Killingly — After weeks of controversy, the man who covered his home in vulgar anti-Trump messages and openly carried a rifle on his property near the town’s middle school said the signs have come down.
But now he is out of a job and his wife has left their house.
Matt Berube, whose home on Upper Maple Street caused quite the stir after he started installing the explicit signs in early August, said the decision to remove the display was driven not by public backlash but by a matter of the heart.
“My wife has been in hiding since the people of this town frightened her away,” Berube wrote in an interview over Messenger, adding that she “fled” on Sept. 2 after residents attacked her and her appearance on social media.
“Part of my wife’s conditions for returning was that everything had to come off the house,” Berube said. “She has still not returned, but we are getting close.”
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Berube said he was fired last week from his job at Ivanhoe Tool & Die Company Inc. in Thompson, where he worked as a machinist and engineer. Berube said residents and co-workers who were unhappy with his signs launched a doxing campaign against him to “sabotage” his job.
“The environment of the company is extremely right-wing, and they just could not live with me having a voice, so people sabotaged my career. Basically, it was an inside job,” Berube said.
A representative of Ivanhoe Tool & Die Company Inc. declined to comment.
Berube alarmed residents last month with his large signs that used expletives to criticize President Donald Trump and to claim that the president has sex with children “just like yours” and is a liar who “makes us all less safe.”
When images circulated on social media showing Berube carrying a firearm on his front lawn and the roof of his home — just 250 yards from the entrance of Killingly Intermediate School — some residents questioned Berube’s sanity and feared that he could pose a threat to safety.
At the time, town officials said Berube’s actions were protected by the First and Second Amendments.
Berube said he had “every right to use every single inch of slack that our Constitution and our laws give.” Berube said he has never felt as though he “would snap or lose control” and “would never intentionally cross a line that could put me in prison.”
While some celebrated Berube’s display, others in town continued to criticize his behavior.
Berube said he was served with a no-trespass order from a man in town after Berube drove to the man’s home early in the morning “to make a whole bunch of noise and make all of his neighborhood really, really upset with him and to frighten his family.”
Berube said he did so because he blamed the man for “trying to get me fired from my job and frightening my wife away.”
Police could not confirm the existence of a trespass order.
While the signs are now gone, Berube said he is keeping up the public graffiti board on the edge of his yard that accepts “anything except hate speech.”
Berube has said previously that he hoped his display would disrupt right-wing echo chambers. Now, Berube said he feels as though he has changed Killingly forever.
“Someone will say this is my 15 minutes of fame. I’d rather they think of it as this is the mark I want to leave on this world,” Berube said.
a.cross@theday.com