By Tom Winter, Valeriya Antonshchuk, Patrick Smith and Caroline Radnofsky —
NBC News
A Pennsylvania man was arrested after allegedly beheading his father and displaying his head in a gruesome YouTube video, in which he also spread right-wing conspiracy theories.
Justin Mohn, 32, is accused of killing his father, Michael Mohn, Capt. Pete Feeney of the Middletown Township Police Department told NBC News.
Mohn was taken into custody on suspicion of
first-degree murder, abuse of a corpse
and possession of an instrument with criminal intent, according to a court record released early Wednesday.
He was arraigned at 4:00 a.m. and denied bail, Feeney said.
Justin Mohn, 33, in a video posted on YouTube in which he showed his father's decapitated head.
Youtube
In the YouTube video, titled
Mohn's Militia — Call To Arms For American Patriots
, Mohn was seen wearing gloves and holding his father's head in a plastic bag.
Later, his head was observed on a pot.
Mohn claimed his father was a federal employee for 20 years and referred to him as a traitor.
He also called for the death of all federal officials and attacked the Joe Biden Administration, the Black Lives Matter movement, the LGBTQ community, and Antifa activists.
YouTube removed the video
, which was more than 14 minutes long, hours after its publication.
A YouTube spokesperson said in a statement that the video was removed due to 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 for our policies against violent extremism.
“Our teams are closely monitoring to eliminate any new uploads of the video,” the statement said.
In a police report filed in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, early Wednesday, Mohn is accused of murder and treating a corpse
“in a manner that he knows would offend sensitivity
. ”
The third charge concerns possession of a machete, with intent to use it for criminal purposes.
The same report describes the scene that officers saw when they arrived at the Mohns' home Tuesday night.
“Officers located a deceased male in the first floor bathroom with a large amount of blood around him,” according to the report.
“The victim had his head separated from his body.”
The head was found inside a kitchen pot, wrapped in a plastic bag, located in an adjacent bedroom.
The victim was identified as Michael F. Mohn, who lived at the same address as the defendant.
A police officer guards the entrance to a home after a dead man is found in Middletown, Pennsylvania, on January 30, 2024. via WCAU
The report adds that his wife (and Justin Mohn's mother), Denice Mohn, had last left the house at 2:00 pm on Tuesday, when they were both home.
When he returned, her son was missing and her husband had died.
Mohn has filed at least
three lawsuits against federal agencies
, including the U.S. government, alleging that he was negligently forced to take out student loans between 2010 and his graduation from Penn State University in 2014, according to a court filing.
He paid $2,000 in filing fees and, after they were dismissed, requested that Judge Kearney J. withdraw from the case, accusing him of bias and a financial conflict of interest.
In a legal opinion on the case, Kearney called the allegations “entirely speculative and without a factual basis” and called Mohn's complaints “inaccurate allegations by a disappointed college graduate.”
[A young man kills his parents and blames alleged thieves after alerting the police in California]
Mohn was very active on social networks, where he promoted the music he made and books he authored, including dystopian science fiction.
A nonfiction book published in 2017 on Amazon, titled
The Revolution Leader's Survival Guide
, contains the transcript of a letter to then-President Donald Trump warning of “a peaceful revolution led by the author, if positive change does not come to the United States soon.” and to the world.”
The Bucks County District Attorney's Office said in a statement Tuesday night that Middletown police were called at 7:00 p.m. to “a report of a deceased male” on Upper Orchard Drive in the county. area, near the border with New Jersey.
“The call to emergency officers came from the victim's wife.
When officers arrived, they located the deceased man in the bathroom,” the statement said.
Police arrested a person of interest, who was the deceased's son.
Police Chief Joseph Bartorilla assured reporters that the son was not at home when officers arrived, but he was found about 100 miles away and detained shortly before 11:30 p.m.
The man was arrested at Fort Indiantown Gap, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a base that has a National Guard training center.
It was not clear why he was in the area.
When asked if police had had any prior contact with the person in the video, Detective Lt. Stephen Forman of Middletown Police noted that they had had a couple of contacts with him, some 10 years ago and some more recent.
Additionally, he added that the investigation was active and ongoing and that they anticipated having a press conference later.
Feeney said early Wednesday that the YouTube video appeared to show Justin Mohn and was the same footage that law enforcement was already aware of.