A 32-year-old man beheaded his father in the United States last Tuesday and showed his head on the Internet in a video that was available on the Internet for several hours. He himself said that he had killed him for “betraying his country.” The reason is that his father had worked for the federal government for 20 years and supported US President Joe Biden.
It was the mother who called the police after finding her husband’s remains in their Philadelphia home. She was in the bathtub next to a knife and a machete. Hours later, agents arrested him after jumping a fence at a National Guard facility about 160 kilometers from the crime scene. He now faces serious charges, including first-degree murder, possession of instruments of crime and desecration of a corpse.
The YouTube video, more than 14 minutes long, showed Justin Mohn raising his head and identifying his father by name. Police said it appeared he was reading a script in which he encouraged violence against government officials and called his father a traitor to his country. Michael Mohn was a federal employee, an engineer with the geoenvironmental section of the United States Army Corps of Engineers in the Philadelphia District.
“We are deeply saddened to learn of the tragic death of our teammate Michael Mohn. … Our thoughts and prayers are with the Mohn family and we are focused on supporting our grieving employees at this time,” the district said in a statement.
Police said Michael Mohn’s wife, Denice Mohn, came home and found the body around 7 p.m. Tuesday. Officers found the body, a machete and bloody rubber gloves. Denice Mohn told police her husband’s white Toyota Corolla and her son were missing.
In a statement, YouTube said the video, which was uploaded and not live-streamed, was removed for violating its graphic violence policy and that Justin Mohn’s channel was shut down. Police said the video was online for about five hours. Mohn, who was also arrested on a weapons charge, was arraigned Wednesday and held without bail with a hearing scheduled for Feb. 8.
Mohn adopted violent anti-government rhetoric in writings he posted online for several years. In August 2020, he published a “pamphlet” online in which he attempted to argue that people born in 1991 or later (his year of birth) should carry out what he called a “bloody revolution.” He also complained at length about a lawsuit he lost and encouraged the murders of family members and public officials.
In the video released after the murder, he described his father as a federal employee for 20 years. He also embraced a variety of conspiracy theories and rants about the Biden administration, immigration and the border, tax policy, urban crime and the war in Ukraine.
Mohn drove his father’s car to Fort Indiantown Gap, where he was taken into custody, said Capt. Pete Feeney of the Middletown Township Police Department. Facility officials were told Tuesday night that Mohn’s cell phone had rang nearby. He was walking and had a gun when they caught him.
Neighbors described Justin Mohn as a regular walker at the complex, someone they recognized for his strange behavior. “He should have received some kind of help,” lamented a local resident. Another explained that someone sent her the YouTube video, which left her stunned. “I screamed. I totally screamed. I opened the video and thought, ‘Oh my God, that’s the guy I see every day and I knew something was wrong with him.'”
