Remember when Hillary Clinton killed all those people? Not that time, or that other time. The most recent time she killed all those people. You know, two former state senators in Arkansas and Oklahoma, both found shot dead one day apart. And her brother. And a bunch of NYPD officers. And a bunch of other people. Yeah, that time.

What happened to all that? After a brief burst of activity on conspiracy theory social media, the murders all seemed to disappear from the news. Which seems like an unlikely thing to happen to a string of murders committed by one of the most well-known political figures in the world.

Unless, of course, they weren’t connected and had nothing to do with Hillary Clinton at all. But that can’t be, right? So why is nobody talking about these deaths anymore? There’s a really good reason, of course. The conspiracy theory community thrives on connecting things that aren’t connected, and casting suspicion on things that have reasonable explanations. And once those explanations come out, and falsify the conspiracy theories, the community moves on to the next thing, safe in the knowledge that its members will either forget all about it, or not acknowledge the explanations.

In case you’d forgotten, it all began with the death of two former state representatives, Linda Collins-Smith of Arkansas on June 4 and Jonathan Nichols of Oklahoma the next day. Both were found dead in their homes of a single gunshot wound. Naturally, both were instantly connected to the Clintons: Collins-Smith through her apparent advocacy for tracking down money stolen by the Clinton Foundation and funneled into child trafficking; and Nichols through…something.

https://twitter.com/Gokai_Lupin_Red/status/1136291888816951298

In case two politicians dying the same way one day apart wasn’t “interesting” enough, you had the suicides of four NYPD officers within a few weeks, including two high-ranking officials. Supposedly, they all had some connection to the Clintons or to Anthony Weiner’s laptop, the contents of which were supposedly so horrific and vile that they drove the hardest men in the police force to tears and spontaneous vomit.

The deaths have continued to pile up, as deaths do when you examine a large enough cohort (all people) over a long of time (the entire lifetime of the Clintons.) Just a few days ago, the world was stunned as former California rep William Dannemeyer, one of the first figures to popularize the infamous “Clinton Body Count” list, was himself found dead. Interesting, right?

So did Bill and Hill actually kill all these people, just like all those other people they killed and will eventually kill?

https://twitter.com/manny_ottawa/status/1148386038743785473

Mysterious deaths are mysterious because they’re not supposed to happen. People don’t usually get murdered or shot, so when they do, it’s suspicious. Most of the time, the people who investigate these things do indeed investigate these things and find the actual reasons they took place, thereby reducing the amount of mysteriousness. And all of these deaths as it turns out, had perfectly reasonable explanations.

We already had a good idea of what happened to Linda Collins Smith: she was apparently shot dead by a former staffer, who was taken into custody less than two weeks after the shooting and charged with “capital murder, abuse of a corpse and hindering physical evidence.” None of the Clinton connections were ever proven to exist, and the case appears to be something much closer to a friendship gone sour than a deep state hit.

Jonathan Nichols’ death via gunshot was supposed to be the next in the Clintons tying up loose ends, even though nobody actually bothered to explain how he was connected to them. In the end, his death was investigated by police in Norman, OK, and closed as a suicide.

So either local police in deep red states are also part of the Clinton Conspiracy, or these killings are what we’ve been told they are.

The same is true of the NYPD suicides. The cluster of four deaths seems to have abated, thankfully. And in the weeks since the last suicide was found, no connections have been found to the Clintons, nor any reason why the untimely deaths of four NYPD figures with different jobs in different boroughs would have anything to do with each other.

Hillary’s brother Tony Rodham’s cause of death still hasn’t been announced, which is a little odd for a death that took place over a month ago. But that doesn’t mean it’s anything nefarious – and there’s been no announced investigation or police activity around it.

And William Dannemeyer? They didn’t even bother with conspiracy theories for his death, given that he was 89 and had been suffering from dementia for years. Presumably if the Clintons were going to knock him off, they would have done it at least a few years earlier. Seriously, if the Clintons habitually kill their enemies, what possible excuse is there for him being allowed to live?

The point of all this is that mysterious deaths make for splashy headlines and alluring tweets – especially when a few deaths take place close together and could plausibly be linked. But when those links aren’t found, the conspiracy theorists who tried linking them move on to the next thing and hope you’ll forget about them being wrong.

Don’t forget that they’re wrong. Don’t let them off the hook. Don’t be satisfied with hokey explanations that they’re “just asking questions” or “not saying they’re related, and not saying they’re not.”

Remember that behind all these deaths are loved ones left behind, many seeking answers to what happened to the person they cared about. Once the conspiracy circus has left town, the pain remains.