Law&Crime Sidebar - Man Beheaded Dad, Showed Severed Head in YouTube Video During Unhinged Rant: Cops

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

Investigators arrested Justin Mohn, 32, nearly 100 miles from a grisly crime scene at the Pennsylvania home he shared with his parents. Authorities say Mohn’s mother found her husband’s body without its head in a bathroom. In a 14-minute video apparently posted by Mohn, the suspect rails against federal employees and calls his father a traitor. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber discusses the implications of the video and what could have been done to prevent this with retired Judge Elizabeth Scherer and former U.S. Marshal Art Roderick.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/LCSidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. A Pennsylvania man is accused of beheading his own father and then holding up the severed head in a video that he posted online that got thousands of views before it was finally taken down. We're analyzing everything we know so far about this case with retired U.S. martial art Roderick and former judge Elizabeth Sherer. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber. I'm going to tell you right off the bat that not only is this an incredibly disturbing case, this is a tough one just to even talk about. Police in Middletown

Township, Pennsylvania, that's in Bucks County. They responded to a horrifying, not 911 phone call on Tuesday night. A woman reported around 7 p.m. that she came home to find her 68-year-old husband, Michael Mone, decapitated in the bathroom of their home. Yes, that is what we're talking about. A couple's adult son, 32-year-old Justin Mone, was the prime suspect in the death of his father.

He had apparently posted a video of himself on YouTube holding up his own father's head. That is what we're talking about right here. That 14-minute video went up on the site about an hour before the 911 phone call. It had close to 5,000 views before it was finally removed hours later. The video was posted to YouTube with the title, Mone's Militia, Paul to Arms for American Patriots. And in the video, Justin Mone said that his father had been a federal employee for 20 years, which Mone believes made him a traitor to the country. In the video, he states, quote, violence is the only solution to the federal government's treason.

And this is the head of Mike Mohn, a federal employee of over 20 years. And my father, he is now in hell for eternity as a traitor to his country. It's reported that Michael Mohn worked as an engineer with the geo-environmental section of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Philadelphia District. Law enforcement captured Mone about 100 miles away from the crime scene at Fort Indian Town Gap base, home of Pennsylvania National Guard headquarters. He had apparently broken into the base with a gun. He was still armed when law enforcement confronted him, but they already say he surrendered peacefully. No one was harmed.

He has been charged with murder in the first degree, abuse of a corpse, and possession of an instrument of crime with intent. According to court documents, Simone was arraigned virtually, very early Wednesday morning, and his bail has been denied. Let's break this down. I have two very special guests. I'm joined by retired U.S. Marshal Art Roderick

and former judge Elizabeth Scherer, who presided over the Parkland School shooting case. She's now in private practice with Conrad and Sherer. Great to have you both here. Again, I say this so many times, but I wish she was under better circumstances. What a case. Art, I'm going to start with you.

Let's talk about how he was captured. So we know that authorities in Middletown Township, they had pinged Mone's phone, and they did this because they realized that his father's car wasn't there. He was missing. They track him to Fort Indian Town Gap. They alerted the law.

local police department they find out that he jumped the fence to get into the base they chase him they arrest him thoughts on how they were able to capture him yeah bizarre case i mean this is this is standard uh cell phone tracking uh that is used by just about every single agency at this point in time and uh when you look at this individual's background obviously this is a narcissistic sociopath uh to commit a crime like this i mean law enforcement to respond to response to on to that scene and that poor mother coming home, that had to be one bloody mess, even if you clean it up still. You know, it's difficult to decapitate someone with a machete and a large knife, which were found near the body. But tracking this individual, I mean, he left enough

obvious clues, not only the video, but relatively easy to track him via his cell phone. So he wasn't very sophisticated and in his getaway plan, but obviously he wanted this to be known to the world. By the way, one of my favorite things about being a host on law and crime is how passionate our audiences. You guys don't just sit back and watch. You engage. You leave comments. You give us feedback.

You make your opinions known, which I can't tell you how much I appreciate. But one of the most popular opinions is how much you love our police body cam videos. And I'll tell you, I agree. I think they're fantastic. They're unpredictable. They let you see firsthand what's going on in any given situation instead of just hearing about it later in testimony or from police reports. Well, I am excited to tell you that we here at Long Crime, we've heard you loud and clear, and we have launched a whole new YouTube channel dedicated only to police body cam videos.

It is aptly named Law and Crime Body Cam. It is your new destination for all of the most shocking police interactions on the internet. We're talking high-speed chases, dramatic DUIs, arrest that. you just got to see to believe so go check it out go subscribe let us know what you think you might even hear a i don't know a familiar voice on some of the videos it's me it's me i'm not going to lie i get to narrate some of them huge honor for me great opportunity but just click the link in the description catch all the action on long crime body cam i'm going to see you there and and judge i'm going to get your perspective on this because you've clearly presided over

cases with disturbing details and disturbing defendants i mean as a former government government employee yourself. Let's talk about the alleged motivation here. I mean, I mentioned in the video, we have come to learn that this defendant is a self-published author. His book titles include The Revolution Leader's Survival Guide, How Schools, Workplaces, and Social Norms Kill the Genius Inside All of Us. The Second Messiah, King of Earth, which he says is fictional, but based loosely on his own life, the punishing. And then a pamphlet called America's Coming Bloody Revolution. Let me just add this, too. He's also a singer, posted songs on Spotify, many of the songs, the writings, the YouTube videos.

They're just rants against everything from the LGBT community to Black Lives Matter movement, to President Joe Biden, to immigrants who are coming into the country illegally. I mean, what do you make of that? My first thought is you don't just wake up one day. This guy's in his 30s. Is that right? 32, yeah. You don't wake up one day in your 30s.

your low, you know, 32 and just decide to do something so heinous and cruel, like cut off your dad's head. I wonder if there were other things that were leading up to this, that that's my first thought or undetected crimes that he may have committed. Because like I said, usually somebody doesn't just go off the wall. One day they wake up at 32 and completely lose it and start brutally killing family members. So my concern would be whether or not he's done this before and to what extent. And just adding to that, Judge, my understanding is the Middletown Township Police Lieutenant Pete Beeney came out and said, other charges may be filed. What are we looking at there, you think?

I mean, it could be that he escalated up to murder and this is the first time he's committed murder, but I would have a hard time believing that he's never committed a violent type felony prior to this incident because to take off the head of your own family member I mean that's that's about as bad as it gets Yeah no I can't think of anything much worse And I cover a crime show every day

This is one of the ones that unfortunately stands out You talked about the crime scene art Let's focus on the crime scene So the Bucks County detectives And the Middletown Township police officers Like I said they found Michael Mone's body in the bathroom Blood all over the place You had mentioned the machete and the large night

found in a bathtub, there were bloody rubber gloves that were in the bedroom, and that is where, and I apologize again for saying this, but the father's head was inside of a plastic bag that was put in a cooking pot. Now, I tell you right now, that's not the first time I've heard that, unfortunately. Crime scenes like this, walk me through what you make of it, and walk me through how difficult it is for law enforcement personnel to actually canvass that scene. Yeah, that is the difficult part. I mean, unfortunately, law enforcement comes across obviously different violent scenes on every call that they get.

This is very unique. In fact, that you've got an individual that decapitated his father. I agree with the judge. I went to look at this individual's background, try to do some, because it's very odd that this would be the first violent offense that this individual did. But I couldn't even find a parking ticket in his background. So when you look at all, when you put all this together, when you look at his writings and you look at his social media accounts, obviously this individual had some major issues when it comes

to the federal government espousing this right-wing stuff that he's put out there on the internet and when you roll this back to the crime scene this is what you've got some something and judge also brought it up something that must have triggered this individual to commit this crime on this particular day at this particular time so usually there's a triggering of that it it occurs here but you know my my thoughts go out to the to the to the family has to put up with this this is a horrible situation for anyone's family, and obviously law enforcement coming upon that type of scene and having to, you know, go through the process that we do every time they come across a crime scene,

that's a difficult process for law enforcement and for the CSI individuals at the trip. Yeah, it's hard to imagine. It's hard to imagine. And talking about his past judge, we've learned he had, he's been in and out of court, or at least tried to be in and of court. He had several legal battles in civil court. He didn't get very far. He sued the federal government, for, quote, negligently and fraudulently inducing him to borrow money for college, knowing that it would be hard for him to pay it back, as he claims, as a graduate of Penn State, he is an overeducated white man, can't pay back his loans. There was a recent filing in 2023.

The judge threw it out, said there's no legal standing. I imagine if these cases were brought before you, you might have said the same thing. I mean, what do you make of those kind of cases? He seems like he wants to be the center of attention. He's a narcissist and wants to be, you know, whether or not it's a legitimate cause of action or not. It seems like he wants to be in the middle of it. He wants people talking about him. In fact, this is probably part of his plan, I would think.

Otherwise, why go on YouTube and flaunt this type of heinous crime? My hope is that there were no warning signs that we missed because that would be an all-too-familiar. your scenario when people are basically telling you in no uncertain terms that they're going to do something bad and commonly myself included you think oh person's just talking it'll never happen but my hope is that we don't find out that there were you know clear warning signs that that should have been should have been looked into on the part of law enforcement or or others this moan case is awful that's a given but it's important it's important to talk about. And the truth is we're able to tell stories like these. We're able to bring you this

information and analysis because of the support that we get from our partners. And that is why I want to call out one of our great sponsors here on Sidebar, Morgan and Morgan. So if you get injured, knowing what your rights are and if you should be compensated for what you're lost is so important. And Morgan and Morgan, the largest injury law firm in the country, they don't settle for lowball offers from insurance companies. They fight for what you deserve in a case, which could be million of dollars you don't believe me we'll get this in the past couple of months morgan and morgan saw a verdicts of 12 million dollars in florida 26 million dollars in philadelphia and 6.8 million dollars in new york mind you that is considerably higher

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Let me ask you about this. I mean, by the way, he also sued progressive insurance where he once worked. He said that he didn't progress in the company. He didn't get ahead because women were given the priority, which turned out not to be true because he really was fired for allegedly kicking open an office store, which is obviously a big no-no. But you mentioned these kind of warning signs. And my first thought was, as this case progresses,

if it's not ultimately he takes a plea deal, or excuse not even a deal, but pleads guilty, would a mental health defense potentially be something of interest for a defense counsel in this kind of case, you think? And I know we have limited information. That's a defense that rarely works. There's very rare circumstances. Even if you're mentally ill,

you have to be in basically a psychotic episode. of a certain period of time and you have to there's a whole lot of criteria that needs to be met. It seems to me that the planning that went into this and the planning both before and after would contradict a defense of insanity, which would be a mental health defense. It seems to me that the way that he carried out the murder, then took steps to put the head in the bag and then leave it and then do a video on it. Psychotic episode that I'm familiar with does not last that long. That's like a two-hour ordeal.

And I don't think that this is going to meet that criteria, in my opinion. And art. With what I know right now. Yeah, and art. I mean, I'll let you be able to respond to that. Yeah, you know, Jesse, a lot of times, too, with these types of individuals in my experience, I'm kind of surprised he's not on. somebody's radar. Generally, when you have an individual that files a lot of cases,

they generally follows on to that a threat to a public official of some kind. So if I was with that PD, I'd be checking with the U.S. Marshals with the county to find out if he's threatened any judges or any other public officials, even check the Secret Service to see if he's possibly on their radar, but this type of individual usually will follow on with threats to public officials. And give you, and let me just throw that back to you, Judge. I mean, in a position like you had, were you ever concerned about something like this? Have you ever seen anybody in your courtroom like this, espousing kind of these beliefs

and thoughts about government workers or the federal government or anything like that? Most of the time they're, when they're doing this, they don't actually believe it. they're just saying these things to get attention. That's what I found. People don't, they're just doing whatever they can to get somebody to pay attention. And even in court, they, I frequently have to tell people like this, sir, it's not your turn. It's somebody else's turn and you need to wait your turn. And the continuous interrupting.

And usually that is not a sign of mental illness because even mentally ill people can control themselves and don't just shout out and start making, you know, allegations and threatening public officials, that's not clear indications of a mental illness. Usually it's just a, I hate to say this, but a sociopath or narcissistic behavior and, you know, it's all about them. Art, let me finish this up by focusing on one concern that I have. Obviously, I have a lot of concerns about this case, but the YouTube video, right? So YouTube in a statement, they said, quote, the video was removed for violating our graphic violence policy and Justin Mone's channel was terminated in line with our violent extremism policies.

Our teams are closely tracking now to remove any re-uploads of the video. That is my concern. So, you know, kudos to YouTube for taking it off as soon as they found out what was going on. I am concerned about his, and for our listeners, our message, I'm using it in quotation marks here, that being spread. I mean, 5,000 views. It was up there for a while. What would your concern be as a, you know, law enforcement trying to make sure that that

doesn't get disseminated further? You know, as we all know, once stuff's posted on the internet, that's it. It's out there. Even though there's only 5,000 views, it can be reposted, but unfortunately, it's out there right now. And I'm sure there's been a lot more than 5,000 views of this. Oh, that's terrible to think about. Yeah.

Listen, I don't think anybody should ever watch with that, what he posted. Judge Scherer, Art Roderick, thank you both so much for coming on, breaking down this case. Give me some way to understand what is a situation. And it's hard to understand, but really appreciate it. Thank you both. Thanks, Jess. Thank you, Jesse. All right, everybody.

What a case. That's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us, as always. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. episodes of this long crime series, ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.