Machete found in bathtub of Levittown home where Justin Mohn beheaded father: Police
When police arrived at the Levittown home of Michael and Denice Mohn on Tuesday night the deadly and devastating scene quickly unfolded before them.
There was a bloody body in the downstairs bathroom. The man's head was missing. A machete and large knife were found nearby in the bathtub. And police would soon find Michael Mohn’s severed head wrapped in a plastic bag in a cooking pot in a bedroom next to the bathroom.
As the gruesome and shocking crime scene yielded physical clues, authorities at the time didn't know an online video posted to YouTube would lead them on a digital trail of evidence.
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There, for the world to see, was the man's son, repeatedly holding up his dead father's head for the audience, which ultimately grew to some 6,000 views, as their suspect spouted anti-government sentiments and called for public executions of all federal employees and seizure of federal buildings.
Justin Mohn, 32, who lived in the Upper Orchard Drive home with his parents, would be arrested hours later two hours away in Lebanon County, after police pinged his cellphone and found him armed on a military installation.
His intent for going there is still unclear.
Mohn was charged with murder and other offenses in the beheading of his father. Here is how the crime unfolded, according to the affidavit of probable cause.
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Michael and Justin Mohn home alone in Levittown
At 2 p.m., Denice Mohn, Justin's mother and Michael's wife, leaves the home for work. When she returns she finds the door unlocked, her son missing and her husband's decapitated body.
Her screams prompt a neighbor to call police. She too will call 911 for help.
Police place the murder between 2 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. when Justin Mohn takes to YouTube to post his graphic video, holding up his father's severed head, calling him a "traitor" after identifying him as a 20-year plus public worker. The video is filled with right-wing rantings against various left-wing organizations, and the federal government.
What police find in Upper Orchard Drive home of Justin Mohn
At 6:59 p.m., police receive a call for a “possible expiration” on Upper Orchard Drive. They are told that an “elderly male” was found in a downstairs bathroom “with a large amount of blood around him and that he had been decapitated.”
Arriving at the house, they find the headless body of Michael Mohn in a first floor bathroom, a machete and a kitchen knife in the bathtub.
By 8 p.m., authorities find Michael Mohn’s severed head wrapped in a plastic bag in a cooking pot in a bedroom next to the bathroom.
In another first floor bedroom they find several pairs of bloody rubber gloves. Denice Mohn tells the officers that her son, Justin, and her husband’s 2009 Toyota Corolla are gone.
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Authorities learn of YouTube beheading video made by Justin Mohn
The officers learn that Justin Mohn had posted the grisly 14.5-minute video to YouTube titled, “Mohn’s Militia — Call to Arms for American Patriots.” They watched the video, in which Justin Mohn lifts his father’s severed head and says “he is now in hell for eternity” after identifying him as a longtime federal employee. Before the video ends, he lifts the head from the cooking pot and displays it again.
Authorities later confirmed Michael Mohen was a retired civil engineer with the Army Corps of Engineers.
Justin Mohn arrested and charged
By 10 p.m., with the investigation ongoing, police ping Justin Mohn's phone outside the gates of the military installation at Fort Indiantown Gap in Lebanon County. He is driving his father’s Toyota Corolla.
"We were contacted again with another ping on his cellphone that was inside the installation," said Angela Watson, communications director for the Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. "He had jumped one of the fences, and was apprehended on foot here at the installation without incident."
Watson added that Mohn was armed at the time of his arrest.
Mohn was arraigned and returned to Bucks County to face murder and other charges.
Reporter Matthew Toth contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Justin Mohn used machete in Levittown beheading of father, cops detail
