US man gets life for beheading father as political statement and posting video

The Guardian

2 days ago

A Pennsylvania man has been ordered to spend the rest of his life in prison after being convicted of fatally shooting his federal government employee father, decapitating him and brandishing the severed head in an online video that called for the execution of other civil servants.
Justin Mohn, 33, was sentenced on Friday after a five-day trial by a judge that found him guilty of murder and terrorism charges, Pennsylvania state prosecutors said.
Mohn's conviction is the first time anyone in Pennsylvania has been found guilty under the state's terrorism statute. The local district attorney, Jennifer Schorn, said 'the chilling use of [Mohn's] father's death as a political statement' helped 'underscore the extreme danger he poses'.
Among the most damning pieces of evidence in the case was a 15-minute video published on YouTube after the slaying of Michael Mohn, 68, who had long worked for the US army corps of engineers. In it, Justin Mohn, his son, spouted rightwing conspiracy theories, lobbied for militias to torture and execute his father's fellow federal government colleagues, and denounced immigration, LGBTQ+ people, the Black Lives Matter movement and antifascist activists.
YouTube removed the video after it had accumulated about 5,000 views in a few hours, the Washington Post noted.
Denice Mohn, Justin's mother, came home from work on 30 January 2024 to find her husband dead and beheaded in the bathroom, with a machete and a large knife nearby, said Schorn's office.
An autopsy determined her husband had been shot in the head before his decapitation.
Denice said at trial that she believed Justin had a normal relationship with his father, but he had struggled to retain employment after graduating from Penn State, which he blamed on the federal government and the educational system.
After killing his father, Justin Mohn drove to a national guard training center, where he evidently hoped to convince troops to turn on the federal government, prosecutors alleged.
He acknowledged midway through his trial that he had killed his father. But he maintained that the killing resulted from an attempted citizen's arrest that he botched when his father resisted.
Prosecutor Edward Louka dismissed Justin Mohn's explanation as 'complete and utter nonsense'.
'He ambushed his dad when he was most vulnerable,' Louka said in court. 'His plan was to murder a longtime federal employee, his father, and order the murder of other federal employees for his warped belief that the government adopt his policies above all else.'
After Pennsylvania state court judge Stephen A Corr returned the guilty verdict, Mohn's sister read a statement in court describing how her family felt 'violated by the defendant's extremely calculated and premeditated betrayal and from the posting of the horrifying video that he published online for thousands to see'.
'The awareness that my own brother is capable of such atrocities is terrifying,' Stephanie Mohn said in court, according to prosecutors' statement. 'That person we grew up with is long gone.'
In their statement, prosecutors made it a point to allude to Michael Mohn's reputation of being 'a loving husband' as well as a 'father who was always there for his children'.
'Notably, he continued to provide significant emotional and financial support to … Justin, even into his 30s, as Justin struggled with unemployment and finding his path,' Schorn's office said of Michael. 'This tireless support underscored Michael's deep, unconditional love.'