Justine Johnson appears in a photo from the Iosco County Sheriff’s Office.
A 22-year-old Michigan mother charged with the murder of her 3-year-old daughter allegedly told authorities she was watching SpongeBob SquarePants on TV when the beloved cartoon character ordered her to kill her daughter or do in the face of death itself. Justine Johnsonwho allegedly stabbed his daughter Sutton Mosser multiple times before throwing the child’s lifeless body into a black trash bag, told authorities she had hallucinated the figure after several weeks without sleep and during a period of heroin withdrawal, the website MLive reported recently.
According to the report, the Child Protective Services (CPS) investigator Ryan Eberline testified in a preliminary hearing Friday before the Iosco County District Judge Christopher P. Martin. The subject was the October 1, 2021 interviewer’s interview with Johnson. Johnson reportedly told Eberline she was at her mother’s home on Sept. 16 in Oscoda Township, where she and her daughter were living at the time, when she went out and fell asleep in a nearby cemetery. When she woke up, she reportedly told Eberline that she had gone home and attempted suicide before killing her daughter as per the supposedly hallucinated SpongeBob’s orders.
“She told me that she couldn’t remember the details of what happened at the time of what happened to Sutton, that she was having hallucinations due to heroin withdrawal and that she didn’t didn’t sleep for about two weeks,” Eberline reportedly told the court. “She was hallucinating because of the TV telling her to kill her daughter or they would kill her.”
Johnson reportedly cried throughout Eberline’s testimony and for most of Friday’s hearing.
“It was SpongeBob saying those things on TV,” Eberline reportedly said of the defendant’s allegations. “If she didn’t do what she did to her daughter, they would kill her. She said she was scared for her life and lost her mind.
As previously reported by Law&Crime, one of Johnson’s brothers, Knesley Johnson, called the Oscoda Township Police Department early Friday, September 17, 2021 to report seeing a small human foot sticking out of a trash bag inside the residence on Cedar Lake Road. Officers responded to the house and discovered the body of 3-year-old Sutton inside the black trash bag. Prosecutors said the child had “suffered multiple stab wounds to the torso,” and those injuries were later determined to be the cause of death.
Knesley reportedly said Friday that when he left for work around 2:30 p.m. on September 16, 2021, his sister and niece appeared normal. But when he returned around 3:30 a.m. and asked his 17-year-old brother where the girls were, the younger brother went to the back of the house and saw Sutton’s body in the trash can.
The 17-year-old brother allegedly testified that the defendant harassed him when he asked where Sutton was.
“Mind your goddamn business,” she reportedly said.
The brother also reportedly spoke about the moment he realized Sutton’s body was in the trash.
“There was like a foot sticking out of the bag,” he testified. “I ran up and said to Knesley, ‘There’s a foot in a bag.’ He didn’t believe me. He thought I was joking.
A medical examiner reportedly testified that investigators found bloodstains on several sofas, on several items found in the bedroom and on a closet door. Three knives were also found in the bathroom, according to the report. Sutton suffered stab wounds to the neck, chest and stomach. According to the medical examiner, this last injury was the most significant and left the baby’s small intestine exposed.
Judge Martin reportedly ordered Johnson to remain behind bars without bond. She is due to appear for a preliminary hearing on February 28.
[image via Iosco County Sheriff’s Office]
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