Mom charged with murder told investigator she hallucinated SpongeBob said to kill daughter
By James Paxson
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Michigan (WNEM) — Days after a 3-year-old girl’s body was found in a trash bag in Oscoda township, the girl’s mother told an investigator she hallucinated SpongeBob said kill the girl or face death from her television.
Child Protective Services investigator, Ryan Eberline, testified in a preliminary investigation of Justine Johnson on Feb. 4. Johnson, 22, is charged with first-degree child abuse and felony murder related to the Sept. 16 death of Sutton Mosser.
Two days before her death, Sutton Mosser turned three.
Eberline interview Johnson in jail on Oct. 1.
“The conversation was very pieced out,” Eberline said in court. “We would review things and go back to those things. Overall, the conversation, from what I could conclude, was that near the date of the 16th she had left her mother’s house walking and passed out in the graveyard.”
Eberline said Johnson told him she tried to kill herself in her own apartment. She also told him what she could remember about what happened to her daughter.
“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. 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. 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,” Eberline said.
Johnson’s brother, Knesley Johnson Jr., said in court when he came home from work at about 3:30 to 4 a.m. on Sept. 17 he asked his younger brother where their sister and her daughter was. After that, he went to the back of their house and saw a child’s foot sticking out of a bag and he did not know where is sister was at that time.
Justine Johnson’s brother, whose name is withheld because he is 17, said in court after taking a shower he saw the foot sticking out of a trash bag and told his brother Knesley Johnson Jr.
At 3:50 a.m. on Sept. 17, officers from the Oscoda Township Police Department responded to the scene on 5477 Cedar Lake Road. Officers received a call about a small human foot seen protruding from a garbage bag outside the home.
Police found the remains of Sutton Mosser wrapped in bedding and placed in a garbage bag, dressed only in a pink and white disposable diaper.
There is a pre-trial hearing scheduled for Justine Johnson for 9:30 a.m. on Feb. 28. She is in jail without any bond.
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