Justin Mohn has “been ranting and railing about the government for 10 years now and how they’re out to get him,” a childhood friend told NBC News.
The man accused of killing his father and displaying his decapitated head in a macabre YouTube video has long been obsessed with conspiracy theories, say those who knew him.
Justin Mohn, 32, was arrested on charges of first-degree murder and other counts after his father, Michael Mohn, was found beheaded in their family home in Middletown Township’s Levittown section Tuesday evening, court records show.
In a video that was removed by YouTube hours after it was posted Tuesday, the younger Mohn described his father as a federal employee of 20 years and referred to him as a traitor to his country. He also called for the death of all federal officials while allegedly displaying his father’s head.
“We’re all just in shock right now,” John Prickett, 68, who lives down the block from the Mohn residence, said Wednesday.
Justin Mohn has “been ranting and railing about the government for 10 years now and how they’re out to get him,” …
And
Justin Mohn, 32, …
He was at least 22 when this started, maybe earlier. That’s kind of the prime time for symptoms of schizophrenia to appear, and it can happen to anyone, even you.
It is no secret that culturally approved magical thinking can mask those symptoms at best, and encourage them at worst. Religion is magical thinking, and for the last several years, so is right wing politics.
No matter who or where you are, especially when you’re in your 20s, please take note of magical thinking in your own head, and check in about it with professional mental health care. This is doubly important if you are also surrounded by and influenced by other kinds of magical thinking.
Mohn is absolutely responsible for his own behaviors and actions, as are we all. But it would be irresponsible to remain blind to understanding the circumstances that brought him to those actions, so that we can take preventative measures to avoid this in the future.
Thanks for the insight. How would you define magical thinking? Or might be helpful to phrase it as how do you recognize magical thinking?
A lot of genetic mental issues start with the hormonal shifts during puberty, but based on one of his book titles he was also consuming cannabis, which is definitely not great if you’re already schizophrenic or psychotic, or have genetic tendencies for it.
The mean thing about psychosis is that you don’t realize it. For him it was reality. Mental health education is key. If you notice someone in their early or mid twenties become reclusive and feel paranoid, notice a professional. As his friends should have done in college.
Btw, under psychosis people are unfit to plead, if that’s the right term. So it’s difficult to call him responsible.
Mental health education is key. If you notice someone in their early or mid twenties become reclusive and feel paranoid, notice a professional
Is that a thing in America? I’ve never seen anyone struggling with mental health get forced treatment short of a suicide attempt.
If there is evidence that a person is a danger to themselves or others the a police officer can forcibly take that person to a hospital for evaluation and the hospital can hold the person involuntarily for 72 hours. To hold the person for longer than 72 hours the hold must be reviewed and approved by a judge. As you might expect the system is subject to significant abuse.
Is “becoming reclusive and paranoid” sufficient for that? Or do they actually have to make some kind of threat.
For the 72hour hold they either have to make a threat or be acting irrationality while interacting with the officer. For a court ordered hold initiated by a family member or social worker becoming reclusive and paranoid can be enough if it rises to the level of the person neglecting their own basic needs.
Not from the US, but I assume not. I didn’t mean forced treatment,but professionals know best how to approach this. Just telling him that his perception isn’t real is most likely not gonna work.
You nailed it
What Fox News does to a motherfucker…
Fox is the gateway drug. It’s the hard shit that’ll really make a person lose touch with reality.
Someone who just watches Fox might possibly still be reachable.
And Facebook. Zuckerberg is literally Satan for letting disinformation spread without moderation.
I just want to pint out the role parasociality likely plays in all this. You see it to a lessor extent in fandoms like Marvel or Star Wars, but these people have their identity all wrapped up in the things they see and hear, the talking heads and the talking heads problem.
We didn’t evolve in a world of screens and taking voices. We only have so much of an ability to contextualize that the people on screens aren’t us. So when some one had their entire being wrapped up in a parasocial relationship with Alex Jones or whoever, they lose the ability to distinguish what’s happening to the characters or themselves. It’s all the same.
Yup. The cries of “identity politics” from the right was just more projection. Because of course it was.
Good point.
But do you think parasocial identity is the cause here?
Because there is no amount of social media that is going to induce anyone I know to decapitate their father. It seems far more likely that this is an underlying mental illness (bipolar or schizophrenia) which will ALWAYS find an outlet, and which can EASILY cause violence in the victim.
That the narrative was parasocial is just a distraction.
If he had played dungeons and dragons in the 80s, he would have been a poster child for the satanic panic.
But none of that matters: we need better mental health education and resources.
No?
The parasocial relationship thing is just fuel to the fire. It may not be the cause, but that doesn’t make it any less dangerous. Angry right wing conspiracy talk is like bait for people with these kinds of mental health concerns. It won’t turn just anyone violent, but it obviously has served as the breaking point for a lot of people.
I agree that parasocial influences are a terrible influence on society.
But in cultures without social media (or even more clearly: pre social media) these individuals with severe paranoia or delusions would still find reason that was relevant to their cultural context.
Often it would be religion (also a terrible influence, IMO), but in irreligious societies, it would be delusions of being Luke Skywalker; or Superman.
I’m no social media defender, but spurious associations are easy, and witch hunts are the risk.
It’s unlikely that there is a single cause. Human behavior is complex and has many influencing factors. I think we need to be careful about armchair diagnostics but I also did that evaluation (early 20s + extreme behavior shift + paranoia and violence = schizophrenia). The mental illness messes with how you think and react, the parasocial identity focuses and reinforces the thinking and paranoia.
Yes, we absolutely need better mental health education and resources.
I read about this story yesterday morning and was nauseous and had a headache the entire day. Some sick shit going on out there. More will be revealed, I am afraid, this year during the election cycle. So sad for his father and their community.
I cannot fathom how mentally deranged one has to be to not just kill their father but then decapitate him and fucking post it on the internet. O_o
Weirdly this isn’t the first far right loon that ends up murdering his father for political reasons. There was a similar case a few years ago and I think the dude also was active on Reddit’s T_D at some point.
Did he at least have the decency to not decapitate him after?
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Yea, honestly it put me in a bad mood for most of the day. Had to use breathing techniques just to get control of my feelings again, and even that didn’t fully cut it.
Thanks to both of you for letting us know how this affected MEEEEEEEEEE
Would you rather I removed and moan about a brainwashed psychopath?
I have an interest in right wing extremists, and I honestly think they’re way more dangerous than the crackpots they are dismissed as more generally speaking. I fear for their children greatly, because they regard them as their “biological property” (their exact words), they home school them, which mostly seems to be not educating them at all beyond conspiracy YouTube videos and Tiktok, they don’t get medical care at all, of course no vaccines, and don’t get birth certificates or social insurance numbers. This guy is obviously psychotic, but I’d like to just say in general I hope that CPS starts involving themselves more with such families because those kids really are in danger. Kids have died at the hands of these parents because of their dangerous disinformation. So did this father, and this really is awful…
It’s always the person you most suspect
I’ve been off the rails for a long time. I’m not violent though I’m just crazy. I like puking and screaming in a circle.
Between Regan wrecking the USA’s mental health care system & Trump encouraging violence & conspiracy theories, this is all on the GOP.
The Democrats certainly have their share of the blame to bear. They never did anything to really oppose them fundamentally. To this day they’d rather make a deal with the Republicans (where they are always on the losing end) than do anything that might be seen as promoting progressive causes in the US.
Some of yall will do any gymnastics you need to shoehorn in “Dems too!”
Nah bro this is on the GOP, these are their followers, they’re the stochastic terrorists.
I also can’t stand when GOP is in control of one of the houses and people “why isn’t Biden getting anything done!!” Take a damn 101 class already. Then they complain about executive orders. The fuck do you want him to do??
“bUt mY bOth sIdEs!!”
Reagan ended federal funding for state psychiatric institutions and then was almost assassinated by a schizophrenic. Didn’t change his mind after that though, why?
Because the man was an idiot.
You are absolutely correct despite the downvotes.
All it takes is for good people to do nothing.
If the good people are doing nothing or only passively opposed, they aren’t good people.
Democrats are complicit in the modern state of society. They had their roles to play in only ever offering paper resistance while occupying the seats where real change could have been pushed for.
Democrats aren’t the good guys. They aren’t your friends. They are the second and fourth steps of a dance that has us waltzing into facism, and they are responsible for the role they’ve played.
Should we vote strategically to avoid fascism this year. Fucking obviously. But the principles of bipartisanship and incrementliasm are what brought us to this point. Democrats occupying seats like Pelosis and Feinsteins when we could have real progressives I. those positions. RBJ in her arrogance refusing to allow another justice to be seated. Democratic insistence in decorum while the other side is literally engaged in insurrection.
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