A Pennsylvania man has been arrested for reportedly murdering his father and exposing his decapitated head in a grisly YouTube video while spewing right-wing conspiracy theories.
Police have charged Justin Mohn, 32, with the murder of his father, Michael Mohn. The victim’s age was not released by authorities, but public records reveal he was 68 years old.
According to a court docket filed early Wednesday, Mohn was arrested around 100 miles from the crime scene on charges of first-degree murder, mistreatment of a corpse, and possessing an instrument of crime with intent.
He was arrested at 4 a.m. and denied bail, Middletown Township Police Capt. Pete Feeney said.
Mohn can be seen wearing gloves and holding his father’s head in a plastic bag in the YouTube video titled “Mohn’s Militia – Call To Arms For American Patriots,” which was cited in a police complaint. Later on, the head is seen in a boiling pot.
Mohn claims his father worked for the federal government for 20 years and considered him a traitor, asking for the assassination of all federal officials and assaulting President Joe Biden’s administration, the Black Lives Matter movement, the LGBTQ community, and Antifa demonstrators. Hours after it was posted, YouTube pulled the more than 14-minute-long video.
According to a YouTube spokeswoman, the video was removed due to the platform’s “strict policies prohibiting graphic violence and violent extremism.”
“The video was taken down for breaking our graphic violence policy, and Justin Mohn’s channel was terminated in accordance with our violent extremism regulations. “Our teams are closely monitoring to remove any re-uploads of the video,” the statement stated.
Previous federal lawsuits
Mohn has filed at least three lawsuits against federal agencies, including the United States government, alleging that they negligently caused him to take out student loans between 2010 and his graduation from Pennsylvania State University in 2014, according to a court filing.
He paid a $2,000 filing fee and, after his claims were dismissed, tried to have the judge recused from the case on the grounds of personal bias and conflicting personal financial interests.
In a legal opinion on the issue, the judge described the claims as “entirely speculative and without factual basis” and Mohn’s objections as “inaccurate allegations of a disappointed college graduate.”
Mohn also sued his former company, Progressive Insurance, in 2020, claiming wrongful termination and sex discrimination against men. He was recruited as a customer support agent in October 2016 and fired in August 2017 after kicking in the facility’s doors, according to court papers.
A district court concluded that Mohn had failed to establish a case of discrimination.
When Mohn filed his complaint, he stated that his parents were sending him approximately $540 each month. According to the lawsuit, shortly before Progressive dismissed him, he traveled to Las Vegas to see if he could pursue a singing career.
He represented himself in the litigation.
Mohn was quite active on social media, promoting his self-released music and publications, which included dystopian science fiction.
A nonfiction book named “The Revolution Leader’s Survival Guide,” published by Amazon in 2017, includes a transcript of a letter to then-President Donald Trump warning of “a peaceful revolution helped led by the author if positive change does not come to America and the world soon.”
A gruesome scene
Denice Mohn, the suspect’s mother, discovered his father’s death and called police at around 7 p.m. on Tuesday.
When officers arrived at Michael Mohn’s family home in Middletown Township, they discovered him decapitated in a basement bathroom with “a large amount of blood around him,” according to a police report. A machete and a big kitchen knife were discovered in the bathtub.
According to the complaint, police discovered Michael Mohn’s head inside a plastic bag in a cooking pot in a bedroom near the bathroom. They also discovered bloody, transparent rubber gloves in another bedroom. In the YouTube video, the suspect is seen wearing matching gloves.
Denice Mohn informed authorities that she had last been home at 2 p.m., and her son was the only one present with his father. According to the complaint, when she arrived home that evening soon before phoning police, her son was missing, as was a car registered to her husband that had been parked in the driveway.
Police later stopped Mohn at Fort Indiantown Gap, about 100 miles from the crime site, while driving the car that had gone stolen from the family’s home. Fort Indiantown Gap, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, houses a National Guard training center.
“We didn’t know where he was going and what his intentions were when he left here,” Feeney told reporters. “Fortunately, we were able to get a location based on his cellphone.”
The phone rang at Indiantown Gap National Cemetery and again just outside the National Guard base, where officers discovered the car, said Angela Watson of Pennsylvania’s Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, which supervises the National Guard, on Wednesday.
Mohn had leaped over a fence to infiltrate the base, she claimed.
The National Guard and Pennsylvania State Police were both called in to assist in the search for Mohn, and officers apprehended him “without incident” about 9:25 p.m., according to Watson. She also stated that Mohn was “armed with a firearm.” Nobody was wounded while he was on the base.
Middletown Township Detective Lt. Stephen Forman stated that police have previously made contact with the suspect, some as far back as ten years and others more recently.
Court documents showed that Mohn did not have an attorney.