A man accused of beheading his father in suburban Philadelphia 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.
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. A spokesperson for the Bucks County district attorney's office said they did not expect to comment publicly about the case Wednesday.
The neighborhood where the body was found is a suburban development of single-family homes. No one answered the door early 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 court clerk's office said it had no record of a lawyer representing him.
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