A Michigan mother charged with killing her three-year-old daughter is claiming that SpongeBob Squarepants ordered her to commit the fatal stabbing, MLive reports.
Justine Johnson, 22, is accused of stabbing her daughter, Sutton Mosser, several times on Sept. 16, before stuffing the child’s lifeless body in a black trash bag. The incident took place just a few days after Sutton’s third birthday.
The following day, the suspect’s 17-year-old brother, Knesley Johnson, came over and asked where Sutton was, to which Justin replied, “mind your fucking business.” Knesley called the Oscoda Township Police Department on Sept. 17 after finding Sutton’s body in the trash.
Johnson told Ryan Eberline, an investigator with Child Protective Services, that she hallucinated that SpongeBob instructed her to kill her daughter or face death herself while experiencing heroin withdrawal.
“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,” Eberline told the court during Johnson’s preliminary hearing on Friday. “She was getting hallucinations from the TV that had instructed her to take her daughter’s life or they would kill her.”
Eberline continued, “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.”
Johnson is being held in jail without any bond. She has a pre-trial hearing scheduled for Feb. 28. If convicted of the felony murder charge, Johnson faces life in prison.
