A Pennsylvania man has been arrested after allegedly killing his father, before displaying his decapitated head in a gruesome YouTube video while spouting right-wing conspiracy theories.
Justin Mohn, 32, is accused of killing his father, Michael Mohn, police told NBC News.
Mohn was taken into custody about 100 miles away from the crime scene on suspicion of first-degree murder, abuse of a corpse and possessing an instrument of crime with intent, according to a court docket released early Wednesday.
He was arraigned at 4 a.m. and denied bail, Middletown Township Police Capt. Pete Feeney said.
In the YouTube video, which was titled “Mohn’s Militia – Call To Arms For American Patriots,” Mohn is seen wearing gloves and holding his father’s head in a plastic bag. Later, the head can be seen in a cooking pot.
Mohn says his father was a federal employee for 20 years and refers to him as a traitor, calling for the death of all federal officials, attacking President Joe Biden’s administration, the Black Lives Matter movement, the LGBTQ community and antifa activists. YouTube removed the video, which is more than 14 minutes long, hours after it was posted.
In a statement, a YouTube spokesperson said the video was taken down because of its “strict policies prohibiting graphic violence and violent extremism.”
“The video was removed for violating our graphic violence policy and Justin Mohn’s channel was terminated in line with our violent extremism policies. Our teams are closely tracking to remove any re-uploads of the video,” the statement said.
A police complaint filed in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, early Wednesday accused Mohn of murder and of treating a corpse “in a way that he knows would outrage ordinary family sensibilities.” The third charge relates to the possession of a machete, with intent to use it criminally.
The same report described the scene officers saw when they arrived at the Mohns’ address on Tuesday evening.
“Officers located a deceased male in the first floor bathroom with a large amount of blood around him,” it said. “The deceased male had his head removed from his body.”
The head was found inside a cooking pot, in a plastic bag, in an adjacent bedroom. It was identified to be that of Michael F. Mohn, who lived at the same address.
The report added that his wife and and Justin Mohn’s mother, Denice Mohn, had last left the house at 2 p.m. Tuesday, when both men were at home. When she returned home, her son was gone and her husband dead.
Mohn has filed at least three lawsuits against federal agencies, including the U.S. government, claiming they negligently caused him to take out student loans between 2010 and his graduation from Penn State University in 2014, a court filing shows.
He paid a filing fee of $2,000 and, after his claims were dismissed, he sought to have the judge, listed as Kearney J, recused from the case because of what he claimed was a personal bias and a conflicting personal financial interest.
In a legal opinion on the case, Kearney called the accusations “entirely speculative and without factual basis” and said Mohn’s complaints were the “inaccurate allegations of a disappointed college graduate.”
Mohn was highly active on social media, where he promoted his self-released music and books, including dystopian science-fiction.
A non-fiction book released via Amazon in 2017, titled “The Revolution Leader’s Survival Guide,” contains the 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.”
The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement Tuesday night that Middletown Township police were called to “a report of a deceased male” in Upper Orchard Drive in the township, close to the New Jersey border, at 7 p.m.
“The call to emergency dispatchers came from the victim’s wife. When officers arrived, they located the male deceased in the bathroom,” the statement said.
Police Chief Joseph Bartorilla told reporters that the son was not at the house when police arrived, but was found about 100 miles away and was arrested just before 11:30 p.m.
He was arrested in Fort Indiantown Gap, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which has a National Guard training facility.
It was not immediately clear why he was in the area.
When asked if police had any prior contact with the person in the video, Detective Lt. Stephen Forman from Middletown Township Police said they had had a couple of contacts with him, some as far back as 10 years ago and some more recent.
He said the investigation was active and ongoing and they anticipate having a news conference later in the morning.
Feeney said early Wednesday that the YouTube video both appeared to show Justin Mohn and to be the same video that law enforcement was already aware of. NBC.