Man accused of beheading his father in Bucks County home and posting gruesome video online

Justin Mohn reportedly murdered his father in the home they shared, then posted a video where he said his father “is now in hell for eternity as a traitor to his country” and called for “a second American Revolution.”

UPDATED, 7:30 a.m., Feb. 1

LEVITTOWN  — A man accused of beheading his father in Bucks County and posting a gruesome video on social media that shows him holding up the severed head has been charged with first-degree murder and abusing a corpse, authorities said Wednesday.

The father, identified as Michael Mohn, was found beheaded in the bathroom of his home in Bucks County’s Middletown Township on Tuesday night. Police said the son, identified as Justin Mohn, 32, was arrested about 100 miles away in Fort Indiantown Gap. Court records said Justin Mohn lived at the same address.

“We didn’t know where he was going and what his intentions were when he left here,” Capt. Pete Feeney of the Middletown Township Police Department said. “Fortunately, we were able to get a location based on his cellphone.”

Police said Michael Mohn’s wife, Denice Mohn, arrived home and found the body about 7 p.m. Tuesday. Responding officers found Mohn’s body in the first floor bathroom and his head inside a plastic bag in a kitchen pot placed in a first-floor bedroom, according to a police affidavit. 

Officers said they found bloody rubber gloves in a bedroom on the second floor. Denice Mohn said her husband’s white Toyota Corolla and her son were both missing.

Police said the YouTube video, which was more than 14 minutes long, showed Justin Mohn picking up his father’s decapitated head and identifying him by name. Police said it appeared Mohn was reading from a script as he railed about the government.

According to LevittownNow, Mohn posted the video about an hour before the 911 call reporting the death, and called his rant a “call to arms for American patriots.”

Mohn reportedly identifies his father, who was in his late 60s, as a federal employee of more than 20 years, stating “He is now in hell for eternity as a traitor to his country,” while calling for a “second American Revolution.”

Mohn’s father was a federal employee, an engineer with the geoenvironmental section of the US Army Corps of Engineers Philadelphia District.

“We are deeply saddened to learn of the tragic death of our teammate Michael Mohn. … Our thoughts and prayers are with the Mohn family and we are focused on supporting our grieving employees at this time,” the district said in a statement. It referred any further questions to law enforcement.

LevittownNow also reported that Mohn made inflammatory statements in the video advocating for attacks on federal employees and properties, and expressed hostility towards illegal immigrants, President Joe Biden, senior federal officials, communists, “far-left woke mobs,” Black Lives Matter supporters, and members of the LGBTQ community.

Mohn was driving his father’s car when police took him into custody without incident, Feeney said.

Mohn, who also was arrested on a weapons possession charge, was arraigned early Wednesday and held without bail. He is scheduled for a hearing on Feb. 8. 

The neighborhood where the body was found is a suburban development of single-family homes. No one answered the door early Wednesday.

In a statement, YouTube said the video, which was uploaded and not livestreamed, was removed for violating its graphic violence policy and Justin Mohn’s channel was shut down. Police said the video was online for about five hours.

Mohn, who also was arrested on a weapons possession charge, was arraigned Wednesday and held without bail with a hearing scheduled for Feb. 8. Police and prosecutors were expected to release additional details at a news conference Friday.

An attorney for Mohn wasn’t listed in court records, and a message seeking comment on his behalf was left at a phone listing for him. The district court office said it had no record of a lawyer representing him.

Mohn embraced violent anti-government rhetoric in writings he published online going back several years. In August 2020, Mohn published an online “pamphlet” in which he tried to make the case that people born in or after 1991 — his birth year — should carry out what he termed a “bloody revolution.” He also complained at length about a lawsuit that he lost and encouraged assassinations of family members and public officials.

Keystone senior community editor Patrick Berkery contributed to this report.