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Justin McCauley tells his side of story
A man accused of threatening to kill President Biden and Elon Musk back in January is now out of jail. He claims he went a little crazy, and it wasn't what it seemed. He told his side of the story to FOX 7 Austin's Meredith Aldis.
AUSTIN, Texas - A man accused of threatening to kill President Biden and Elon Musk in January is now out of jail. He claims he went a little crazy and it wasn’t what it seemed.
"I make one New Year's resolution. And it has completely uprooted my life," Justin McCauley said.
McCauley, who was an engineer for Tesla, said his resolution was to stop taking his antidepressant medication.
"So I white knuckled it," McCauley said.
MORE: Tesla employee arrested for making online threats against Joe Biden, Elon Musk
He said that’s when the side effects hit.
"I was blindfolding myself, putting headphones on because I was having blurred vision, slanted vision, possibly hallucinations, possibly hearing things," McCauley said.
He posted videos about it and also started threatening people online.
"I trolled Biden, I trolled Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, all these people that I was tagging and then I defeated them, but I used the word kill for attention," McCauley said.
One post said, "I am planning to Kill all of you." He also posted and said, "I will arrive in Texas where the war has begun."
McCauley then did head south from his home in Minnesota to Texas.
"The original thought of me leaving Minnesota was to go see if I was actually losing my mind, or are we being invaded at the border?" McCauley said.
He said he made a stop in Oklahoma and his plan changed.
"I rented a hotel room. And I had this homeless man that I found who was covered in his own filth,’ McCauley said, ‘I went to Walmart and bought this man socks, shoes, underwear, shirt, pants and took him to my hotel room, got him a razor, a toothbrush, the whole nine yards because the whole goal was to take that man to Tesla and try to get him a job."
Law enforcement pulled McCauley over in Oklahoma and court records said he told them he wanted to talk to the president and said, "Wouldn’t you want to talk to the president if you knew you were going to die tomorrow."
McCauley continued down I-35 when he was stopped by Travis County Sheriff’s Deputies.
"All of a sudden my car is surrounded on the freeway, helicopter in the air and everything, and they literally pull me off the freeway," McCauley said.
He was arrested for terroristic threat and booked into the Travis County Jail.
"Two weeks into jail is when it took me to be like, what is going on because I was in such a fog," McCauley said.
He said that’s when he realized what he did.
"Everything I did was completely insane. It seems like a bad dream. It seems like it wasn't me," McCauley said.
McCauley lost his job at Tesla, but said he wants to be an advocate for people with mental health issues.
"All of this is a big redirection of my life," McCauley said.
McCauley’s wife bonded him out about two and half weeks ago.
"I never criminally did anything. How did I end up in jail and not in a crazy bed in a psych ward? There was never any criminal action other than terroristic threats, which came from my psychosis," McCauley said.
McCauley has a hearing on March 27th.