Q&A: Coffin it up

He doesn’t exist in the physical realm.

But for the chronically online who follow Arizona politics, William Coffin is a household name.

Coffin is one of several Twitter personalities that have blown up in the past five years while using a pseudonym or taking on a fictional identity — like his colleague, the ruthless geriatric liberal and memelord known as The Real Thelma Johnson, or “MeeMaw.”

But while Twitter is a deeply unserious place, the man behind the Coffin curtain isn’t playing games.

He describes himself as a “Breaker of Liars and Hypocrites” and has amassed a following of more than 28,000 accounts for his relentless pursuit of less-than-honest politicians. From the state’s top figures to long-shot candidates, no one is safe from his curious, penetrating eye.

Most recently, Coffin has gone down the rabbit hole investigating whether MAGA fanatic and GOP Rep. Rachel Keshel (formerly Jones) actually lives in the district she represents, which has led to digital fireworks. Coffin has asked Keshel to prove that she lives in the district, but she hasn’t.

Instead, Keshel has fired back, and while not directly refuting Coffin’s research, she’s accused him of harassing her. In fact, Coffin told us yesterday that he received communication from a court clerk suggesting that Keshel is suing him in a protective order case, details of which aren’t available at the Pima County Superior Court’s website yet.

But the Keshel back-and-forth is just the latest in a long string of investigations Coffin has undertaken into the lives of officials and political candidates. He’s pulled up records of receipts for Avondale Councilwoman Jeannette Garcia, Republican congressional candidate and former NFL player Jerone Davison, Show Low-based Trump store owner and candidate Steve Slaton and Maricopa County Sheriff Jerry Sheridan, just to name a few.

We caught up with Coffin over the phone (“No Caller ID” appearing instead of a phone number) to discuss his background, methods, and what he’s digging into as the 2026 midterm elections approach.

The following was lightly edited for clarity and concision. (And to keep us from getting sued.)

My background’s in investment and law and finance and stuff like that, so I’m a pretty good investigator.

I really got my start doing some research on athletes — people that were cheating in marathons and triathlons. It got kind of dark for me, but while doing that I got good about finding things out about the cheaters and found that most of them were complete disasters in pretty much every aspect of their lives — pathological liars, financial issues, all sorts of stuff.

So I brought it over to Twitter and started looking at mortgage fraud, and found that I could basically throw a dart in my neighborhood and hit (someone committing) mortgage fraud. It’s basically people buying houses with principal residence mortgages and renting them out the next day as investment properties.

I used to consider myself probably center-right, and I’m obviously considered far-left at this point. I’m probably fiscally conservative and more liberal socially.

I first really got into Twitter just following some of the influencers and the algorithm would feed me, you know, people like Dom Lucre and all these cat turds. So I started kind of digging into them and probably gained quite a bit of a following by doing that.

And then I started looking more at the state and local politicians, primarily the America First MAGA type of people because, obviously, I’m interested in hypocrisy and liars.

In Arizona, I think I found 60 bankruptcies from Republican candidates and local influencers — people who are talking about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and that kind of thing. They’re doing massive bankruptcy, sometimes twice or three times in the last 15 years. So that’s their form of socialism.

The crazy thing about it is every time I look in a legislative district, I look at all the other candidates. I look at the Dems and I look at the Democratic influencers to the extent we have them here. And you know, there’s zero bankruptcy. Like, we’re talking 60 to nothing.

Probably luck in many respects — maybe a lack of luck in certain areas. And I think the content is good.

I think it was probably the 2022 cycle — when I really started the list, I guess.

Sure. I worked a little with StolenValor1. He left, I’m not sure if it was for mental health reasons or what, but he was pulling DD214s for a lot of people claiming they were veterans.

Thelma and I used to DM all the time and share each other’s stuff. I probably credit her with maybe five to ten thousand of my followers just from her sharing my things.

I think my stuff is a little more a mix of satire and facts — and maybe that confuses people sometimes. I don’t know how she gets that engagement. I know she (or he) gave up for about a year there.

(Laughing) It’s a great narrative.

We used to talk quite a bit before she went offline. And then she really never contacted me or shared anything after that, so I’m not even sure it’s her anymore.

I made the mistake of getting into genealogy probably 10 years ago. And so, I am a Coffin — they all come from Nantucket, or the majority of them originated in Nantucket.

He’s buried in Sleepy Hollow, which is kind of cool. He was just kind of the most, you know, jib-jabby looking kind of guy.

So I just had a fear of losing engagement and I’ve never wanted to change it. And it seems to trigger a lot of people.

Honestly, it starts with a Google search. That’s really all it is. But then you get into bankruptcies and PACER. I can find just about everything locally and in there and the superior courts.

It’s not so much a technique, it’s more of just, you know, relentlessness and continuing to pull the thread if something doesn’t make sense.

She’s a high-profile troll.

Basically, nine months after she was elected, she filed for divorce. I thought that was somewhat hypocritical for someone claiming her whole election was about God and her husband. (Laughter)

(She married Seth Keshel) a few months later. So I thought, well, what’s going on with their living situation?

I found that the love nest that he bought was located right on the border (of the district). It’s difficult to see — you have to enter the address into the GIS map — but the house is well into (Legislative District) 19.

So then she immediately got her dander up and started threatening everybody. So that’s how I know to keep going. I’m not going to stop asking that question until I know the answer, right?

I live in the 1st Congressional District, so (Republican candidates) Joseph Chaplik and Jay Feely, and then the Democratic side will be interesting as well. Amish Shah has always sort of been on the cusp and there’s a few others in there as well. So I’ll look pretty closely at that one. I have some other things to do on Chaplik that won’t be flattering.

The Scottsdale Council race I usually do a bit on, and Michelle Ugenti-Rita is running for that — she just can’t stop running.

I’m more cynical about it. Having delved pretty deep into things, I honestly do believe that, you know, if people like Wendy Rogers — where she doesn’t even live in her district — if nothing can happen to her, like why would anybody get involved in politics? From what I’ve seen there’s almost no campaign finance enforcement.

I feel that if the Democratic Party had its shit together, it could probably do something it hasn’t done for 25 years.

I’m more hopeful on the statewide races, unless Dems manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

I’m hopeful about the midterms and just generally cynical about the future of politics and elections in our two-party system.