More than 24 hours after police discovered a man decapitated in his own Bucks County home, his son was arrested and has been arraigned on murder charges. Court documents from Justin Mohn’s past show that he filed multiple lawsuits when he struggled to find a job after college and when he lost one of his jobs. NBC10’s Brian Sheehan shares reaction from neighbors.
Editor's note (Jan. 31, 2024, 6:38 a.m.): The details of this story are graphic and could be disturbing to viewers.
A Bucks County, Pennsylvania, man is accused of killing his father and then posting a YouTube video of him holding his decapitated head.
Justin Mohn, 32, was arrested and charged in the murder of his father, Michael Mohn.
On Tuesday, around 7 p.m., police were called to the Mohn home on Upper Orchard Drive in Levittown, Middletown Township, for a report of a possible death.
Get Tri-state area news delivered to your inbox.> Sign up for NBC New York's News Headlines newsletter.
When police arrived, they found the decapitated body of a man – later identified as Michael Mohn – inside the bathroom of the home. A large amount of blood surrounded the victim and both a machete and a large kitchen knife were found near the bathtub, according to a criminal complaint obtained by NBC Philadelphia.
Investigators also said they found Mohn’s head inside a plastic bag, which was inside of a cooking pot in the bedroom next to the bathroom. They later found rubber gloves with blood on them in another bedroom as well as on a desk.
The elder Mohn’s wife told investigators she had last seen her husband and their son, Justin Mohn, at home earlier that day around 2 p.m. When she returned home later in the day, she noticed her front door was unlocked and that her husband’s 2009 Toyota Corolla, as well as her son were missing, according to the criminal complaint. She called police shortly after.
Police later learned of a YouTube video that appeared to show Justin Mohn picking up his father’s decapitated head from a cooking pot and holding it up. The 14-minute, 35-second video titled “Mohn’s Militia – Call to Arms for American Patriots” showed Justin Mohn wearing the same type of rubber gloves that were found at the crime scene, investigators said.
In the video, Mohn picks up his father’s decapitated head and states, “he is now in hell for eternity,” according to the criminal complaint. He also refers to his father as a “traitor,” calls for the death of all federal officials and attacks Democratic President Joe Biden, the Black Lives Matter movement, the LGBTQ community as well as antifa activists, according to NBC News.
Investigators said Mohn appeared to be reading from a pre-recorded script during the video.
NBC News reported that YouTube removed the video hours after it was posted.
Detectives confirmed the gloves and decapitated head they found at the crime scene were depicted in the video, according to the criminal complaint.
How police captured Justin Mohn
Middletown Township Police began tracking Mohn's cellphone and it pinged near the Indiantown Gap National Cemetery about 100 miles away in Fort Indiantown Gap, a National Guard base in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, a spokesperson with the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs told NBC10.
“We didn't know where he was going and what his intentions were when he left here," Middletown Township Police Capt. Pete Feeney said. “Fortunately, we were able to get a location based on his cellphone.”
Police then contacted the National Guard around 9 p.m. for help in locating Mohn.
Mohn's phone pinged again just outside the National Guard base, officials said. Responding police officers found the Toyota Corolla just outside the base, according to investigators. The cellphone pinged once again inside the base and officers found Mohn walking on foot near office buildings, investigators said.
Police then requested help from Pennsylvania State Troopers and officers approached Mohn, according to officials. Mohn -- who was armed with a gun -- was taken into custody without incident around 9:25 p.m., according to investigators. The spokesperson said Mohn had jumped over the fence to gain access to the base prior to his capture. No one was injured while he was on the base, according to the spokesperson.
Mohn faced legal, financial struggles
Mohn was a graduate of Neshaminy High School and he went on to study at Penn State University, where he received a degree in agribusiness management in 2014.
However, according to court documents, he relied on student loans to fund his education and, when he struggled to find work after graduation, he filed at least three lawsuits against the federal government.
In those cases, NBC10's Brian Sheehan learned, Mohn alleged that the government, "negligently and fraudulently induced him to borrow money to pay for his education without sufficiently warning him of the possibility that he would face a difficult job market and could be unable to pay back his loan."
Courts dismissed the first two of these cases and a judge denied the third after Mohn didn't pay a $2,000 filing fee.
At that time, court documents noted, Mohn “swore to having over $2000 in his bank account and he only spent his money to buy marijuana for recreational and medical use.”
Also, Mohn took his former employer, Progressive Insurance, to court in 2020 after claiming that he was terminated as the result of sexual discrimination against men.
Court documents note that he was instead let go after he kicked open doors at the workplace in August of 2017.
Neighbors say Justin Mohn seemed 'unhinged': 'It's just sad'
The house where the body was found is in a suburban development of single-family homes. No one answered the door there early Wednesday.
Neighbors out walking dogs Wednesday morning described Justin Mohn as a regular walker in the development, someone they recognized and described as weird.
Bart DeHaven said he called police a handful of times since the summer after Justin Mohn sat on a raised manhole cover in a park directly across the street from his home and stared at his house.
“It’s just sad,” DeHaven said. “He should have got some kind of help.”
Carrie McCarthy said she saw him walking frequently and sitting in the wooded area in the neighborhood. She said someone sent her the YouTube video, which left her stunned.
“I screamed. I totally screamed,” she said. “I opened the video and I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s the guy I see every day, and I knew something was unhinged.’”
Justin Mohn remains behind bars charged with murder
Mohn is charged with murder, abuse of corpse and possession of an instrument of crime, according to online court records.
Mohn was arraigned early Wednesday and held without bail. He is scheduled for a hearing on Feb. 8. A spokesperson for the Bucks County district attorney's office said they did not expect to comment publicly about the case Wednesday.
An attorney for Mohn wasn’t listed in court records Wednesday morning and a message seeking comment on his behalf was left at a phone listing for him. The Associated Press emailed the court clerk’s office to see if he had a lawyer yet.
NBC News reached out to Google, the parent company of YouTube, for comment.
