A Florida man claimed "voices" encouraged him to kill his daughter in order to save "everbody in the world." The man allegedly tossed the 5-year-old girl off a bridge leading to her death in January 2015, according to court records.
John Jonchuck, 29, spoke about killing his daughter Phoebe with psychiatrist Emily Lazarou during two evaluations in October 2017 and May 2018. During those evaluations, Jonchuck claimed that "voices" had urged him to kill his young daughter.
"I was hearing voices saying that if me and Phoebe didn´t die, everybody was going to go to hell," Jonchuck told Lazarou, according to new court records.
When asked who was going to die, Jonchuck reportedly replied, "Everybody in the world."
Five-year-old Phoebe plunged to her death from Dick Misener Bridge into Tampa Bay on January 8, 2015, according to the Tampa Bay Times. A police officer reported seeing Jonchuck lift his daughter from the back seat of his vehicle and drop her over the bridge, down 62 feet.
"I think about her every night, in the mornings when I wake up," Jonchuck said during his evaluations. " He claimed he had "bad dreams" in which he cannot "get her to wake up."
He added, "Because I was a really good father and she loved me so much and I always promised her that I´m not going to let anything happen, and I did."
Police later stopped Jonchuck after he drove away from the bridge and found two Bibles in his car.
One of the Bibles was open to the passage: "You divided the sea before them, so that they passed through it on dry ground, but your hurled their pursuers into the depths, like a stone into might waters."
When Lazarou asked Jonchuck why he cared about everybody dying, he replied, "Because I felt like with that Bible that night I was telling everybody that I was the Creator…Because I felt like the voices were telling me something that was real."
He added, "Because I didn´t want anybody else to get hurt."
Jonchuck was charged with first-degree murder. In August, the Florida State Attorney´s Office announced it would not seek the death penalty.
A judge ruled Jonchuck unfit to stand trial several times before ruling in March 2017 that he was competent to stand trial, WFTS reported. Jonchuck´s lawyers have argued he was insane and unaware of what he was doing when he killed his daughter. He has been getting treatment at a state mental hospital.
His trial was delayed in September and was scheduled for March. If convicted, Jonchuck faces life in prison.
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