A 22-year-old mother who allegedly stabbed her own 3-year-old daughter to death and stashed the body in a trash bag told a Child Protective Services investigator that SpongeBob Squarepants ordered the murder.
That’s according to Ryan Eberline, the CPS investigator who interviewed Justine Johnson in jail after the latter had been arrested on charges of felony murder and first-degree child abuse. Eberline testified in court Friday for a preliminary examination of Johnson, who is accused of killing her daughter, Sutton Mosser, on Sept. 16—just two days after her third birthday.
The grisly killing came to light after Johnson’s 17-year-old brother found a bag at the back of the house the family shared and noticed the toddler’s foot sticking out of it.
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According to Mlive.com, Eberline said in court Friday that drugs played a large role in Johnson’s psychotic break. The distraught mother, who reportedly cried throughout Friday’s court proceedings, told the investigator that she didn’t remember killing her own daughter.
“She told me that she didn’t remember the specifics of what happened at the time of what happened to Sutton, that she was experiencing hallucinations due to heroin withdrawal and not sleeping for approximately two weeks,” Eberline said.
Before the alleged murder, Johnson was at her mother’s apartment. As she walked home, she passed out in a graveyard, according to Eberline. When Johnson awoke and finally made it home, she thought the TV was talking to her and telling her to slay her daughter or die, the investigator said.
“She was getting hallucinations from the TV that had instructed her to take her daughter’s life or they would kill her. It was SpongeBob who was saying these things on the TV. If she didn’t do what she did to her daughter they would kill her. She said she was afraid for her life and she had lost her mind,” Eberline said.
Johnson faces life in prison if convicted. She is currently being held without bond, with a pretrial hearing scheduled for Feb. 28.
