Man allegedly beheads his father and posts gruesome video calling for revolution
A man has been charged with first degree murder for allegedly beheading his father and then posting a gruesome video on social media calling for a revolution.
Justin Mohn was armed when he was arrested 100 miles from where his father, Michael, was found beheaded in the bathroom of his home in Levittown, Pennsylvania.
Police said Michael Mohn’s wife, Denice, arrived home and found the body about 7pm on Tuesday.
Alongside the body, officers found a machete and bloody rubber gloves, according to a police affidavit. Mrs Mohn told police her husband’s white Toyota Corolla and her son were missing.
Police said the YouTube video, which was more than 14 minutes long, showed Justin Mohn picking up his father’s decapitated head and identifying him by name.
It appeared he was reading from a script as he talked about the government, the Black Lives Matter movement and migrants, the police added.
In a statement, YouTube said the video, which was uploaded and not live-streamed, was removed for violating its graphic violence policy. The channel was shut down.
Mohn previously embraced violent anti-government rhetoric in writings he published online going back several years.
In August 2020, he published an online “pamphlet” in which he tried to make the case that people born on or after 1991 — his birth year — should carry out what he termed a “bloody revolution”. He also 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 ranted about the Biden government, immigration, fiscal policy, urban crime and the war in Ukraine.
He then drove his father’s car to Fort Indiantown Gap, where he was taken into custody, said Captain Pete Feeney, of the Middletown Township police department.
Officials at Fort Indiantown Gap were told late Tuesday that Mohn’s cellphone had pinged nearby, according to Angela Watson, communications director for the Pennsylvania department of military and veterans affairs.
Investigators caught up with him inside a National Guard base, where he was walking after having apparently jumped the fence. He had a gun when he was caught, Ms Watson said.
The house where the body was found is in a suburban neighbourhood of single-family homes.
Bart DeHaven, a neighbour, said he called police a handful of times since the summer after Justin Mohn sat on a raised manhole cover in a park directly across the street from his home and stared at his house.
“It’s just sad,” Mr DeHaven said.
Carrie McCarthy said she saw him walking frequently and sitting in the wooded area in the neighbourhood. She said someone sent her the YouTube video, which left her stunned.
“I screamed. I totally screamed,” she said. “I opened the video and I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s the guy I see every day.’”
Mohn, who also was arrested on a weapons possession charge, was charged early on Wednesday and held without bail. He is scheduled for a hearing on Feb 8.
