An IT manager at NC State University who was accused of playing a role in a continent-wide mass doxing of leftists has died in a house fire after deputies responded to a call for service at his home in suburban Johnston County outside of Raleigh last week.
Chadwick Seagraves was employed as service manager in the Office of Information Technology at NC State at the time of his death.
The Johnston County Report, a local news website, reported on Monday that sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to a house on Foxglove Drive in Garner at about 5:15 p.m. based on a suspicious person report, but before they arrived “the call was upgraded to a report of a man outside his home armed with a gun allegedly threatening to harm his wife and children.” Jeffrey Caldwell, the public information officer at the sheriff’s office, confirmed the accuracy of the report to Raw Story.
According to the report, the man went back inside the house and refused to come out. Deputies also received reports that the man had physically assaulted one of his neighbors, and they confirmed that his wife and children were not at home. Then, deputies heard popping sounds and saw a fire inside the house. Firefighters later recovered a body inside the house near the kitchen area.
The Johnston County Sheriff’s Office has not officially identified the person found dead in the fire. Caldwell said that determination will be made by the medical examiner.
But a GoFundMe page recently set up on behalf of a woman who shares Seagraves’ last name indicates that she “lost her husband and her home last night in a devastating fire.” State voting records that both Seagraves and his wife lived at the same address on Foxglove Drive in Garner. Johnston County property records also indicate that the property is owned by both husband and wife.
In November 2020, a Twitter account under the name the Anonymous Comrade Collective accused Seagraves of compiling and sharing thousands of files containing personal information about left-wing activists in Portland, Ore., and Asheville, NC that were then distributed on the 4chan, an internet forum popular with white supremacists, leading to threats. One of the individuals allegedly targeted — Olivia Katbi Smith, co-chair of the Portland chapter of Democratic Socialists of America — sued Seagraves for invasion of privacy in county circuit court in Oregon.
A NC State University student who requested anonymity, but provided a copy of his transcript to Raw Story to confirm his identity, alleged that Seagraves posted information on Twitter using a private account that accused him of supporting “jihadists” and affiliating with “Antifa.”
In early 2021, the university completed an internal investigation into the complaints against Seagraves, announcing they were unable to substantiate allegations of “malicious online activities.” Seagraves is still listed as the service manager for managed desktop services in the NC State University Office of Information Technology.
Beyond his role as emcee at the 2017 rally that occasioned his introduction of Invictus, Seagraves also attended a Second Amendment rally with other Proud Boys members in April 2018. His “Elias McMahone” Twitter account with the handle @roostersghost included references to his involvement, including one that read, “My mother knows I’m a Proud Boy.”
Posting under the “Noble Media Resource Channel” on Telegram, Proud Boys member Jeremy Bertino saluted Seagraves under his nickname, writing, “POYMFM ROOSTER.” “POYMFM” is an acronym for “proud of your mother f*cking boy.”
The “about” page for the Noble Media Resource Channel, which features a self-referential photo of Bertino with Chairman Enrique Tarrio, describes him as the “Soda City spokesperson,” a reference to Columbia, SC, and says, “Get the latest in Proud Boys news right here on your only source of information and a direct line to the PB.”
At an event that was billed as a free-speech rally in Chapel Hill, NC in June 2017, Seagraves introduced Augustus Sol Invictus, a white supremacist who was one of the listed speakers for the Unite the Right rally, held in Charlottesville, Va. two months later. At the time, Invictus was a national organizer for the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights, which was conceived as the “tactical defense arm” for the Proud Boys. After introducing himself in Chapel Hill as “the commie slayer,” Invictus invited people in the audience to “join the Alt-Knights of the Proud Boys who are here with us today.”
Invictus was charged with weapons and domestic violence offenses in Rock Hill, SC in December 2019, and accused of choking his wife and putting a gun to her head. A York County, SC judge revoked Invictus’ bond in May 2020 for violating a no-contact order with his wife.
Invictus was sued by Charlottesville residents injured in the violence at the Unite the Right rally, along with dozens of other white supremacist leaders and organizations, and was found liable for conspiracy to commit racially motivated violence in a default judgment.
Students at NC State and other leftists from the Raleigh area protested the university’s decision to absolve Seagraves of wrongdoing in March 2021.
Chancellor Randy Woodson told faculty members during a meeting in January 2021 that the course of the investigation “it was made clear that while some of the online behavior attributed to this individual, some of which he denies, but regardless it’s done on his own time and not, unfortunately, at least for those of you that believe this is offensive — and that’s true of many people — it’s not subject to the State Personnel Act, and that doesn’t allow for dismissal because no laws or policies were broken.”
Bertino, the South Carolina Proud Boy, told followers on his Telegram channel, with upwards of 1,000 subscribers, that he believes Seagraves was murdered.
“This is murder,” Bertino wrote on Monday evening. “I am telling you now that when they failed to get Chadwick fired they put a hit on him. Watch your backs, boys. They are trying to kill us. Don’t get caught slipping. Rip Rooster.”
Caldwell, the spokesperson for the Johnston County Sheriff’s Office, told Raw Story there is no evidence to support any scenario other than that Seagraves set the fire that took his life.
“No, not at all,” he said. “Deputies that were there saw him. There’s no indication that he’s been murdered. We have no reason to believe he is the victim of a murder.”