[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
It didn’t seem like this case could get any more disturbing, but… damn.
A 33-year-old conspiracy theorist named Justin Mohn was arrested on Tuesday after allegedly displaying his father Michael Mohn‘s decapitated head in a YouTube video. The QAnon linked author had apparently murdered him — and ranted in the video about how this kind of violence was necessary because of Joe Biden. Sigh. Justin — who has written books suggesting his fellow right-wingers murder their own family members — was charged with first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse. Now we know more about his alleged crimes.
Bucks County DA Jennifer Schorn revealed some of the more grisly details in a press conference on Friday. First was the horrifying fact Justin’s mother Denise was the one who came home and discovered her husband’s headless body in the bathroom, “in a large amount of blood”. We cannot even imagine. While police received multiple calls about the YouTube video, it was actually a call from a neighbor’s home that first brought police to the Middletown Township residency. After finding her husband’s body, Denise fled the home and went to a neighbor, whom she asked to call the police for her.
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When police arrived, they found Michael’s head in another room “wrapped in Saran wrap and in a cooking pot.”
Contrary to earlier reporting, Justin’s YouTube video was actually titled “Mohn’s Militia” — it was described as a “call to arms for American patriots.” DA Schorn confirmed that in the video — which was filmed in the room where they found Justin’s bloody gloves — Justin held up a human head covered in plastic. He also told viewers his father, a federal employee, was “in hell for being a traitor to his country.” He called himself “the commander of America’s national network of militia” — and told his followers they should also begin torturing and killing federal employees, too.
It seems Justin was intent on beginning his bloody revolution in earnest. He was caught sneaking into a National Guard training center at Fort Indiantown Gap. Schorn explained he had “climbed a barbed wire fence, and entered the secured military installation” but was caught immediately. Per Schorn, the suspect explained to police he had gone to the Fort “in an effort to mobilize the PA National Guard to raise arms against the federal government.” He also believed he could convince Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro to “join forces” with him.
When arrested, Justin was holding a loaded 9mm SIG Sauer pistol with a single round missing. Schorn explained Justin’s father had been killed by a single gunshot wound to the head. He was only dismembered after his death. Shockingly this handgun was only purchased the day before the murder. And somehow that was legal! The DA lamented:
“There was nothing legally precluding him from buying that gun. In fact, our investigation has revealed he surrendered his medical marijuana card so as to be eligible to legally possess a gun.”
The whole world would have been better off with him having the marijuana card than a gun. Schorn said the full day of planning demonstrates to her office “the clear state of mind that he was in having planned what he ultimately carried out.” Not only do they believe he was aware of his actions, he was “proud of his consequences.”
Apparently Justin had never been committed, nor did he have a history of mental illness. He also didn’t have a criminal record. Middletown Township Police Chief Joseph Bartorilla also spoke at the press conference, and explained his name had come up in a report last year. An employer had contacted the police with a “concern about Justin’s behavior at work and wanted legal advice on how to go about terminating his employment”:
“I think there was concern over what Justin was writing, some novels he was writing, but we did not have contact with him after that. I don’t think we needed to have contact with him after that.”
Nothing illegal was happening. So nothing was done. But it was clear he was already scaring people who had to interact with him on a regular basis. Still, there were people listening to him. Schorn noted how many viewers his YouTube stream had, calling it “quite horrifying.”
Justin is being held without bail. His next hearing is next Thursday, February 8. You can see the presser for yourself (below):
[Image via Fox29/YouTube/Bucks County District Attorney’s Office.]