Justine Johnson Oscoda Michigan mother says she heard voices claiming to be cartoon character, Spongebob demanding that she kill her 3 year old daughter.
A Michigan woman under the influence of drugs who allegedly killed her 3 year old daughter has claimed hearing voices in her head compelling her to murder her own toddler daughter or that she would be killed.
Justine Johnson, 22, is accused of stabbing 3 year old girl, Sutton Mosser several times on September 16 after the mother of one saying SpongeBob demanded that she take the girl’s life or that he would kill her.
Having fatally stabbed the girl, the ‘hallucinating’ mom told of placing the girl’s body into a black trash bag. Johnson of Oscoda Township upon her arrest was charged with felony murder and first degree child abuse.
Of note, the slaying occurred two days after the toddler’s third birthday according to MLive.
The episode follows the mother admitting to weeks of ongoing heroin use according to a preliminary case hearing on Friday.
‘She said she was afraid for her life and she had lost her mind’
Sutton’s body was found by the suspect’s 17-year-old brother, who was told to ‘mind your own f***ing business,’ when he asked about his niece’s whereabouts, according to an initial September court hearing.
‘She told me that she didn’t remember the specifics of what happened at the time of what happened to Sutton, that she was experiencing hallucinations due to heroin withdrawal and not sleeping for approximately two weeks,’ said Ryan Eberline, an investigator with Child Protective Services during Friday’s pre trial hearing.
‘She was getting hallucinations from the TV that had instructed her to take her daughter’s life or they would kill her.
‘It was SpongeBob who was saying these things on the TV,’ Eberline added. ‘If she didn’t do what she did to her daughter they would kill her. She said she was afraid for her life and she had lost her mind.’
Johnson, who was deemed fit to stand trial, is due back in court for a pre-trial hearing on February 28. The mother remains in jail without bail until then.
On the night of Sutton’s death, Johnson had left her home that she shared with her two brothers. Her teen sibling also went out before returning to an empty home at around 10 p.m.
Her older brother, Knelsey Johnson, who had left for work earlier in the day at around 2:30 p.m., returned home at 3:30 a.m., and had asked his younger brother where Sutton and his sister were.
Foot sticking out of trash bag
The teen, who remains anonymous for legal reasons, said he had seen Johnson taking drugs earlier in the day. He then went outside to look and found the trash bag with what seemed to be a child’s foot sticking out, he testified in court on Friday.
‘There was like a foot sticking out of the bag,’ he said. ‘I ran up and told Knesley, “‘There’s a foot in a bag.” He didn’t believe me. He thought I was joking.’
The two brothers proceeded to call police after making the macabre discovery.
Investigators found blood stains on a hallway closet door, and on couches in the living room and in a bedroom at the crime scene. Three knives were also found in the same bedroom.
Iosco County medical examiner Dr. Jaya L. Sankaran said Sutton had stab wounds in her neck, chest, and abdomen, with one large wound exposing part of the child’s small intestine. She was wrapped in a comforter inside the trash bag that also had a pair of jeans with blood stains on them.
Eberline testified that Johnson had told him on October 1 that she had left her home to go to her mother’s house, before passing out at a nearby graveyard.
Later, she went back to her own apartment, on Cedar Lake Road, and attempted to commit suicide before killing her child.
