile."

Carl told Blaze News that the driver never spoke, though he previously told police that the driver "started yelling obscenities" and gave the Nelson brothers the double bird.

The driver 'wasn't really targeting Biden people,' he said, just 'more or less the Trump and the Republican end of things.'

The driver then sped away. With the man gone, Carl proceeded to retrieve a couple of the signs and put them back up in his brother's yard.

The act of restoring the signs apparently stoked the ire of the driver, who returned to Paul's street, seemingly determined to remove the Trump signs again. According to a statement Paul gave to police, the driver then suddenly "veered off the road into the yard" and struck Carl from behind.

Carl told Blaze News he never saw it coming.

"He was coming from behind me and kind of ran me down," he explained.

The blow from the vehicle knocked Carl to the ground, where he hit his head and he briefly lost consciousness. Cops and first responders arrived on the scene quickly and transported him to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with a brain bleed. He also had abrasions and deep bruises all over his body.

Composite screenshot of police report

Walter LaPlante, who lived across the street from Paul at the time of the incident, recalled the scene vividly.

"I was sitting there having a couple drinks for the day of my day off, eating breakfast and just having a nice relaxing day, and I see this four-wheeler blow through the stop sign," he told Blaze News. "And about 10 minutes later, I see cops everywhere, and I look out the window, and I see they're down at that fellow's house and there's an ambulance there and about six, seven cop cars."

LaPlante said that such a "politically motivated attack" was "shocking" to his quiet community. The driver "wasn't really targeting Biden people," he said, just "more or less the Trump and the Republican end of things."

Police did not take long to zero in on a suspect: 22-year-old Joshua Kemppainen of Hancock, a name Carl Nelson and LaPlante said they did not recognize.

The day after the incidents involving the ATV, Kemppainen called the cops so that he could "turn himself in for the crimes of vandalism he committed," a police report said. Police and sheriff's deputies raced to Kemppainen's address, where they found Kemppainen dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. They then searched his residence and collected evidence, including an ATV, apparel that matched the description of clothes worn by the driver, and some electronic devices.

'Shaved legs' and 'thigh-highs': Kemppainen presents as female

Until that fateful July day, Kemppainen had no encounters with local law enforcement. While he may not have been in trouble with the law, accounts from those who knew him best indicate that he was a troubled young man.

A few days after the attack on Carl Nelson, Joshua's father, David Kemppainen, and other relatives met with Hancock Police Chief Tami Sleeman. David informed Sleeman that Joshua had been been bullied in high school and that he had been diagnosed with autism. Joshua had also been taking medicine for depression, but that medicine had recently changed.

Another individual familiar with Joshua also reached out to law enforcement: Lane Campbell, a 25-year-old gamer who lives more than 500 miles from Hancock in southeastern Michigan between Lansing and Detroit. Campbell and Joshua met online and often played video games together.

Campbell told Blaze News that at first, Joshua was "awkward" and aloof and rarely shared anything personal. "It took a lot of talking to him in general and getting to know him in general before he kind of opened up," Campbell said.

'Sometimes he'd have a super high-pitched voice and be squealy and girly, and then the other times he'd have a super deep voice.'

But soon, the two guys "clicked," Campbell said. In fact, their friendship eventually became sexual in nature, and the two exchanged nude photos and other explicit messages. Campbell, who never met Kemppainen in person, characterized their relationship as "online f*** buddies."

Because of their intimate connection, Campbell learned firsthand that Kemppainen struggled with his gender identity. In addition to nude photos, Kemppainen sent Campbell pictures of himself with "shaved legs" as well as wearing "thigh-highs" and "skirts," Campbell said.

"It'd be weird. Sometimes he'd have a super high-pitched voice and be squealy and girly, and then the other times he'd have a super deep voice, kind of like a 'wake up in the morning' voice," Campbell recalled to Blaze News.

Campbell said that at some point during their friendship, Kemppainen had been seeing a psychiatrist and had even taken estrogen for a bit.

"He had taken hormones," Campbell explained. "He'd taken estrogen before but was off it pretty much, like, three months into me knowing him."

If Campbell's timeline is correct, Kemppainen would have stopped taking estrogen around February 2023, nearly a year and a half before the ATV attack, since the two men met online in November 2022.

Campbell does not believe Kemppainen was taking estrogen at the time of the ATV incidents, though the last time he spoke with him was in June 2024, a month before they occurred.

Campbell also insisted that Kemppainen never identified himself as a woman and did not care much about pronouns. "He wasn't trying to be transsexual," Campbell said. Instead, Kemppainen was more "transgender" and wanted "to be viewed more as a woman."

Records show that Campbell gave Chief Sleeman similar statements about Kemppainen's forays into transvestism and gender transition. Campbell also furnished her with screenshots of some of his Discord exchanges with Kemppainen. The screenshots are included in the police reports but are so grainy as to be entirely illegible.

Screenshot of police report

Campbell declined to share those screenshots with Blaze News, citing privacy concerns.

Blaze News left messages with Joshua's parents, David and Mia Kemppainen, but did not receive a return call.

Kemppainen and 'far-left' politics

It seems that Kemppainen's gender-identity problems may also have helped shape his politics and affected the way he viewed his community.

"He felt like in his community, being a very conservative rural community, he couldn't express being more feminine," Campbell said.

Campbell told police that Kemppainen held mainly "far-left" views and added to Blaze News that his friend had become increasingly frustrated with the Democratic Party, especially at the national level. By summer 2024, Kemppainen had little hope of a Democratic victory in the 2024 election.

"He's like, 'The Dems are just f***ing idiots at this point,'" Campbell recalled Kemppainen saying.

Kemppainen was also "anti-government" in general and harbored animus against law enforcement, Campbell said, calling all cops "f***ing pigs and a bunch of idiots." Kemppainen was particularly incensed about the cop-involved shooting of Breonna Taylor.

Kemppainen also apparently fantasized about committing suicide by cop. "It was the more suicidal bit and wanting to kind of go out and be like, 'I hope I get pulled over by a cop ... just so I can f***ing shoot him and then, you know ...'" Campbell said.

Despite mainly far-left views, Kemppainen was also a gun enthusiast and even spent time in the Army.

'He never kind of wished harm on anybody.'

In the weeks leading up to the ATV incidents, Campbell had become increasingly worried about Kemppainen's mental state. Kemppainen had a history of substance abuse, Campbell said, and would frequently use drugs or alcohol while playing games with him online.

Though Campbell declined to share with Blaze News screenshots of his Discord exchanges with Kemppainen, he did read aloud the final message he ever received from his late friend: "I'm getting wasted. I'm playing with my AK. Wish me luck."

Campbell said he responded by asking Kemppainen to be careful but that "he never got back to me on that."

When police discovered Kemppainen lifeless at his home, they found "an AK-style rifle between his legs."

Campbell also insisted that while Kemppainen was no fan of Trump, he never threatened violence against Trump supporters. "He never kind of wished harm on anybody," Campbell said.

According to a police report, David Kemppainen, Joshua's father, said his son "did not have a 'mean bone' in his body" and that the ATV attack "was not like him at all." He also told police that his son "did not have any political issues."

Another relative characterized Joshua as a "good kid" who "loved to go fishing and hunting" with his grandfather.

'A debacle': Continued fallout

Joshua Kemppainen's suicide was not the end of the story for anyone involved. His mother, Mia Kemppainen, was so distraught over her son's death and apparent outburst of violence that she "was not able to come in to talk with the police" when they asked, David Kemppainen said, according to a police report. Mia did later go to the police station to retrieve her son's confiscated belongings.

Family members who did speak with police were visibly "shaken" by Joshua's alleged crime spree and expressed concern about the elderly victim.

Lane Campbell believes that Kemppainen's alleged involvement in the ATV attack was "a cry for help." He also seemed to speak very carefully about the attack, describing it to Blaze News as "a debacle" and Kemppainen's alleged actions as "deplorable" but then adding that they might be "understandable" to some people.

"I think ... that he genuinely cared and just was misunderstood and because of that and his mental issues that led to him to going down the path he took," said Campbell, who also struggles with mental health issues.

"I wasn't expecting him to be a criminal, but I wasn't expecting him to kill himself."

By all accounts, Kemppainen was a loner. He had few friends in the real world, had recently lost an online friend to suicide, and had difficulty holding down a job. He could have returned to the Army after COVID but for whatever reason chose not do so.

Campbell believes that extreme isolation contributed to Kemppainen's decline and advocated for those with fragile mental health to go outside, "touch grass," and mingle with regular people. "We need to be more connected as a society," he said.

'It could've been a little worse than it actually was.'

For his part, Carl Nelson has made almost a full recovery. "For little a while, my right knee bothered me, but that's gone now," he told Blaze News.

Aside from describing his attacker as an "idiot," he also does not seem to carry much resentment about the incident. "It's something we lived through and survived," he stated matter-of-factly.

"It could've been a little worse than it actually was."

Nelson, who lives in Wisconsin, added that several lawyers in the Hancock area approached him and offered to file a lawsuit against the suspect's parents but that he had declined their offer. "[The parents] obviously didn't have any control over him, so nothing could be done by trying to suck some money out of them," he explained. "So I didn't do it."

In fact, Nelson said that he and his brother, Paul, a devout Catholic, had prayed together for the ATV driver.

Sadly, in early August, just a few days after Carl Nelson was hospitalized because of the attack, Paul Nelson died after a brief battle with cancer.

"He was actually a very religious person," Carl said. "So he went while praying."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Trans-identifying homeless man allegedly stabs Christian shelter employee in stomach over eviction



A trans-identifying man in South Carolina became so irate over a recent eviction from a homeless shelter that he allegedly stabbed an employee in the stomach with such force that her internal organs were exposed.

Until recently, a 34-year-old homeless man going by the name Michelle Silva Perez had been staying at Shepherd's Gate, a Greenville homeless shelter — which is run by a Christian organization called Miracle Hill Ministries — designated to serve women and mothers with young children.

Miracle Hill also issued a statement, claiming ignorance about Perez's true biological sex while he stayed at Shepherd's Gate but indicating it would have 'had no bearing' on his admission into or disqualification from the facility designated for women and young children.

Last Wednesday night, Perez had been "disqualified" from staying at the shelter because he had violated facility guidelines, Miracle Hill said in a statement. The organization did not specify the nature of Perez's alleged violations.

Exactly when Perez learned about his eviction is unclear, but the next morning Greenville police were called to the scene after Perez allegedly attacked a shelter employee on account of the eviction.

According to reports, Perez pushed the employee to the ground in the Shepherd's Gate parking lot and then allegedly hoisted what the Greenville County Sheriff's Office called a "sharp-edged object" and what an arrest warrant referred to as a sword and began stabbing the employee with it.

The stabbing apparently caused such severe wounds to the woman's stomach that when officers later viewed surveillance video of the attack, they could see some of the victim's internal organs on the outside of her body. Police apparently also could identify Perez as the perpetrator based on the video.

The woman was rushed to a local hospital and underwent surgery. She "is currently stable and recuperating," Miracle Hill said.

Meanwhile, Perez was arrested on charges of attempted murder and possession of a weapon during a violent crime and booked into the Greenville County Detention Center, though as of Thursday morning, his name does not appear in a jail records online database. Perez reportedly has been placed in isolation in a men's facility because he's allegedly in the midst of a so-called gender transition.

Despite reality, the statement from the sheriff's office referred to Perez as "a woman" without any "trans" qualifiers. Blaze News reached out to the agency for further clarification about the statement. Spokesperson Lt. Ryan Flood told us: "I can tell you that [Perez] identifies as a female, and her [driver's license] indicates as such."

Miracle Hill also issued a statement, claiming ignorance about Perez's true biological sex while he stayed at Shepherd's Gate but indicating it would have "had no bearing" on his admission into or disqualification from the facility designated for women and young children.

"After the incident, we became aware in media reports that the former guest was transgender," the statement said in part. "Our ministry had no knowledge of this. That report, whether true or false, had no bearing on whether Miracle Hill would help, and did not contribute to the guest’s exit from the facility."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Man who pretends to be woman unrepentant about allegedly murdering parents. Cop worries about 'respect' suspect will receive.



A Utah man who allegedly murdered both of his parents in cold blood earlier this week not only reportedly confessed to the crime, he also allegedly insisted he would "do it again" if he could.

Around 7 p.m. on Tuesday, a 28-year-old man whose given name was Collin Troy Bailey but who legally changed his gender to female and his name to Mia Bailey last year allegedly marched into his parents' home near St. George, Utah, with the intent to kill his family.

'We want to make sure that she knows that we’re going to treat her in the correct way and in a fair way.'

According to reports, his parents — 70-year-old Joseph Bailey and 69-year-old Gail Bailey — may have taken issue with his gender confusion. Neighbor Richard Zyszkiewicz told reporters that the family's relationship was volatile and that he got "bad vibes" from them.

Once inside the home, Mia Bailey allegedly opened fire on his parents. He also allegedly attempted to gun down his brother, who had locked himself in a bedroom but managed to escape to a neighbor's house and call the police.

When officers arrived on the scene, they found Mr. and Mrs. Bailey covered in blood and shell casings scattered all over the floor. The couple was pronounced dead at the scene. Two shots had struck Joseph Bailey, and four had struck his wife.

After an extensive manhunt, Mia Bailey eventually surrendered to police. The handgun on his person supposedly matched the caliber of the shell casings found at the home.

Once in police custody, Mia Bailey was surprisingly forthcoming, and according to an affidavit, showed no "remorse" about killing his parents. "I would do it again. I hate them," he allegedly said. He likewise "openly" expressed "hatred" for his brother, the affidavit added.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Bailey also seemed to have issues with other family members, who supposedly told police they were "afraid" of him. "These family members all sought alternative lodging ... to ensure their safety," the affidavit said.

Mia Bailey has been charged with three counts of aggravated murder, seven felony counts of discharging a weapon, and one count of aggravated burglary. Whether he is now housed at a women's or men's detention facility is unclear.

At least one area cop seemed eager to demonstrate just how accommodating law enforcement plans to be about Bailey's gender. "This isn’t the end for her, right?" said Lt. Kory Klotz, a public information officer with the Washington City Police Department who has repeatedly used female pronouns to describe the suspect, as Blaze News previously noted.

"We want to make sure that she knows that we’re going to treat her in the correct way and in a fair way and make sure our justice system is followed and that she gets the respect that she needs."

Police have not yet confirmed a motive for the shooting. It is unclear when Bailey is next scheduled to appear in court.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Man who claims to be woman wanted for double homicide, remains on the loose



A man suspected of shooting two people to death in southern Utah earlier this week remains on the loose, police say.

Around 7 p.m. on Tuesday, police received a report that shots had been fired inside a house on E. Chinook Dr. in Washington, Utah, just a few miles northeast of St. George. Officers were able to gain access to the residence easily as the front door was ajar when they got there.

In a department statement posted to Facebook, Klotz described Bailey as a 'transgender male transitioning to female.' Then during an interview with St. George News, he repeatedly used female pronouns in reference to Bailey.

Once inside, the cops made a horrific discovery: two adults, one male and one female, lying dead from apparent gunshot wounds. Officers attempted unsuccessfully to render medical assistance. The identities of the victims have not been released, though ABC4 described them as "a couple."

There were no other individuals inside the home at the time. However, cops found evidence that the two deceased were victims of "a homicide," said Lt. Kory Klotz of the Washington Police Department.

Police do have a suspect in this case: 28-year-old Collin Troy Bailey, a biological man who masquerades as a female and goes by the name Mia Bailey. Any connection between Bailey and the victims is unknown, and police did not reveal why they believe Bailey may have been involved in their untimely deaths.

Bailey also remains at large, having fled the area in a bright yellow Kia Soul with Utah license plate UO69GF. Bailey is described as 5'10" and just 130 lbs. with brown hair, though Klotz noted that Bailey frequently wears different wigs.

The suspect may also be carrying a small-caliber handgun, Klotz warned. So, anyone who spots Bailey or his vehicle should immediately call police and not attempt to engage, he said.

In a department statement posted to Facebook, Klotz, described as a public information officer, described Bailey as a "transgender male transitioning to female." Then during an interview with St. George News, he repeatedly used female pronouns in reference to Bailey.

"Her whereabouts are unknown," Klotz said. "She is considered armed and dangerous."

The Facebook post indicated that Bailey may still be in Washington County, Utah. Even with a possible murderer on the loose, "There are no threats to the general public," the post insisted. The case remains under investigation.

Anyone with information about Bailey should notify Washington Police at (435) 986-1515 or simply dial 911.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!