DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania resident is facing trial after allegedly murdering his father and uploading a video of the decapitation online while inciting others to revolt against the U.S. government. His trial is scheduled to begin Monday in the Philadelphia suburbs.
The accused, 33-year-old Justin D. Mohn, is charged with murder, corpse abuse, terrorism-related offenses, and more, following the 2024 murder of his father, Michael F. Mohn, at their Levittown home, where they resided with Justin’s mother. She discovered her husband’s body in the bathroom.
Authorities claim that Justin Mohn shot his father with a recently acquired handgun and then used a kitchen knife and machete to behead him. The 14-minute video was shared on YouTube for several hours before its removal.
Mohn was armed with a handgun when arrested later that day after allegedly climbing a 20-foot (6-meter) fence at Fort Indiantown Gap, the state’s National Guard headquarters. He had hoped to get the soldiers to “mobilize the Pennsylvania National Guard to raise arms against the federal government,” Bucks County District Attorney Jennifer Schorn said at a news conference last year.
Mohn had a USB device containing photos of federal buildings and apparent instructions for making explosives when arrested, authorities have said.
He also had expressed violent anti-government rhetoric in writings he published online, and the YouTube video included rants about the government, immigration and the border, fiscal policy, urban crime and the war in Ukraine.
Mohn’s defense attorney, Steven M. Jones, said last week he did not anticipate the case being resolved with a plea deal.
Michael Mohn, who was 68, had been an engineer with the geoenvironmental section of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In the video, Justin Mohn described his father as a 20-year federal employee and called him a traitor.
During a competency hearing last year, a defense expert said Mohn wrote a letter to Russia’s ambassador to the United States seeking a deal to give Mohn refuge and apologizing to President Vladimir Putin for claiming to be the czar of Russia.
