“America’s Most Dangerous Dad” dead by own hand

Shawn McBreairty tried — and failed — to make a living by tormenting school kids, teachers and librarians.

Shawn McBreairty (right) was cast into the national chud-light by western Maine podcaster Tucker Carlson on 5/27/21. Three years later, McBreairty committed suicide.

The funeral for serial harasser Shawn McBreairty was held last Saturday, June 15, at an end times Christian church in Bangor, a dozen days after the self-described “citizen journalist” put a bullet into his head, killing himself. A source close to McBreairty told me the 53-year-old had serious financial troubles, stemming from a mountain of legal debt, coupled with his reluctance, despite his wife’s pleadings, to get a job.

Last year, for our Disinfomaniacs podcast, my pal Andy O’Brien and I went into great depth on McBreairty and his posse of weirdos spewing hate and disinformation at local school board meetings during our three-part “TransPanic in Maine” mini-series. You can listen here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

During the pods, we discussed McBreairty’s recent actions and lawsuits, plus his history as a hater, including his celebration of May 27 as his “Tucker-versary,” memorializing the calendar date of his 2021 debut on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show. His chat with Carlson led to a bunch of appearances on various chud-casts and news outlets, allowing him to spread his chuddish rhetoric far and wide. Hanging out with Carlson turned out to be a watershed moment for McBreairty. His message was so well-received in the chud-o-sphere, post-Carlson, that he quit his corporate job at Maine Health, determined to eke out a living as a professional hater.

And, as we now see, that didn’t work out very well.

In this Crash Report, we look at the aftermath of the suicide of a hate-filled individual, who left behind a wife and college-aged twin daughters, and how his death might bring solace to some of his victims.

Before his suicide, McBreairty self-promoted as “America's Most Dangerous Dad, Patriot, Lion, Ultra-MAGA, Pureblood, Advocate for Educational Freedom & more toxic masculinity.”

Not murdered

Three years and one week after first appearing on Tucker Carlson, McBreairty fatally shot himself. Following the news of McBreairty taking his own life (more on that later) hordes of conspiracists began spouting alt-theories on the socials to explain his death. And the wingnut response increased exponentially after McBreairty’s collaborator, “Libs of TikTok” announced her buddy’s demise on Twitter, resulting in armies of chuds yelling “he was suicided.”

(If the preceding alphabetic string of symbols makes sense, please spend some time off-line, immersed in nature. STAT!)

The Maine’s Medical Examiner’s office has confirmed McBreairty’s cause of death to be suicide. Gotta say, though, if his passing had been deemed suspicious, the suspect list would’ve been ten miles long.

Over the last three years, McBreairty constantly whined about being a “free speech martyr” while trying to monetize his harassment of teachers, teens and activists. Dozens of times, he was a rude asshole during school board meetings in multiple districts where he had no kids or connections. His speechifying was so profane and scurrilous that school board officials would frequently have to shut his mic off because of his disgusting rants and meritless allegations. Didn’t matter to “America’s Most Dangerous Dad,” that schoolchildren were often in the audience at those meetings. Which meant many kids witnessed his lunatic ravings, such as him playing audio of him repeating the words “hardcore anal sex” during public comment period at RSU 22 meeting, until the board turned off the livestream cam and went into an recess to shut him up.

McBreairty (outlined in red) was usually a crude jerk during school board meetings.

Last year, long before McBreairty killed himself, I listened to a couple dozen episodes of his “Maine Source of Truth” podcast. Also, I watched many school board videos with him acting like a real asshole. And I listened to a whole bunch of guest appearances on big name podcasts and talk shows where he had the opportunity to show his true colors: tossing around “mentally-ill” as an insult and doxxing teachers, librarians and administrators by name, calling them “groomers” and “pedos.” He’d publish phone numbers and emails of school teachers and librarians and encourage his followers to reach out and harass them. And in the last year, like many weirdo chuds, he grew obsessed with trans-kids, especially those participating in school sports. (More on that later.)

To be blunt: McBreairty’s behavior looked and sounded crazy. His “testimony” at public meetings was pure babble from the lunatic fringe. His fixation on teenage gender identity was downright creepy. And the way he wreaked havoc on so many peoples’ lives was criminal.

I reached out to several educators who experienced attacks by McBreairty, curious to know how they were dealing with his suicide. Most declined to speak publicly, but two women agreed to share their response to his death. In both cases, their real life dealings with McBreairty left the educators sad, angry and plagued by PTSD. Stressed and suffering, both always worried that they’d have to deal with him again. Thankfully, they won’t.

(I’ve anonymized their words to protect their identities because, as we showed in the Disinfomaniacs podcast, McBreairty’s followers are often trouble-making jerks.)

The School Librarian Crucified Over a LGBTQ Book Display

“After hearing the news of his death, I felt shock, then a quick burst of sadness, like a nostalgia for a time… a time, I would not go back to if you paid me. Then, the phony in me started to feel sorry for his family.

Truth is, after a week of anger, I realized I don't feel bad at all. In fact, this wave of relief came over me. But I did struggle for a week. A week constantly thinking about this turd who called transgender kids ‘mentally ill.’ And he called librarians, teachers, and admins ‘groomers.’ This man visited school board meetings across Maine and filled their halls with bad vibes. This person was not a good person.

This person brought more hate, fear and chaos into people's lives than they ever could deserve. These people were working to help children, and he called them the worst names you can call someone. He also hurt the students. They can sense when an educator is stressed. And they heard their parents talking.

The world is just a bit better without him. Now I hope his followers realize that if you live your life with hate… the energy comes back to you when you are alone. I have learned nothing from this experience. Except, as Monty Python says, “No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition.”

The Schoolteacher Attacked for Teaching Kids to Be Kind

“I’m feeling OK. Yes, there is some peace, but he was just one piece of my puzzle. I have a list of others I’d like to confront about my whole situation.

When I read the post that McBreairty had taken his own life, my first reaction was: what happened to such a pompous asshole that he would have blown his brains out? I also wondered if he had actually done it or if others were involved.

Then, all of the anger and frustration from his vile article about me came up. And there were definitely a few moments of reliving the initial nightmare back to when I received his email explaining what his plan was.

I could feel my anxiety picking up steam, which I had to work to get in control so I wouldn’t end up in the ER again with the crazy AFib heart garbage. I did look at his family’s FB pages and do feel bad for them. But I wonder how his wife allowed him to do what he did to other human beings, most of whom he had never met. Being the church-going individual she looks to be (she has those church lady bangs for sure), she’s probably more of a hypocrite than anything else. I hope his girls aren’t taking any heat, but then I wonder how they could deal with their dad and his self-proclaimed title of “World’s Most Dangerous Dad.”

In the end, he was the biggest danger to himself.

A week later, as I am packing up my classroom and getting ready to end my career, my stress level is different. It’s still high, but mixed with a lot more emotions of leaving the school and students I’ve really come to love.

I feel cheated out of a few more years because his words and the words others have taken away something that was a huge part of who I am. I also am taking comfort knowing that waste of flesh can’t do this to another educator and I do find peace in that. I just hope those trying to make a martyr out of him with their sick theories don’t gain any traction at all.

I still have those that started this mess out there. The parent and the school board member who were vocal enough on the school district’s Facebook page to get others to join. As well as the school board itself that should have made a public apology to me after the board member, who is a McBreairty-wannabe, dragged me through the dirt publicly at a school board meeting. The whole situation is shit and continues to be. McBreairty’s death added a new twist to an already crappy situation.

At least he can’t do this to anyone else. I do find some calm in that.”

Journalistic Sausage Making

It would be tough to tabulate the total number of people McBreairty harassed in his relatively short career grifting as a professional asshole. From teachers to administrators to support staff to students and more, he cast a wide net of hate against innocent folk who were trying to make Maine schools more inclusive and caring. Case-in-point, one of his first targets was the writer and anti-racist activist Shay Stewart-Bouley.

(We’ve never met, but Shay and I occasionally DM and I’ve been a fan of her writing via Black Girl in Maine for many years. Subscribe to her substack here. She’s a fiery, big-brained wordsmith with the ability to write about and contextualize complicated issues. That’s why I’m not going to get too much into her situation, because it’s Shay’s story to tell. I look forward to reading her account of McBreairty’s conduct and his impact on her and Community Change Inc., the Boston non-profit where she works as executive director.)

In our “Trans-Panic in Maine” pod-series, Andy and I discuss McBreairty’s harassment of Shay, back in 2020, during McBreairty’s public debut as an asshole. He started causing trouble because his daughters’ school district acknowledged the murder of George Floyd with a strong, anti-racist message that triggered McBreairty. Which led to his rabid attacks on Shay and Community Change, Inc.

We’re going to return to Shay and her response to McBreairty’s death in a minute. First, a brief but pertinent aside about the media and reporting on the suicide of a controversial public figure.

When a trusted colleague reached out to me around noon on June 4 with a tip that McBreairty offed himself the day before, I wasn’t totally surprised by the news. After all, his public actions were downright nuts and his rhetoric was growing more extreme. And he made no secret of his money woes. His grift wasn’t paying the bills and his mounting legal debts were probably gonna bankrupt him.

I wasn’t the only journalist tipped off about the suicide, but I was the first to report it publicly. After a couple hours of phone calls, emails and DMs to various authorities and other sources, I felt confident enough of his passing to reveal the news of McBreairty’s suicide on social media.

In Maine, it’s tough to confirm someone’s death, especially if you don’t want to reach out to the family. Death records only become public 25 years after the death date. Also, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner generally doesn’t release autopsy reports, other than to the deceased’s kin. Autopsies usually only become public information if entered into court proceeding as evidence.

Due to the lack of official channels, you gotta check other sources. In this case, that's cops and funeral directors. I left several messages at Hampden Police Headquarters and the Penobscot County Sheriff’s office. Then I called all the local funeral parlors asking if any wakes were scheduled for McBreairty. (That technique has worked for me in the past, but not this time.) Next, I checked McBreairty’s wife’s social media, which was flooded with condolences about her loss. Around three p.m., I DMed a good pal of McBreairty’s, who then confirmed the suicide.

I considered the many condolence posts and his pal’s confirmation as two unrelated verifications of the rumor that was spreading like wildfire. So at 3:31 p.m., I posted the following: “BREAKING: hearing from multi-sources in Hampden, Maine that Shawn McBreairty who self-promotes as “America's Most Dangerous Dad, Patriot, Lion, Ultra-MAGA, Pureblood, Advocate for Educational Freedom & more toxic masculinity” has died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

About 15 minutes later, Hampden Police Chief Chris Hadley returned my call. (Twice in the past, I’d spoken to the Chief about some of McBreairty’s previous exploits at a local high school.) This time, the Chief said he could “neither confirm or deny McBreairty’s death.” Which, in the news business, is usually considered a confirmation. So at 4:20 p.m., I followed up on the socials with that factoid.

Around the same time, Lil’ Steve Robinson of The Maine Wire, told his chud-readership that he could confirm McBreairty was dead. Oddly, he decided to reveal that McBreairty had recently begun taking anti-depressants, which is a big-time violation of the dead man’s medical privacy. Also, he spelled McBreairty’s name wrong, which I knew would’ve driven the deceased absolutely nuts. (McBreairty never complained about any of my reporting on him, other than how I once misspelled his last name on Twitter.)

Lil’ Steve tells his readers the news of McBreairty’s death.

Also, McBreairty hated Robinson and The Maine Wire, even though up until last October, they were buddies. That’s when Robinson refused to promote McBreairty’s infatuation and “reportage” on a mid-coast high school runner who happens to be trans. Robinson’s reluctance says something, since Robinson is a notorious bottom-feeder who has platformed many garbage-spewers and disinfomaniacs.

(Consider yourself fortunate if you’re unfamiliar with The Maine Wire, a rabid fake news site funded by The Maine Policy Institute, whose executive director is Matthew Gagnon, the morning talking show host on WGAN Radio. And Lil’ Steve Robinson, a crypto-bro-chud, is the current editor with a penchant for running mug shots of people of color, while ignoring most arrests of white criminals. An average reader would instantly identify Lil’ Steve’s news stories as racist dog whistles. However, The Maine Wire’s audience are mostly dummies, including many GOP lawmakers, who lack the cognitive skills to recognize bullshit.)

Which brings us back to Shay Stewart-Bouley. Over on Twitter, before the news broke publicly, Shay, apparently hearing chatter about McBreairty’s death, made an oblique post about how she was feeling about the death of someone who strived to make her life miserable and encouraged racist hordes to harass her.

Once Lil’ Steve Robinson saw that tweet, he screenshot it and then shared Shay’s post with The Maine Wire’s audience of knuckleheads, but not before learning how to spell the name of the deceased.

The Maine Wire is not known for factual reporting. My colleague Andy O’Brien, not Shay, is the actual comms director for the Maine AFL-CIO.

The tweet, of course, resulted in a barrage of chud harassment. And Shay, who has been the recipient of a gazillion hateful threats and racist messages over the years, handled the onslaught with her usual witty aplomb.

Shay Stewart-Bouley gets chud-mail and chud-messages on the regular.

Anyways, I reached out to Shay after the firestorm calmed a little bit to see how she was doing and ask how she felt about McBreairty’s death.

“My initial reaction was mixed,” she replied. “It’s sad to hear of anyone pushed to suicide. But I also feel a sense of relief. Relief that he can't harm me and others. Also, I feel sadness for his family, regardless of what he's done. He was still a father and losing a parent is always hard.”

As for the rest of the Maine media, the Bangor Daily News didn’t publish the news of McBreairty’s suicide until the day after my reveal. And their sourcing wasn’t any more official than mine. (The BDN attributed an unnamed former school board member and the same social media condolences I credited.) The Portland Press Herald and the rest of the “Maine Trust for Local News” chain waited another day to publish a story about McBreairty dying. First, the PPH acknowledged the BDN as the source, then re-publishing their story after receiving an email from the State Medical Examiner confirming McBreairty’s death was consistent with suicide.

Also worth noting that Maine’s television news stations didn’t mention the “unexpected death” of a notorious public figure known across the state. McBreairty, who started his campaign of hate while living in southern Maine, moved back to his hometown of Hampden, almost quadrupling his sphere of influence and increasing the number of potential victims to target.

By the time PPH et al published the news, word of McBreairty’s death had already shot across the chud-o-sphere. And thanks to Robinson’s mention of McBreairty’s supposed SSRI use, science deniers of all sorts were able to diss the medication that has helped many people keep the darkness at bay.

I understand the journalistic principles behind the PPH’s hesitancy to report the news without getting official word. However, in today's fast paced clown-world, that strategy to rely upon official sources can give chud-fluencers (like Lil’ Steve and Libs of TikTok) a head-start on rigging the narrative. As in the case of McBreairty, the chuds blamed pills or the deep state or his victims for the suicide. The chuds were unable (or unwilling) to comprehend that a hate-monger who’d spent the last three years trying to monetize perpetual victimhood while harassing teens and teachers was crazy enough to shoot himself in the head.

So the chuds choose to yell “cover-up” rather than admit the hard truth: McBreairty was a mentally ill bully. His hate-filled life and obsessive and weird pursuits, it’s safe to say, amplified his rage and despair. His public activities, coupled with his final solution to his problems, is all the evidence needed to prove that he was asshole, mentally-ill and a coward.

The Paradox of Tolerance in Action

In all likelihood, I’m gonna get some criticism for being mean to the now-deceased McBreairty in this time of his family’s pain. However, as we discussed in “No Hugs for Chuds, part 2,” (and as Karl Popper, the Austrian-Jewish philosopher posited,) when a tolerant society tolerates the intolerant, bad things happen. So if you don’t want people rejoicing in your death, live a better life. Also, feel free to diss me when I depart this mortal coil.

Hindsight, of course, is 20/20, but it seems that McBreairty’s failure was predictable. From his debut on Tucker Carlson onward, when he quit his six-figure desk job at Maine Health, his fate seemed sealed. Brandishing his detestable rhetoric like a sword, he slashed and stabbed his way into notoriety and rendered himself unemployable in the normie world. His history of being a real asshole, publicly, to a whole bunch of people shows up in the most basic google search. No HR person would ever hire him. That’s why McBreairty needed his grift to succeed. He knew he would never get another desk job or earn a steady paycheck.

Inspired by his hero Carlson, McBreairty apparently believed, for awhile, being an asshole was actually a legit career path. Unlike Carlson, though, McBreairty didn’t have a fish sticks fortune to fund the lifestyle and attitude Carlson exudes on a daily basis. In short, McBreairty was too loud, too poor and too dumb to pull off a successful grift.

His mental angst and skull pressure must have been overwhelming. Especially with the bills piling up with no end in sight. Also, I have to wonder how long he’d been planning his exit strategy over his lack of funding and other problems.

The whole time he was being a public jerk, he kept asking for money. At first, some cash came in, with bumps in revenue whenever he appeared on Fox News or “Diamond and Silk” or Steve Bannon’s “War Room.” He did win a $40,000 payment from RSU # 22 school district in Hampden in 2022 when a judge found school officials violated McBreairty’s constitutional rights by trying to ban him from school events because of his verbal outbursts and bad behavior. But lawyer’s fees (for that case and others) ate up most of the settlement.

Also in 2022, donations were slowing bigly and his legal and financial liabilities were increasing. According to records at the Penobscot County Registry of Deeds, McBreairty removed himself from the house deed that year, seemingly as a way to protect the family home from being considered his asset, which could be taken during bankruptcy proceedings or in a legal judgement. The move gave sole ownership of the house to his wife.

McBreairty made some money thanks to the “Give Send Go” crowdfunding platform. (It’s like the “GoFundMe” for chuds.) Over the last couple of years, he raised about ten grand, including a thousand buck donation from John Linnehan (you can read about his failed fash movie theater in this Crash Report .) McBreairty also received a two hundred dollar “Give Send Go” from the infamous Christiane Northrup. She’s a Maine doctor (currently unlicensed) once noted for her holistic approach towards women’s health, until she pivoted to become a Q-Anon supporting, Covid-denying conspiracist with a fairly large following.

Also in the realm of digital money, a review of McBreairty’s Venmo payouts and receipts from this period shows just a handful of donations from supporters, despite his constant begging. (Venmo users: unless you’re a public official or a chud, please check your privacy settings. It’s crazy what can be discerned just by looking at someone’s Venmo.)

Around the same time, McBreairty became a “Junior MyPillow Guy” affiliate marketer. He offered followers and podcast listeners a big discount on whacky Mike Lindell’s merch, provided they entered McBreairty’s custom code at checkout via mypillow. com . (Again, consider yourself lucky if that doesn’t make sense.)

Another disappointment, for McBreairty, was the tiny turnout for his fundraiser and speech at the aformentioned John Linnehan’s Constitution Hall in Ellsworth. Less than a dozen people showed up when a couple hundred had been expected to attend.

As I mentioned earlier, I listened to way too many of McBreairty’s podcasts. As soon as I heard the news of his death, I went into his archives and downloaded an episode from the fall of 2022, which I remembered the intro as now being prescient.

“I believe this is a calling from God to fight this evil and expose it,” he said, referencing his campaign to harass people he doesn’t agree with. “I’m not gonna get all Bible-thumpy on you. But my time is coming close to an end as well. Unless I get some major funding or [a job] that I can see doing. I’ve pretty much made an agreement with my wife to keep doing this through November 8th [2022] through Election Day. And I have a $29,000 legal bill to pay back. And I wanna create a legal defense fund for others. To help others.”

Over the next year, his indebtedness continue to grow. And his pal confirmed that by the time of his death, his debt was well into six figures.

In recent months, McBreairty seemed to have slowed down his content creation. His last podcast was in March 2024 and his final Substack soon after. And his appearances on a big time talk shows were becoming more rare, except for several visits to Steve Bannon’s "War Room,” including in October 2023, when he tried to blame Maine Democrats and Gov. Janet Mills for the armed rampage known as the “Lewiston Massacre” which resulted in 18 deaths and dozens wounded at the hands of Robert Card.

The shelf life for most of today’s chud-fluencers is very short, so it won’t be long before McBreairty will disappear from the public consciousness. He’ll only be remembered by his family, his devotees and the hundreds of educators, school officials, private individuals and kids that McBreairty and his minions harassed and slandered.

While some of his victims might feel a sense of relief, the unfortunate reality is that McBreairty taught plenty of others the tricks of his trade. Amplified by former Maine State Rep. Larry Lockman’s xeno-and-homophobic Maine First Project and the aforementioned Maine Wire, with assists from the MAGA chud-casting world, McBreairty made it easy for others to spew fake data and propaganda. He provided the verbal ammo and talking points to nutjobs to show them how to harass and intimidate people and institutions. All because his personal hateful madness resented current efforts to try and create an inclusionary, multi-cultural and secular world free of bigotry and chuddish behavior.

Obituaries, by the way, used to be considered news stories. Thirty years ago, when I started my reportorial career, obits were written by actual journalists. Then the model shifted to paid insertions with the words furnished by family or funeral home. That’s why McBreairty’s obituary, published in the Bangor Daily, failed to note any of his anti-trans, anti-gay and anti-DEI activities or the many controversies he sparked.

Instead, the 300 word obit said that he “died unexpectedly” and that “his favorite pastimes included spending time with his dogs, Gus and Juliet, going four-wheeling, playing fetch, and riding in his All-Black Dodge Ram…For those who wish, memorial contributions may be made to the charity NAMI Maine (National Alliance on Mental Illness) or at namimaine.org.”