Mother says SpongeBob SquarePants told her to kill 3-year-old daughter
Justine Johnson(left) with Sutton Mosser.
The mother of a 3-year-old Michigan girl found stabbed inside a garbage bag says SpongeBob told her to kill her.
Justine Johnson, 22, is accused of stabbing her daughter Sutton Mosser several times two days after her third birthday.
The information was revealed by a Child Protective Services investigator at a preliminary hearing in connection with the case.
Johnson is charged with first-degree child abuse and felony murder related to the Sept. 16 death of Sutton Mosser.
"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," CPS investigator Ryan Eberline said in court. He conducted a jailhouse interview with Johnson, according to WNEM.
This undated photo provided by the Iosco County Sheriff's Office in Tawas City, Mich. shows Justine Johnson.(Iosco County Sheriff's Office via AP)
Sutton's body was found inside a garbage bag in the family home with her food protruding from it.
When the body was found the girl's grandmother, Alisa Johnson, said she believed her daughter was innocent and would never have hurt her young child.
"Justine loved Sutton with all her heart. She’d never let anybody hurt that baby," she told WNEM.
Officers found Johnson walking along railroad tracks hours after the discovery of her daughter's body. She told officers she did not want to talk about her child's death, an arrest affidavit states.
FOX News and the Associated Press contributed to this report.