Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - SPONGEBOB MADE ME KILL MY 3-YEAR-OLD GIRL, Michigan Mom

Episode Date: February 14, 2022

A Michigan mother says that the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants threatened to kill her if she did not kill her 3-year-old daughter. Prosecutors say 22-year-old Justine Johnson stabbed the girl multiple times, then discarded her body in a trash bag at her home. Johnson says she had been experiencing hallucinations amid weeks of heroin withdrawal and lack of sleep. Johnson's brothers found the little girl hidden in a back room, a small foot sticking out of the trash bag. Police searched the home and found bloodstains on a closet door, couches and items in a bedroom. Three knives were also recovered. Inside the bag, investigators found Sutton’s body wrapped in a comforter and a pair of jeans that had traces of blood on them. Johnson is being held on charges of felony murder and first-degree child abuse in connection with the death of her daughter, Sutton Mosser.Joining Nancy Grace Today: Stacey Honowitz - Assistant State Attorney (Florida), Sex Crimes & Child Abuse Unit, Author: "My Private Parts are Private", "Genius with a Penis - Don't Touch!" and “The Bully at School is Really Uncool”, staceyhonowitz.com, Instagram: @staceybhonowitz Dr. Angela Arnold - Psychiatrist, (Atlanta GA) www.angelaarnoldmd.com, Expert in the Treatment of Pregnant/Postpartum Women, Former Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Obstetrics and Gynecology: Emory University, Former Medical Director of The Psychiatric Ob-Gyn Clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital Dan Corsentino - Former Police Chief, Former Sheriff, Served on US Homeland Security Senior Advisory Board, Private Investigator www.dancorsentino.com  Dr. Kendall Crowns – Chief Medical Examiner Tarrant County (Ft Worth), Lecturer: University of Texas and Texas A&M, Affiliated Faculty: University of Texas Medical Branch Cole Waterman - Crime Reporter, MLive.com, Instagram: @dollarshort, Twitter: @ColeWaterman Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. SpongeBob made me do it. Okay, that kind of sounds laughable. SpongeBob made me do it, the cartoon character, who is literally a sponge with legs. But in the context of a dead baby girl, SpongeBob made me do it takes on a whole different light, doesn't it?

Sometimes excuses are, when you first hear them at first blush, laughable. But you know what? Take a listen to this. Hour Cut 1. Our friends at CrimeOnline.com. 22-year-old Justine Johnson has her own home. But needing extra help taking care of her 3-year-old daughter Sutton, she moves back in with her parents and brothers. Justine's older brother, Nestle Johnson Jr.,

says two days after celebrating her third birthday, Sutton and her mother were at home as usual when he left for work around 2.30 p.m. When he returned home around 4 a.m., he asked his 17-year-old brother where their sister and niece were. Looking around the house, their brothers can't find Justine or Sutton anywhere. However, the younger brother spots something when he goes to the back of their house. He sees what appears to be a human child's foot sticking out of a bag, and Justine Johnson is missing. Okay, I want to hear that one more time. I want it to really soak in. Could you play that one more time? This is Dave Mack, our friend at CrimeOnline.com. 22-year-old Justine Johnson has her own home.

But needing extra help taking care of her 3-year-old daughter Sutton, she moves back in with her parents and brothers. Justine's older brother, Nestle Johnson Jr., says two days after celebrating her third birthday, Sutton and her mother were at home as usual when he left for work around 2.30 p.m. When he returned home around 4 a.m., he asked his 17-year-old brother where their sister and niece were. Looking around the house, their brothers can't find Justine or Sutton anywhere. However, the younger brother spots

something when he goes to the back of their house. He sees what appears to be a human child's foot sticking out of a bag, and Justine Johnson is missing. Justine Johnson, as you heard, had just celebrated her third birthday a couple of days before. Then the brothers find a child's foot protruding out of a bag there in the home. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here

at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. You know what started out as funny? Spongebob made me do it. It's not so funny anymore, is it? I'm just trying to take in because I'm thinking back about my children at age three. I've got some pictures on the table beside the kitchen where we eat supper every night, and there are pictures of John, David, and Lucy, and David, and they're when the children are really little. This child had just turned three years old. With me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now, Stacey Honowitz, assistant state attorney joining me out of Florida. Her specialty is crime on children. And can I tell you something? I prosecuted a lot of violent crimes on children, and those crimes are the ones that you never forget.

I remember, Stacy, one case I was prosecuting dealt with a little girl about three years old that was in a vegetative state forever. She was never, according to the doctors, ever going to come out of a vegetative state. And I was prosecuting her bio father for beating her senseless. She was covered in cigarette burns. She was beaten into a coma from which she never escaped. And you know, Stacey, when you want medical records, sometimes they're very hard to get. I had some medical records that I was using to prosecute the case. But of course, Stacey, during the trial, during the trial, which means there's no way I could have used the medical records because you have to, they're considered scientific documents and all scientific evidence has to be handed over to the other side of the defense well before trial.

So I couldn't use them no matter what I found in them. I was thumbing through them listening to what was going on in court and I saw where this, I think she was between two and three year old girl, Stacy, had also been raped. She had no hymen. That was the only time I have ever walked out of the courtroom. I just said, recess, and I don't even know what happened. The judge obviously granted a recess, and I walked out of the courtroom.

I was so upset, sad, overwhelmed, angry because like what had happened to this little girl? What she had lived through, you know, only later it hit me like a cement brick that I couldn't introduce it into evidence under the rules of evidence. It would be unethical and reversible. But, I mean, Stacey, how do you live with it every day? Because this happened years ago, and I'm still talking about it. You know, unfortunately, Nancy, I've been doing this for 33 years, and I see these cases all of the time.

And it's a horrible thing to say that nothing surprises me. But what we see is the big major cases that make the news that are in a fishbowl. I see these cases every single day, local cases in every courthouse, in every state all over. And so we have to be really cognizant of the fact that this really does go on just because we see the big heavy duty ones that make the national news. There are hundreds of cases every single day where kids are being abused and raped. And that's what I deal with. And it's a hard task, but someone has to do it. And I've chosen to do it. You're doing God's work because these people need to go to jail. I'll tell you why. Of all other crimes, I am completely convinced that child molesters and child abusers can and will never be rehabilitated. That goes for all sex offenders. But people that prey on children,

that's a whole nother animal. Also with me in addition to Stacey Honowitz is Dr. Angela Arnold, renowned psychiatrist joining us from the Atlanta jurisdiction. She specializes with a practice with women and I can't wait for her to tune up on all the mental instabilities this suspect may have had. Translation, none. She's just mean as hell. Mean as a rattlesnake. I'd pick the snake over picking her. Justine Johnson. If I had to be locked in a room alone with one of them. Dan Corsentino with me.

Former police chief. Former sheriff. Served on U.S. Homeland Security. Senior advisory board. Now PI at dancorsentino.com. Dr. Kendall Crowns. Chief medical examiner. Tarrant County.

That's Fort Worth. Now catch this. Lecturer, University of Texas, Texas A&M. With the faculty, University of Texas Medical Branch. It goes on and on. Thank you for taking time to be with us, Dr. Kendall Crowns. But first, to Cole Waterman, crime reporter with MLive.com, joining us out of Michigan.

You can find him on Insta at Dollar Short. I'm not even going to ask what that means, Cole Waterman. Cole Waterman, who is this mother? Justine Johnson. She is from a place called Oscoda. It's an unincorporated community in Michigan. What can you tell me about it? Well, Oscoda Township is near the city of

East Tawas. It's a popular beachfront location during the spring and summer months for Michiganders. It's not heavily populated. It's rural. Tawas itself is about less than 3,000 of the population. So Oscoda Township would be even less than that. I do know it's unincorporated, like where I grew up, which means kind of out in a very rural area. And I noticed also that there are about 3,000 personnel stationed nearby at Wordsmith Air Force Base. To Cole Waterman, Cole, did she have any other children or is this her only? As far as I've been able to tell, this is her only child. You know, it's interesting among many other factors to Dr. Angela Arnold joining us out of the Atlanta jurisdiction. I noticed that a lot of children end up dead between ages two

and three. Have you noticed that? Notice that springing to mind are the little Wells brothers, Orson and Orrin Wells, and Kelly Anthony, top mom, Casey Anthony's daughter, had, I believe, just turned two. So what is it about that age, between ages two and three, that the parents just can't handle? Well, first of all, I think that children are very vulnerable at that age. It's still, that's an age at which it's still a little bit easier to manipulate them. But by around the age of, you know, a baby's born, it's fun, you go through the first year of life, which is a very difficult time for most parents going through the first year of life. I loved it.

I loved my children's first year of life. And as they got older, it only got better. I'm wondering, let me just throw a layperson's analysis and you tell me if this makes sense. When a child is an infant, some people, not me, will just put it in a car seat and walk around and just lay it down um i've seen people at restaurants put their baby down with like a little cloth over the top of the car seat they don't look at the baby one time the whole time they eat it's just there on the floor um and i assume they do the same thing at home with a baby you can just put it down and if you're of that mind just leave it whether it needs you or not when there are two or three you can just put it down, and if you're of that mind, just leave it, whether it needs you or not.

When they're two or three, you can't do that. They get up and walk around and wander and can pick up the phone, escape from the door. You have to actually watch them and give them attention by that age, and some parents just aren't cut out for it. And also, Nancy, around that age, they are talking and they can push back a little bit. And sometimes I think parents start to realize, well, this is just getting harder. This is not getting easier at all. And how am I going to maintain this until this child is 18 years old? Guys, take a listen to our cut to this is Kendall Keys, WNEM 5.

The call to police came shortly before 4 Friday morning. Justine Johnson's two brothers had been searching for the 22-year-old at a home on Cedar Lake Road in Oscoda Township. Instead, they found a small human foot protruding from a trash bag. That foot belonged to three-year-old Sutton Mosser, Justine Johnson's daughter. According to the affidavit, officers located Johnson just before nine that morning, walking along the Lake State Railroad tracks. Officers took her to the police department and say when she was given the news of her deceased daughter, she appeared unemotional, calm. She told police she didn't want to talk about it.

Crime stories with Nancy Grace. You know, I just learned so much. Okay, forgive me, Jackie, but I want to hear that again. The call to police came shortly before 4 Friday morning. Justine Johnson's two brothers had been searching for the 22-year-old at a home on Cedar Lake Road in Oscoda Township. Instead, they found a small human foot protruding from a trash bag. That foot belonged to 3-year-old Sutton Mosser, Justine Johnson's daughter. According to the affidavit, officers located Johnson just before nine that morning, walking along the Lake State railroad tracks. Officers took her to the police department and say when she was given the news of her deceased daughter,

she appeared unemotional, calm. She told police she didn't want to talk about it. Okay, so many things to dissect right there. A lot of bombs went off in the background when I was hearing that. The first is that it's at four o'clock in the morning when the two brothers find the baby. What does that tell you? Why was it four o'clock in the morning, Cole Waterman? They've been searching since what time and they find the baby at 4 a.m.? Well, the older brother went to work in the afternoon and got home from work between 3.30, 4 in the morning, he testified. And when he got home, he asked his younger brother, you know, where's Justine?

Where's Sutton, the daughter? And he had just gotten home himself. They've been looking for her. And that's when they made the discovery. Mm-mm-mm. Then I learned she is found in a trash bag. To Dean Corsatino, former police chief, former sheriff, U.S. Homeland Security, remember that Tottenham Casey Anthony put Kelly in a trash bag and threw her away like trash? And I've had so many cases where the child is put in a trash bag.

How often have you seen that, Dan Corsentino? Well, I've seen it a couple times in the state of Colorado and once in a city where I was the sheriff. In this case, where the child is placed in a trash bag and the child is completely discarded, it is a tragic case because there's a disconnect that takes place, obviously, between the mother and the child, or if you will, the perpetrator and the child at that point in time. And clearly, there's no child that you expect to have become a victim of a predator like in this case of Justine Johnson, where she murdered her own daughter. To Dr. Kendall Crowns, Chief Medical Examiner in Houston, Dr. Kendall Crowns, you have done thousands and thousands of autopsies. Have you noticed that so often bodies are put in a trash bag? And what, if any, evidence can you, the medical examiner or your investigators, get from the trash bag? Trash bags are often used by individuals that are concealing a body. With adults, they'll cut them up and put them in pieces in the trash bag because they're very convenient.

And you can package them up and throw them out in the dumpster or wherever you want to ditch them. It's used a lot with children as well because, again, a whole child can fit in a trash bag. And it's a very convenient way of transporting them to decrease the amount of bodily fluids that are getting around as far as what evidence can be recovered anything that's left in the trash bag is up for grabs for taking evidence the bodily fluids of course are going to be still in there and anything else that's left in the trash bag often people will throw other sort of trash in there that's at the scene, like what they used to clean up with, rags, T-shirts, etc. And that was the case here, Dr. Kendall Crowns. You're exactly correct.

And let me just break it down the way I would for a jury. You said it in a very doctorly way, but trash bags don't leak. They don't leak blood or bodily fluids. They're easy, especially if they're the black trash bags, to put something in it and transport it with no one knowing what's in there. To Dr. Angie Arnold, before I go any further regarding the physical discoveries made in the trash bag along with this baby's body, the whole psychopathy of putting a body, a child's body, in a trash bag and discarding it. Look, I'm a JD, not an MD with a specialty in psychiatry. So feel free to jump in, Dr. Angie.

We need you right now. Nancy, as you said, the word discarded. And to me, that says so much more about the actual act of having killed this child. You know, everybody says, oh, SpongeBob made me do it. I didn't know what I was doing. Well, you knew enough about what you were doing to put the body in a trash bag so that nobody would figure, find out what you had done. And it is, it's just a discarding of somebody as, as if like, like someone else on the show said, like, they're just trash. So Nancy, I believe that the biggest problem with this is that it ultimately shows a lack of attachment between the mother and the child.

Because as you often say on your shows, you talk about the attachment that you have with your twins and the love that exudes from you because of that attachment that has developed between you and your twins. And that's very normal. But there are people that have babies, and they do not develop an attachment with that child. It is an attachment disorder. As far as I'm concerned, that is the only way that someone can heap this kind of violence on a young child. I knew you'd find some type of personality disorder that you could peg on this, but you unwittingly torpedoed a defense theory of some sort of insanity because she knew enough to put her baby, this gorgeous baby girl Sutton Mosser

who just turned three, in a trash bag to get rid of evidence. Now, you don't get rid of something if you want it to be seen or found. Well, I'm hearing something. Oh, it's Dr. Angie still talking. Go ahead. Nancy, I am not using that as an excuse at all. But I'm just trying to help people in the audience understand that there are people that do. You know, everybody just thinks you have a baby.

The baby's so cute. You attach to the baby. Nancy, I see it every day in my practice. Women who do not attach to the babies that they have carried and born. And for lots of different reasons, it is not not an excuse but it is something that exists okay give me one reason give me one legitimate reason one legitimate reason could could be postpartum depression okay babies babies born last i looked depression is not insanity. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

We are talking about the death of a girl, a baby girl, who had just celebrated her third birthday. As Dr. Kendall Crowns pointed out, a lot of times killers put ancillary evidence into bags, trash bags, or wherever they discard a body. And that's true in this case as well. Take a listen to our cut number three. This is Kendall Keys, WNEN 5. Back on Cedar Lake Road, state police were busy pouring over the scene. Inside the bag, Sutton's body was dressed in a pink and white disposable diaper wrapped in bedding. She had

been stabbed multiple times. There was also a sweatshirt and a pair of size 11 women's pants, pants that police say had, quote, a notable amount of blood on them. According to the affidavit, Johnson told police that she wore size 11 pants. One brother told police he saw her wearing the sweatshirt the day before and that she was using drugs at the time. You know what this reminds me of, Stacey Honowitz? I've got so many directions in which to go right now.

But speaking of pants, we all remember the Jodi Arias case, right? Where she murdered her lover, Travis Alexander, by stabbing him, I believe, 29. Although they couldn't really tell because there's so many stab wounds, they started overlapping each other. But about 29 times they shot him in the head, left him in the shower to decompose because even though they had broken up, she was angry he was taking another date on a trip to Cancun. Now, this is why I'm bringing her up, Stacey Honowitz. She left her digital camera in the dirty clothes, the bloody clothes that she put in the washer. And police found it.

And on the camera, they found a digital photo of her leg wearing her pants that belonged to her at the crime scene. There was something else in the photo, like part of the dead body or blood on the floor, something that placed those pants and that leg at the scene at the time of the murder. It's not the first time a pair of pants have been involved. Oh, I just thought of another one. My longtime friend and colleague, Daniel Horowitz's wife. Oh, she was beautiful on the inside and out. I spent a lot of time with them. She was murdered and a pair of jeans, just a pair of blue jeans, had been taken from the home. Turned out the perp had taken them to wear them because his clothes were so bloody. So pants, unusually, Stacey Honowitz, enter in as very critical evidence in a lot of cases. Explain. It really makes sense when you break it down. Well, listen, I mean, the old

adage is criminals are stupid. We know that. We see half the time cases are solved because the criminal has left a print at the scene. And I don't mean a physical print of his fingers. I'm talking about some sort of article of clothing and in this case, pants. And so when we're analyzing these cases and when we're looking for evidence to bring into court, that's a crucial piece of evidence that's going to match up. And what you have here is exactly what the doctor has previously said. You have somebody that has discarded this child. And in discarding this child, it's almost like she wants to get caught because she's leaving something of herself there. And we have all of these things to bring into court as evidence. The pants, the discarding, the leaving, whatever is found in the bag, coupled with her ability to say

to the detective, I don't want to talk about this right now. Let's talk about that for a moment. Now, I've had many, many defense lawyers argue, quote, and they always use the same tired phrase, there's no playbook for grief. That is complete and total BS. Go on and tell that to a jury. I'd be mad if you didn't. But when you clam up and say, I don't want to talk about it, I would have had a million questions. Where is she? What happened? Who did this? Where's the body? I'm going to go to her right now, this minute. I can't stay and talk to you. I've got to get to my daughter. That's what I would expect to happen. But none of that happened when mommy was told her daughter, her

baby of three years old was dead. Take a listen to our cut five. This is Jamie Shearer, WNEM5. Who is this little girl? Listen. She was full of life. She was very smart. She knew so many colors. she could count almost to 30. Alisa Johnson, remembering her three-year-old granddaughter Sutton Mosser as a beautiful and bright young girl who could put a smile on anyone's face. The two were close. I wasn't grandmother, I was grandmom. The baby loved me more than anything.

She was so close to me. She always waited for me to come home from work. Johnson tells TV5 she was downstate when she learned about Sutton's death. The details devastating. The young girl had suffered multiple stab wounds to her chest. Her body had been found in a trash bag Friday morning at a home on Cedar Lake Road in Oscoda Township, where she lived with her grandmom and mother, Justine Johnson. I broke down. I told them, tell me it's not true, that I needed to get to my baby,

that this couldn't be happening. Now, see, what you're hearing right there is you are hearing Alyssa Johnson, not the mother, the grandma. And she is referring to Sutton as her baby. It reminds me so much of top mom, Casey Anthony, her mother, Cindy Anthony, was really raising Casey, Kelly, as her baby because top mom certainly was not taking care of her. To Dr. Kendall Crowns, chief medical examiner at Tarrant County, Fort Worth, multiple stab wounds is a particularly heinous way to murder someone. You're within a foot of them as you stab them over and over and over,

unlike putting a pillow over their face where you don't see their face, and they just die in a couple of minutes, unlike shooting someone at a distance like a sniper, where you never get up close to the victim. It's not personal. You're never in contact with them. Multiple stab wounds, that is nasty, Dr. Kendall Crowns. Yeah, I agree. It's very up close and personal. You're usually right on top of them with the knife, stabbing them over and over. And also, most people don't die right away with stab wounds.

So there's a lot of movement, a lot of screaming involved, a lot of blood being thrown about. So stabbing is a very rough way to kill someone. You know, it's amazing to me, Cole Waterman, that the woman that we just heard crying about baby Sutton has this to say. Take a listen to our cut for WNEM. TV5 spoke with Justine Johnson's mother, Sutton's grandmother, Elisa Johnson, on Monday. She maintained her daughter's innocence and said she hoped for justice for her granddaughter. I don't believe Justine could ever do something like that because she would always teach Sutton that she is kind, she is beautiful, and she is loved,

and she would install that inside of me every day. Johnson also told TV5 she has been the target of angry comments regarding her daughter, and that she remains firm in her support of her. I will be there for Justine no matter what anybody calls me. That is my child, and nobody understands that, and theyman, crime reporter at MLive.com. I agree with standing by your child no matter what and trying to help them. But what good does it do, baby Sutton, for a grandma to whine that she's getting, quote, angry comments from people when she keeps

declaring Justine Johnson's innocent. As far as what good it does her deceased granddaughter, I can't say. I have no idea. I mean, I can't imagine what the mother or grandmother is going through in this situation of your daughter is accused of killing your granddaughter and what, you know, an emotional and psychological toll that would take on her having to kind of be stuck between all of this. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Granny doesn't seem to be able to accept her daughter, Justine Johnson,

had anything to do with the brutal murder of the grandchild, Sutton, who just turned three years old a couple of days before. Even though her daughter's bloody pants were found in the trash bag with the child's body, well, maybe this will convince her.

Remember when we said, SpongeBob made me do it? Well, the chickens are coming home to roost. Take a listen to Our Cut 7, ABC 12. Justine Johnson told an investigator that she was watching Spongebob on TV and had an hallucination. The cartoon character told her to kill her child or face death herself. He was at this Oscoda Township home in September when 22-year-old Justine Johnson's brother made the grisly discovery. The body of Justine's 3-year-old daughter, Sutton, was found in a trash bag.

She had been stabbed to death. Johnson was not at the home when her daughter's body was discovered, and an affidavit indicates police officers found her 4 1⁄2 hours later walking on railroad tracks in Oscoda Township. A family member said she had been using drugs. Johnson was questioned but told the officers she did not want to talk about the death of her child. I bet she doesn't. What exactly did she say to Cole Waterman, crime reporter, MLive.com?

According to the affidavits, she didn't really say much of anything. She acted calm and unemotional when the cops informed her of her daughter's death. And apparently she just shut down and said she don't want to talk anymore. And that was extended her statement to the police. Wow. Stacey Honowitz, assistant state's attorney, joining us out of Florida. Stacey, you know what? Yeah. I almost like it better when a defendant does that so I can argue to a jury how little they care about the victim. Now, did you hear a conflicting statement earlier that SpongeBob told her to either kill her child or die herself? You know,

a lot of people would have chosen to die themselves rather than kill their own child. Well, the theme is there. I mean, any prosecutor trying this case would say, here's the theme. She wanted to kill the kid. She discarded the kid. She put the kid in a trash bag and then she didn't want to talk about it. So, I mean, everything and the pants are in the trash bag. So, I mean, unless she's got the best doctor in the world that's going to say at

the time of the murder, she did not know the difference between right and wrong, which I beg to differ would be very difficult because she knew exactly what to do with the body afterwards. So that's what she's facing. She's going to look, she's going to pull an insanity defense. We all know that because the evidence is overwhelming in this case that she did it and and she was sane what was the other evidence co waterman well in addition to the um clothing found with sutton's body which seems to have been indeed her mother's i believe a knife was recovered at the scene but i'm not positive on that one investigators Investigators found several bloodstains on a hallway closet door, on living room

couches, items in a bedroom. A forensic scientist testified, stated that three knives were found in a bedroom. The baby's body was wrapped in a comforter inside of the bag, along with a pair

of jeans that tested positive for human blood. Sutton had stab wounds in her neck, chest, and abdomen with one large wound exposing part of the child's small intestines. The report also said a bathtub upstairs was partially full of water that showed a red tint consistent with blood. In the back room of the home, he found a blue tote bag with two garbage bags stacked on top with a foot exposed. Okay, let me understand. The trash bag with the foot protruding was found in the home, Cole Waterman. Is that correct? Yes. It seems that the trash bag and another trash bag were in a circular blue plastic tote in kind of a back room, a Michigan mudroom as they're called here, I believe. And that's where her brothers, when looking for her, found the bag with Sutton's foot sticking out of it.

Guys, take a listen to our Cut 8, Terry Camp, ABC 12. Johnson told an investigator with Child Protective Services that she had been hallucinating, and she heard a cartoon character tell her something. Jim Baccarella is the Iosco County prosecutor. She said that the television, specifically Spongebob, told her that she had to do this to the child or she would be killed. While Johnson has been found competent for trial, Baccarella says there's a second component to a psychological exam in criminal matters. Evaluation regarding criminal responsibility, which is basically whether or not she knew the difference between right and wrong

at the time this event occurred. That evaluation might take place as Johnson was bound over for trial on felony murder and first-degree child abuse charges. That would be used if she chose to raise the affirmative defense of not guilty by reason of insanity. Now, in case you're wondering, in case you don't have children and don't know who SpongeBob is, he is a square yellow sponge named SpongeBob SquarePants because his pants are square because his body is a sponge. He lives in a pineapple with his pet snail, Gary, in the city of Bikini Bottom on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. He works as a fry cook at the Krusty Krab. And during his time off, SpongeBob has a knack for attracting trouble with his starfish best friend, Patrick.

Arrogant octopus squidward tentacles, his neighbor, dislikes SpongeBob because of his childlike behavior. So SpongeBob is the bad guy in this scenario? You know what, Justine Johnson? You're going to rot in hell, woman, with a little pit stop, with life without parole. I can only pray, if not more. It's not the first time a parent has taken out their hatred and loathing and anxiety and frustration on a child. Take a listen to Hour cut 15 from Newsweek. This mom said, not Spongebob, but the devil made her do it. Oh, the devil rears his ugly head again. Listen.

She said the devil made her do it. And this week, a forensic psychiatrist basically agreed in a testimony this week. Dr. Philip Resnick said that Elspieta Plakowska on trial for killing two children and two dogs had a psychotic belief that devils had entered the children, and that by taking their lives she was allowing the children to enter heaven. Breznik added that Plakowska, who has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, could not fully understand her criminal actions when she stabbed her son, Justin, plus a playmate, Olivia Dworeski, and the dogs on October 30, 2012, the Chicago Tribune reports. Resnick had examined Plakowska for the trial and testified that she claimed she saw a black shadow

and believed the demon was entering the children. Then the shadow urged Plakowska to kill them. The testimony from Resnick, a professor at Case Western University in Cleveland who has been involved with other demonic possession cases such as Jeffrey Dahmer, is counter to the prosecution case. Okay, to the prosecution case. Okay, to you, Dr. Angela Arnold, psychiatrist, joining us out of Atlanta. The devil, Spongebob, all sorts of entities directing parents, specifically mothers, to kill their children. Help me out, Dr. Angie. Of course, if that's true, people are going to consider that a psychosis. And it's often used in a defense.

I think it's very hard to prove. Now, I will say Dr. Resnick, he works on an awful lot of these cases. He is an amazing forensic psychiatrist. Did I ask you that? Because I don't remember asking you that. No, but I'll tell you. I asked you about parents saying that they were told to kill their children. I believe that's what I asked you about.

I know. And you know what, Nancy? What? I think it's a very hard thing to prove. How do you reconcile? Let me just ask you this, if it's even possible, which I do not believe that it is in any reasonable-minded juror, how do you reconcile the fact that mommy did not confess when she was asked what happened, said she didn't want to talk about it, left the premises and hid out for hours on end from her home

so she wouldn't be found, hid the child's body after murdering her in a trash bag? That tells me she knew what she did was wrong. Right. So how can you know at the time of the incident what you did was wrong, yet still be insane? Because I would submit to a jury, that's impossible. I agree with you, Nancy. I completely agree with you.

The fact that she hid the body in a trash bag is very significant. To Dan Corsentino, former police chief, sheriff, and Homeland Security advisor, weigh in, Dan. The evidence speaks for itself in this case. This is a crime of rage, a disconnect between the mother and the child in this situation. And when you start making a look at the collection of evidence, which is a smoking gun, 13 fingerprints that are found, finger and palm prints that were recovered from the tote bag, in addition to the blood, in addition to the knives, this case is simply going to be won unless there's some case made for this insanity plea.

But this woman is going away for a long time and she should. In this jurisdiction of Michigan, Cole Waterman, I do not believe they have the death penalty or do they? No, Michigan is a non-death penalty state. But a conviction of first degree murder, which he's charged with, mandates a life without parole sentence. It's not just moms. I want to remind you of a case we just covered here at Crime Stories, and you will remember it immediately. It's a case of Matthew Taylor Coleman, who was a surf instructor, a surfing instructor to the wealthy and privileged. And he murdered all his children because he bought into QAnon and Illuminati conspiracy theories

and thought his children had, quote, serpent DNA. Serpent DNA. Does anybody on the panel know what Illuminati is? Illuminati is a conspiracy theory that there's a consortium or cabal of rich, elite, highly influential people that essentially control all world events. Anything happens in the world, the Illuminati are organizing it essentially is what they believe. And in that case, this dad,

otherwise perfectly sane, teaching rich kids and soccer moms who have time to go get surfing lessons all day long, bought into QAnon and Illuminati theories online and was convinced that his children had serpent DNA. Now, you see right there, I did a bad thing, Stacey Honowitz. I was kind of smart. I kind of laughed.

But the children are dead. Well, we see so much of this. I mean, this is nothing new, Nancy. We've been covering these cases for a long time. Remember the woman in Texas that drowned her five kids in the bathtub? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, so and we see the difference. We know that in these cases, they're not confessing. They're not saying, yes, it's me. I did it. They're getting doctors on board because they are going to put forth an insanity defense. They have to be able to say that they didn't know the difference between right and wrong. And we see in these cases that clearly in this case, she knew exactly what to do in a case where the insanity defense is used, and it has been won, because a parent has killed a child. And in the moment when the police are called in, the parent is hovering over this child, trying to comfort them or do something to them, screaming, oh, my God, what did I do?

What did I do? Then we might see a situation where there was, in fact, a psychotic break at the time and the person didn't know the difference between right and wrong. But when you have somebody that clearly wants to clean up the crime scene and not go anywhere near it and not talk to the police, you are hard pressed to be able to stand in front of a jury and say, I didn't know the difference between right and wrong when I killed this child. And I think that's what we're dealing with in all of these cases, the same scenario. And we have the mom who kills her children, beats her boys in the head with a rock, telling her an angel, saying that an angel made her do it. I mean, the list of the real killers is very long indeed, but it always boils down to one of the parents committing murder on

their child because they were frustrated and didn't want to have the child anymore. Then the theory of psychotic break rears its head. Cole Waterman, what is next for this mother? Next up, her case has been bound over to circuit court. So her options going forward are either a trial by jury or judge or a plea. I don't know if any plea negotiations would be going on in a case like this, but who knows? Yeah, you're right about that. I'm sure the prosecutors would want to keep that a secret if they were pleading this out cheap. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace Gromstory signing off. Goodbye, friend.

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