Pennsylvania man accused of beheading father and posting video of his severed head to stand trial

A Pennsylvania man accused of killing his father and posting video of his severed head online — and calling for others to help him try to overthrow the U.S. government — is set to stand trial Monday in the Philadelphia suburbs.

Justin D. Mohn, 33, faces charges of murder, abuse of a corpse, terrorism related crimes and other offenses for the 2024 killing of Michael F. Mohn at the Levittown home where they lived with the defendant’s mother. She found her husband’s body in a bathroom.

Prosecutors have said Justin Mohn shot his father with a newly purchased pistol, then decapitated him with a kitchen knife and machete. The 14-minute YouTube video was live for several hours before it was removed.

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.