Police: Pennsylvania man faces charges after decapitating father, posting video on YouTube

Note: This story contains graphic descriptions of violence that may be offensive to readers.

LEVITTOWN, Pa. — A Pennsylvania man was arrested after he allegedly decapitated his father and showed the head on a video uploaded to YouTube, authorities said Wednesday.

Justin Mohn, 32, was arraigned at 4 a.m. on charges of first-degree murder, possession of an instrument of crime and abuse of a corpse, according to court records. Other charges may be filed, said Middletown Township police Lt. Pete Feeney.

Around 7 p.m. Tuesday, Mohn's mother, Denice, called police after she discovered the decapitated body of her husband, Michael Mohn, in the downstairs bathroom of their home in Levittown, a suburban outpost about 25 miles northeast of downtown Philadelphia.

When officers arrived, they found the father's head wrapped in plastic, inside a large pot, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by USA TODAY. Investigators located a machete and a large kitchen knife in the bathtub. Justin Mohn and his father were the only ones in the home for about five hours, police said.

According to court documents, Justin Mohn fled the scene in his father's car and drove to Fort Indiantown Gap, the home of a large National Guard Training Center, 100 miles away from the house in Levittown where his father's body was found.

Investigators in Middletown Township pinged Justin Mohn's phone and alerted the Fort Indiantown Gap Police Department that he was in the area. Officers soon discovered he had jumped a fence bordering the large military facility. Police chased him on foot and took him into custody without incident, said Angela Watson, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. He was armed at the time of his arrest, she added.

Feeney said investigators were still putting together a timeline of events early Wednesday, and it remains unclear why Justin Mohn fled to Fort Indiantown Gap.

“There are a lot of unanswered questions and he’s not talking to us about the incident," said Feeney, who was outside the Mohn house just before dawn Wednesday. "Well, he’s talking, just not about this."

Justin Mohn posts graphic video on YouTube

Around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Justin Mohn posted a 14-minute video on YouTube in which he "picks up the decapitated head of his father ... identifying him by name," court records say.

In the video, titled “Mohn's Militia - Call to Arms for American Patriots," he says his father worked for the federal government for over 20 years. He urged his followers to take action against federal employees, saying they should be “publicly executed for betraying their country.” In the video, Justin Mohn also railed against the Biden administration, the LGBTQ community and the Black Lives Matters movement.

The video had more than 5,000 views before YouTube took it down, citing violations of the platform’s policy on violent and graphic content.

After a review of the crime scene, investigators determined the decapitated head, room and rubber gloves at the scene "are the same as depicted in the video," according to court records.

Justin Mohn was denied bail Wednesday morning.

Justin Mohn sued government over student loans

In legal filings in the U.S. Eastern District Court in Philadelphia, the younger Mohn displayed his deep dissatisfaction with the federal government, specifically the U.S. Department of Education.

Since 2022, he has sued the U.S. Department of Education secretary Miguel Cardona and the U.S. Department of Education twice. Last year, he also sued the U.S. Attorney’s Office and The Attorney General of the United States. The court dismissed all the suits, which the younger Mohn filed pro-se, meaning he represented himself.

In the most recent court opinion in December, U.S. Judge Mark Kearney wrote Justin Mohn’s arguments in his latest suit, which sought $10 million, were similar to ones the court previously dismissed.

“He essentially claims the United States lent him money which he needed to repay under a student loan contract beginning in late 2014 but this loan allowed him to get a college education and he cannot find a satisfactory job as an overeducated white man to repay the loan,” Kearney wrote.

In his opinion, Kearney wrote that Justin Mohn graduated from Penn State University in May 2014 with a bachelor’s degree in agribusiness management.

Kearney – who Justin Mohn threatened by name in the YouTube video – wrote that Justin Mohn started repaying his student loans six months after he graduated, but he could not find full time work. 

He moved to Colorado to take a full-time job at a credit union, according to the opinion. He later took a full-time job with an insurance company for a higher hourly wage, though the opinion didn’t specify what it was.

“He views his work postgraduate years as ‘malemployment.’” Kearney wrote.

Contributing: Associated Press; Matthew Toth, Lebanon Daily News