[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
A few months ago, a shocking crime was uncovered when the body of a 3-year-old girl was discovered by her uncle. And what was already a family tragedy got even worse as the poor child’s mother was then charged with her murder.
During a preliminary hearing last week, we got our first explanation for the gruesome crime. And it’s not a good one.
According to the affidavit at the time, Justine M. Johnson and her daughter, Sutton M. Mosser, were staying with her mother — the little girl’s grandmother and primary caregiver. One awful day in September, her brothers realized they hadn’t seen Sutton. Her 17-year-old brother testified last week that when he found his sister, it looked like she “was doing lines” in the bathroom. When he asked about her daughter, Justine told him, “Mind your own f**king business”; he added that he didn’t immediately jump to a horrible conclusion, however, explaining:
“That’s like her normal response.”
A few hours later, however, the teen returned home after going out and saw what appeared to be a tiny foot poking out of a black garbage bag, per the Oscoda Township Police, leading him to call 911 with his family. Police quickly found the bag with a foot sticking out. Stuffed haphazardly inside was Sutton’s body, wrapped in a comforter. She had been stabbed multiple times, apparently with three different knives; the pathologist testified later the child had wounds on the neck, chest, and abdomen, including one so deep her intestines were falling out. That was September 16 — just two days after her 3rd birthday.
Related: Teen Sentenced For Murdering Young Siblings To Free Them ‘From Satan And Hell’
Justine’s fingerprints were the only ones on the garbage bag, and her bloody clothes were found inside. The 22-year-old was caught hours later walking the train tracks and charged with felony murder and first-degree child abuse, to which she pleaded not guilty.
However, that plea doesn’t mean she’s pointing the finger at someone else — but that she’s saying she’s not to blame?
According to records obtained by MLive, Child Protective Services investigator Ryan Eberline testified on Friday that the young mother told him she had been on drugs and was seeing and hearing things:
“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.”
She claimed not to remember, but in telling him about the hallucinations’ orders, she did seem to admit to following them. Eberline explained:
“She was getting hallucinations from the TV that had instructed her to take her daughter’s life or they would kill her.”
That messenger ordering her to kill? SpongeBob Squarepants. Eberline revealed:
“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.”
JFC. It’s unclear if this woman is planning to plead not guilty by reason of insanity — but it certainly seems like she wasn’t in her right mind. Who could be and do that? Even so, we can’t imagine it’s going to be easy to garner any sympathy considering what she allegedly did to that helpless child. Especially since she brought the madness upon herself by choosing to do drugs while having a young daughter.
[Image via Iosco County Sheriffs Office/Nickelodeon/YouTube.]
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