Man accused of beheading his father in suburban Philadelphia home is a Penn State alumnus
A man accused Wednesday of beheading his father in suburban Philadelphia and posting a gruesome video on social media that showed him holding up the severed head is a Penn State alumnus.
Justin Mohn, 32, graduated in 2014 from the University Park campus with a bachelor’s degree in agricultural business management. He first attended the university in 2010.
A message left Wednesday with two university spokespeople was not immediately returned.
Mohn was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder and abusing a corpse in the death of his father, Michael Mohn. He was found beheaded Tuesday in the bathroom of his home in Bucks County, where his son also lived.
The younger Mohn was armed and jumped a fence at a National Guard facility about 100 miles away when he was arrested Tuesday, a Guard spokeswoman told The Associated Press. He was never a member of the Pennsylvania National Guard.
Michael Mohn’s wife arrived home and found her husband’s body about 7 p.m. Tuesday, Middletown Township police wrote in an affidavit of probable cause. Investigators found Mohn’s body, a machete, a large kitchen knife and bloody rubber gloves, police wrote.
A YouTube video, which was more than 14 minutes long, showed Justin Mohn pick up his father’s decapitated head and identify him by name. It appeared Mohn was reading from a script, police wrote, as he railed about the government.
Mohn embraced violent anti-government rhetoric in writings he published online going back several years, the AP reported.
In August 2020, Mohn published an online “pamphlet” in which he tried to make the case that people born in or after 1991 — his birth year — should carry out what he termed a “bloody revolution.” He also complained at length about a wrongful termination lawsuit he lost, and encouraged assassinations of family members and public officials.
In the video posted after the killing, he described his father as a 20-year federal employee and called him a traitor to his country. He also espoused a variety of conspiracy theories and rants about the Biden administration, immigration and the border, fiscal policy, urban crime and the war in Ukraine.
Neighbors described Mohn as a regular walker in the suburban development of single-family homes, someone they recognized and described as weird.
In 2022 Mohn sued the Education Department for more than $10 million, alleging he was not properly warned he would not be able to repay his college loans used to finance his time at Penn State. He represented himself.
He attributed his struggles in finding a job and having to move back in with his parents to being perceived by employers as an “overeducated, white male.” His student loan payment was reduced to about $80 per month.
A federal judge denied his claim less than fourth months later, writing Mohn returned to court seeking to “affix blame for his economic condition on a student loan he agreed to repay twelve years ago to finance his college education.”
Mohn, who was also arrested on a misdemeanor weapons possession charge, was arraigned Wednesday and denied bail. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Feb. 8. A defense lawyer was not listed.
The Associated Press and Centre Daily Times reporter Matt DiSanto contributed.
