John Jefferson
Left: beheading suspect Justin Mohn (Bucks County DA). Center: victim Michael Mohn receives an award from in 2019 (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers). Right: suspect claims he tried to make a citizen’s arrest of his father (WPVI/YouTube).
A Pennsylvania son accused of beheading his father and posting a lengthy video on YouTube showing the victim’s head, only to claim later that the longtime “federal employee” victim had “resisted” a “citizen’s arrest,” may end up facing capital punishment if prosecutors get their way.
The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office announced after an arraignment Friday that prosecutors are reserving the right to seek the death penalty if 32-year-old Justin Mohn goes on to face trial and conviction for the alleged decapitation murder in January of his 68-year-old father Michael F. Mohn, a 20-year civil engineer in the Philadelphia area with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
In potentially seeking the death penalty, prosecutors said that they have cited the “aggravating circumstance” that the slaying took place “during the commission of a felony” at the victim’s home on Upper Orchard Drive in Levittown on Jan. 30.
That day, Middle Township police officers have said they found the victim headless in a downstairs bathroom, along with a machete in the bathtub, as the victim’s head was in a cooking pot in a bedroom at the residence and his son was on the run in his father’s 2009 Toyota Corolla. The machete, prosecutors alleged, was the one Justin Mohn used to cut off his father’s head before posting a 14-minute YouTube video showing what he’d done — even identifying the victim.
Prosecutors said that the defendant called his father a “traitor” and used the murder as a call to arms for like-minded individuals to kill other federal employees.
“Police later received information about a 14-minute video posted to YouTube, which showed Justin Mohn picking up the decapitated head of his father, identifying him by name and as his father. In the video, Justin Mohn ordered all militia and patriots across the United States to kill all federal employees. His father was a federal employee with the Army Corps of Engineers,” prosecutors said. “Mohn also listed specific federal officials who should be captured and publicly executed, including giving the name and address of a U.S. District Court Judge as one of his targets. Hours after the murder, Mohn was arrested at the National Guard Training Center in Fort Indiantown Gap, Lebanon County. The investigation revealed that Justin Mohn went to Fort Indiantown Gap in an effort to mobilize the National Guard to raise arms against the federal government.”
In September, defendant Mohn shocked outside of court as he provided an explanation for the extreme violence, claiming he was justified in using “deadly force” because his father “resisted” a citizen’s arrest.
After a court appearance that month, Mohn said that he “wasn’t expecting this” and that he “had a speech ready” but didn’t have it with him. In off-the-cuff remarks aired on local NBC affiliate WCAU, he stated, “I and a lot of other people around America believe that the federal government has betrayed America, they are destroying the country and we have to do something to take our country back.”
“He was a federal employee and betrayed me,” Mohn said of his father, before adding: “I was trying to perform a citizen’s arrest” and “[h]e resisted that citizen’s arrest.”
“It’s lawful to use deadly force in that event,” he claimed.
The suspect’s words tracked with details in the probable cause arrest affidavit, which said the defendant titled his YouTube video “Mohn’s Militia — Call to Arms for American Patriots” and stated “Mike Mohn is in hell for being a traitor to his country.”
All told, Justin Mohn is charged with first-degree murder, terrorism, robbery, trespassing, abuse of a corpse, theft, criminal use of a communication facility, and possession of an instrument of a crime.
Michael Mohn was honored as recently as 2019 with the “Outstanding Achievement Award,” which his colleagues noted was the “highest” annual honor for employees as they mourned the “untimely and tragic loss” of a “gifted innovator, a consummate professional, an invaluable mentor, and a dear friend.”
Marisa Sarnoff contributed to this report.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
Read the full article here