Pennsylvania authorities have arrested a 33-year-old man on a murder charge for allegedly decapitating his father in the home they shared—a grisly crime that went viral in a horrific, politically charged YouTube video.
An affidavit for the suspect, Justin Mohn, said his mom screamed after discovering her husband’s decapitated head inside their suburban Philadelphia home after returning from work.
Officers responded to the Levittown home just after 7 p.m. to find the gruesome scene, with police saying Mohn had apparently taken his father’s 2009 Toyota Corolla and fled.
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A criminal complaint for Mohn said officers found his father’s head inside a plastic bag that was placed in a cooking pot. Bloody rubber gloves were also recovered from a bedroom on the second floor, and a machete was recovered from a bathroom, police said.
“Officers located a deceased male in the first floor bathroom with a large amount of blood around him,” the complaint said. “The deceased male had his head removed from his body.”
Hohn was detained by military authorities hours later after he jumped the gates of a military installation in Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, reported the Bucks County Courier Times. Local cops were already on their way to apprehend Hohn there after his cellphone was pinged nearby.
Angela Watson, a communications director for the Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, told the Courier Times that Hohn was armed when he was apprehended but said he didn’t resist. He has been charged with murder and abuse of a corpse, and was denied bail on Wednesday morning. The slain father was identified as Michael Mohn.
Several local news reports, citing sources, connected a disturbing YouTube video, titled “Call to Arms for American Patriots” and uploaded by a man identified as Justin Mohn, to the crime.
During the 14-minute clip, which has now been taken down for violating YouTube’s policies on graphic content, a man sits in what appears to be a bedroom while holding up what he claims is his father’s severed head while ranting wildly about “far-left woke mobs” and the “traitorous Biden regime.” The man in the video, seen by The Daily Beast, claims that the head belongs to Michael Mohn, a federal employee.
“He is now in hell for eternity as a traitor to his country,” he says.
The alleged beheading and YouTube clip all occurred while the suspect’s mother, Denice Mohn, was out of the house. A criminal complaint said she left for work around 2 p.m. and returned around 7 p.m. to an unlocked door she opened to discover a nightmarish scene.
Citing court records, the Bucks County Courier Times reported that Denice’s screams were heard by a neighbor, who called 911.
In a statement, YouTube said it took the video down and terminated Mohn’s account because of its “strict policies prohibiting graphic violence and violent extremism.”
Other social media accounts for Mohn suggested he lived in fear that he was being followed. On a Spotify account in his name—that included a profile picture that matched Mohn’s YouTube—noted how “his life story is unbelievable and there may not be enough words to describe him.” One of his album titles was called “Justin’s Stalkers.”
Records show that Mohn has filed at least three lawsuits against federal agencies, including a claim that the government negligently caused him to take out student loans to attend Pennsylvania State University.
Public records show Michael and Denice Mohn were the owners of the home in question, which was the same address listed as being Justin Mohn’s residence in records. It remains unclear if Michael was a federal employee.
In the video, Mohn goes on to urge like-minded “patriots” to rise up against the federal government and even offers a $1 million bounty to anyone who can kill a number of high-profile U.S. officials. Police said it appeared Mohn was reading from a script, The Washington Post reported.
When asked about Mohn’s history of mental health issues, Middletown Township Police Chief Joe Bartorilla said, “I’ll just take a guess, without knowing for sure, I’ll say yeah. We’re getting contacted by some people in the community that know us, and know him and his family, and we’re hearing a lot. Obviously he’s well known in the community just by the calls we’re getting.”
“People who’ve known him lately, he seemed a little off,” the chief added. He declined to comment on the contents of Mohn’s video, only saying that investigators had seen it.
When reached by The Daily Beast, one former friend of Justin Mohn’s—who requested anonymity for fear of retribution—said he was “always a little off” but that the friend never thought he would become violent.
“He talked about his dad a lot,” the friend said. “He believed in all these conspiracies. The government is putting stuff in the water, they’re bugging places to listen to our conversations, stuff like that. His dad was always tied up in them somehow.”
