He Did It Right in Front of a Cop- The Story of Phoebe Jonchuck
He was headed home from his late shift at work. He was a police officer in the Tampa Bay area, and it had been a very long day. But suddenly, a white PT Cruiser went flying past him, headed towards a bridge. So, the officer followed, and what would occur that night would be much worse than the officer had ever imagined.
The story I have for you today is another one out of Florida about a little girl who loved her daddy, and her daddy told her he would never let anything happen to her, but then he did—and he was the one who did it. This is the story of Phoebe Jonchuck.
Phoebe Jonchuck was born on August 22nd, 2009, in Tampa, Florida, to her mother, Michelle Kerr, and her father, John Jonchuck Jr. Phoebe also had a half-brother from her mother’s previous relationship. The curly-haired little girl had a smile that would captivate the room and a heart that loved unconditionally. Some of Phoebe’s favorite things included princesses, rainbows, butterflies, and cats. She was also a kindergartner at Cleveland Elementary School. Phoebe was a very happy child who had a free spirit, and she loved posing for pictures, dancing, singing, and creating art.
Her parents, John, who was 20 when she was born, and Michelle, who was 24, had been in a relationship for six tumultuous years. The police had been called to the residence they shared a number of times, and subsequently, they both had arrest records. Michelle Kerr has an arrest record consisting of child neglect, petty theft, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, among other charges. John Jonchuck had multiple arrests for domestic battery and violence against Michelle dating back to 2010, and he also had another charge of battery against his own mother, Michelle Jonchuck. The battery against his mother was in 2013, and that same year, John would be arrested for driving under the influence as well.
So, as you can probably gather, John had severe anger issues, and he was very manipulative, too. In fact, at one point, he had a restraining order out against Michelle, Phoebe’s mom, but she said that he had actually been the one who hit her in the head with a cinder block. From 2008 to 2015, John had been charged with domestic battery six times, but in every case, the charges were dropped or not pursued by the victim, which was either Michelle or John. John had back problems following a fall at a local restaurant; he had actually sued the chain and received a cash settlement. It is said that he’d never finished anything in his life and instead seemed to be the kind of person who would just go around suing other people and make that his income. It’s also to be noted that in his life, John had been involuntarily committed 27 times under the Baker Act.
The thing is, both of Phoebe’s parents, Michelle and John, had prior histories of drug abuse as well. Florida Child Protective Services had gotten involved with the family due to this, as well as the domestic assaults that had been happening in the home. John had been accused on one occasion of hitting Phoebe in the face and on many occasions of hitting her mother, Michelle. According to the reports made by the agency, Phoebe’s mother, Michelle, also was a meth user.
DCF’s first contact with Phoebe’s family was in April of 2012. A complaint had been called in, and it alleged that John not only used methamphetamine, but he had choked Phoebe’s mother and had locked the then-toddler in a bedroom where powerful pharmaceutical medication was located. Still, child protective investigators closed the case, citing Phoebe’s risk as low. DCF received another call in 2013 alleging that Michelle was using methamphetamine, cocaine, and alcohol. She was also reported to be hostile and violent with John at that point and was falling down. The DCF report also says that there were concerns about Phoebe not being bathed enough and there were concerns about the mother not having enough food in the home. And though the investigation was closed with verified findings that Phoebe was at some risk due to the violence going on between her parents, investigators took no action at the time. So, drunk, angry parents who don’t regularly bathe her and there’s possibly not enough food in the home get to keep her—makes sense.
The family’s home was also a complete mess. A previous landlord said that after they moved out, he found kicked-in doors along with drug paraphernalia, and he said that he had also had to replace quite a few windows because the couple had smashed them in. He described them as being very erratic, to say the least. So, the couple had broken up when Phoebe was only a toddler, but as you can tell, the relationship was still tumultuous. Michelle and John decided to share custody of Phoebe with only a verbal agreement between the two. But Michelle, who had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis soon after Phoebe’s birth, was having trouble walking, which meant that she could no longer work and was only receiving a monthly disability check. Given this, Michelle thought that it would be better for her daughter, Phoebe, to go live with her father, where she could be better taken care of. When Phoebe was in her father’s custody, she would still get to see her mother regularly. That is, up until December of 2014.
That’s when John would start avoiding Michelle and not letting her see Phoebe. That month, DCF had also received a report saying that John did not have a stable home; he and Phoebe were moving from relative’s house to relative’s house. At the time, they were actually living with John’s father, John Jonchuck Senior, who was said to be an alcoholic. The DCF reports from that time state that Phoebe’s mother, Michelle, continued to struggle with drug problems and mental health problems, and she was once again living with a man who was violent towards her. But again, Phoebe was allowed to stay in her father’s custody.
Also around this time, in December of 2014, John would randomly text six people, asking them for their forgiveness—for what, I’m not sure, but none of them answered him. Anyways, he would also tell his mother that Phoebe was a demon. A few weeks after this report, on January 7th, 2015, when John was speaking with his lawyer in regards to the custody case, he called his lawyer “God,” and then he asked her to translate a Swedish Bible for him. In regards to the custody case itself, John told his attorney that it quote, “didn’t matter anymore.” This scared his attorney, and she called DCF as well as the police to report this. She would call the child protection hotline and give them all of this information.
There was also some other concerning information that the lawyer would tell them. She said that John was driving all around town with Phoebe in the car in their pajamas, and that he was depressed and delusional. DCF placed a notation about the call in a file for a caseworker to handle at a later date, because the report did not rise to the level of reasonable cause to suspect abuse or neglect. The local police, however, took the attorney’s call a little more seriously, and they went to speak with John. They stopped him as he was exiting a priest’s office and asked him a few questions. Unbeknownst to the officers, the reason why John was leaving a priest’s office was because he had been driving around from church to church looking for somebody who could baptize him immediately. John would calmly tell the police officers that he did not want to hurt himself or his daughter. In fact, he had a new clarity on life at that time. Police officers said that everything seemed fine with John and Phoebe; the little girl was smiling and holding her dad’s hand.
That same night, Phoebe and John would eat dinner at his dad’s house with his mom, dad, and stepmother. Later that night, he and Phoebe would fall asleep on the couch. Then, around 1:00 a.m., his stepmother and father said that they heard the front door open and then close again.
A few hours later, in the very early hours of the morning on January 8th, 2015, John Jonchuck sped towards the iconic Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which spans Tampa Bay between St. Petersburg and Manatee County. A police officer named William Vickers, who had been heading home after his shift, spotted John in his white PT Cruiser. John was headed southbound, and he was speeding at about 100 miles an hour. John was crossing over the Dick Misener Bridge, which is the bridge prior to crossing the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, and suddenly, he pulled his car over and got out. Officer Vickers, who had been following closely behind, stopped his car as well and grabbed his gun. John was actually reaching into his own car, and the officer was afraid that he might have a weapon, so he yelled at John to back away from the car and show him his hands.
But John was not reaching for a weapon. He actually reached into his backseat and pulled out 5-year-old Phoebe. He yelled at the officer, “You have no free will.” John then walked over to the side of the bridge, held Phoebe over the edge, and before the officer could do anything, John dropped his 5-year-old daughter into the cold waters below. Phoebe plunged over 60 feet into Boca Ciega Bay. Officer Vickers immediately radioed for help and then he scrambled down a ladder that led to the dock below the bridge, but he could not see Phoebe in the dark waters that also had a very strong current in that area.
A marine rescue boat team was then summoned to search for the little girl. About an hour after Phoebe had been thrown into the water, members of Eckerd College’s volunteer search and rescue dive team found her little body floating about a half-mile away from where she had been dropped in. They attempted CPR on Phoebe but to no avail. She was then Life Flighted to a nearby hospital. When she got there, her body temperature was only 44 degrees, and even after attempts to warm up the little girl’s body, unfortunately, Phoebe Jonchuck passed away on January 8th, 2015. Phoebe had actually survived the fall from the bridge, but she had ended up dying of hypothermia.
After John had dropped his daughter in the water that night, he had sped off, but he had turned around. Instead of heading over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, he was instead heading towards Tampa, and he was now driving north in a southbound lane into oncoming traffic. John knew the police officer had seen what he did to his poor little girl, and now he was desperate to get away. But multiple police cruisers were now in pursuit, and after an over 20-minute chase, having to shatter his tires with road spikes and breaking his car window to pull him out through it, John Jonchuck was finally placed under arrest.
John Jonchuck was charged with first-degree murder, aggravated assault with a motor vehicle on law enforcement, and aggravated fleeing. When investigators interviewed John, he alternated between conversational and combative. At times, he seemed composed and articulate; then, in other moments, he spoke of becoming the Pope and made vague allusions to conspiracies and being manipulated by someone. He would also tell the police that his name was God and he should be addressed as such.
(Police Interview Excerpt): “I went looking for answers. I’ve always had problems growing up, like wondering who I was and how and what my purpose was. And ever since yesterday and a couple days before, like, what-if problems.” “How do you think you’re different?” “Well, um, it’s like, I don’t know. Like, when I went to the church today, St. Paul’s Catholic Church, and I spoke to Father Bill, he told me that I wasn’t going to be ready this Easter but next Easter, and that I was the Pope… that Francis or whatever is not… is not like, he’s not the real Pope. Yes, and my grandma’s name, and I do have Greek heritage, believe it or not. My grandma’s maiden name is Vladimir, and it’s always been weird. And I’ve had people coming up to me recently and asking me what my name is, and I’ve only been able to say ‘John.’ Prior to this, weeks prior to this, and they would ask me what my last name is, and I would just say ‘John.'” “But you just physically couldn’t say your last name, or name, ‘John Jonchuck,’ or just ‘John’?” “It was just ‘John’ for some reason, and it’s like I really had to kind of think about it for a minute. Then that’s just been going on this past week.” “How about the Island Creamer? You like working there? You said it’s a Jamaican restaurant.” “I kind of felt uncomfortable.” “Uncomfortable, how so?” “I mean, it’s a job.” “How do you know all this stuff? You told me when I was asking you what your name was and what your… you said that you worked at Island Creamer and it was a Jamaican restaurant, or was like a cafe, that’s how you put it.” “Well, I did, but I felt like he was dishonest, and that the owner… I don’t know.” “No, he said you’re… was it the owner that was being dishonest? What made you think he was being dishonest?” “He was going to different restaurants and working there to find out their main dishes and then putting it on his menu.” “Really?” “So, you would go to different restaurants, find out what their signature dish or the main dish is on their menu, and bring it back to the restaurant that you worked at?” “Yes, I could see how that would be dishonest.” “Is Phoebe okay?” “Phoebe? Who’s that?” “Phoebe? That’s my daughter, Phoebe Jonchuck.” “Is she okay?” “I don’t know. John, I haven’t heard. You’re watching and talking over you, or talking with you.”
At John’s first hearing, the Pinellas County judge asked him if he wanted an attorney. John said, “I want to leave it in the hands of God.” The judge responded with, “I’m pretty sure God is not going to be representing you in this case. You’re going to be standing trial.”
After the detectives obtained a search warrant for John’s car, they found Phoebe’s pink booster seat, a cell phone, and two Bibles. John was also evaluated by a psychiatrist, and he told the psychiatrist that he felt like he had to kill Phoebe because she was a demon, and if he didn’t, everyone else would go to hell instead. And John said that he felt like the Bible that he had with him that night—one of the two, I guess—was telling people that he was the creator. I’m not sure if this Bible was talking in his mind or what, but it was telling people that John Jonchuck was the creator. He also said that he had bad dreams about not getting his daughter to be able to wake up. And John claimed that he was a very good father and that Phoebe loved him. I’m sure she did, but I doubt that you’re a good father. He said he always promised that he would never let anything happen to her, but then… you didn’t just let something happen to her; you did it yourself.
So, apparently, in the weeks leading up to Phoebe’s murder, John had become so obsessed with the Swedish Bible that he started taking the old book to bed with him. He was fixated with it, and John’s obsession with the Bible carried on to the point where he would put salt outside of the doorways to keep out evil spirits. John had previously worked at a telemarketing company, and when he went into work, he would quote things from his Bible, especially the Old Testament tale about God commanding Abraham to kill his son before sparing his life. His boss said that he could have the most educated conversation in the world with John one minute, and then he would suddenly flip, and as his boss said, “the devil would appear.”
Another one of John’s acquaintances, Linda Moss, who was the owner of the daycare that looked after Phoebe, said that John was homeless in 2013. Since John had a back injury and didn’t work, Linda had allowed him and Phoebe to stay with her for about six months. That was until John started to pick fights with her, and she asked him to leave. John got vengeful and decided to ruin her and call Child Protective Services to try to get her daycare shut down. And Michelle Kerr would agree about just how vengeful John could be. Michelle said she had last seen her daughter, Phoebe, on Christmas Eve. John was there, too; they had a nice night together. But then afterwards, he called Child Protective Services and made false allegations against Michelle. Michelle said he was like Jekyll and Hyde, and he just wasn’t wired right. And yet, Michelle said that she never thought that John would ever do anything to hurt Phoebe. In fact, she said that he always doted on his daughter.
At first, John was declared unfit to stand trial for Phoebe’s murder, but doctors later decided his positive reaction to medication made him sufficiently competent to face a jury. And until his trial, which would not start until May of 2019, he remained in a state mental hospital. During a preliminary hearing in December of 2018, a court would hear about how John had heard voices that made him kill his daughter, Phoebe. And when John’s trial finally started in March of 2019, over 30 witnesses were called to testify. It would last a little over three weeks.
Of course, John’s defense was trying to push for the jury to find that John had only killed his daughter, Phoebe, because he was insane at the moment he threw her off the bridge. He thought he was protecting her. John’s attorney would say it will never make sense because it was insanity. However, the prosecution said that there was no evidence to lead them to believe that John had been suffering from psychosis prior to Phoebe’s death. The prosecutor told the jury that John Jonchuck had actually killed his daughter over fear of losing custody of her. It was also said that Michelle Kerr was dating and living with a new man, and on top of that, they believed that John had some serious anger for his mother because she cared for Phoebe in a way she had never done for John. In fact, she had abandoned him at the same age that Phoebe was, only five. The prosecutor said that John was looking to lash out and hurt his mother as well as Michelle, and the murder was not a product of a psychotic break.
Psychiatrist Emily Lazaro agreed when she was called to testify. She said she believes that John has a severe antisocial personality disorder, but he was not insane. She also told the jury that his delusions were not legitimate. The psychiatrist told them, “You don’t go from God to Archangel to a devil to a demon to the Pope to this, to that, in a very short period of time like that. Even in a long period of time, psychotic symptoms just don’t work like that.” She also made the point that if John was experiencing psychotic symptoms at the time, then why would he have not jumped off the bridge himself as well?
Dr. Lazaro’s testimony was followed by testimony from another doctor, Dr. Peter Bernston. He told the court that he believes John has severe mental illness and moments of delusion, but he also thought that John was somewhat in touch with reality when he had dropped Phoebe over the side of the bridge. He told the jury about a checklist he used to diagnose psychopaths; he gave John high marks on the checklist, finding him to have personality traits such as superficial charm, manipulative, and lack of remorse. And there was also the fact that John had told his own mother prior to Phoebe’s death that he would, quote, “[f-word] up the rest of her life,” and he did just that.
The court heard about how John had gotten inconsistent mental health treatment when he was younger. He had again sought treatment as a young adult when he was unable to control his emotions or hold down a job. He was then diagnosed with ADD and bipolar disorder. He had been prescribed many different medications—at least six different ones—and under a doctor’s care, he had experimented with different combinations to find one that worked for him. But in 2013, he stopped seeing his doctor altogether.
The jury also heard about how John had been passed around as a kid from mom to dad, to uncles, to dad again. John got dumped, and he never really felt cared about as a child. And the woman who had caused this, as she had abandoned John when he was only Phoebe’s age, John’s mother, Michelle Jonchuck, took the witness stand at his trial. Michelle also has a history of arrests as well as drug abuse, but she had also loved Phoebe, and Phoebe loved her; the little girl had called her “Mama.” John’s trial was the first time that his mother had seen him in about three years. The last time she had seen him was when she was visiting him in a mental health facility in Gainesville, Florida.
The prosecution would mostly ask Michelle about whether her granddaughter liked to swim. She said that Phoebe had always been very nervous about it and always wanted somebody to hold her in the water, even when she had her floaties on. They then asked if Phoebe had ever learned to swim; she said no. That makes Phoebe’s murder especially cruel. Michelle Jonchuck would later say that she can never understand why her son did what he did, and she wishes that he had been the one to go over the side of the bridge that night, and not her granddaughter.
Though it’s unclear if John was actually diagnosed with schizophrenia, his mother, Michelle Jonchuck, had previously told police that he had schizophrenia as well as bipolar disorder but had recently stopped taking his medication. She said she had known this because he was living with her at the time. When the trial was finally coming to a close in April of 2019, jurors in Clearwater, Florida, deliberated for about 7 hours over 2 days, and then they found 29-year-old John Jonchuck guilty of Phoebe Jonchuck’s murder. He was then given an automatic life sentence in prison. There was no one from John’s family in the courtroom when the verdict was announced, and nobody spoke on his or Phoebe’s behalf prior to his sentencing.
After Phoebe’s death, Florida DCF changed their hotline criteria to include a trigger for when a caregiver is believed to be experiencing a psychotic episode; that would then require a department supervisor to visit the family within 4 hours. Now, John’s attorney had called child protective services at 2:45 p.m. the day that Phoebe was murdered. Had this been in place, then there’s a possibility that Phoebe might still be alive. After that, the department also hired 270 more child protective investigators, and in the first year after Phoebe’s death, DCF investigators would respond to over 900 calls of caregivers experiencing psychotic breaks. That would have been 900 calls that possibly could have slipped through the cracks. So, how many lives were actually saved? Hopefully, a lot.
Shortly after the trial had come to an end, John’s public defender filed a motion asking for a new trial, saying that the judge had made several erroneous mistakes. John’s attorney attempted to argue that several incidents were brought up during the trial that were unrelated to his alleged crime and were inappropriate. In one situation, John had been accused of polishing a staircase in the hopes that his uncle would trip and fall down it. He was also accused of forging checks. So, I’d say that this is proof that he’s a psychopath, at least the first part about getting his uncle to fall down the stairs. So, I feel like that’s valid. That’s valid. Additionally, his public defender was arguing that banter between the witnesses and the juror had tainted the trial and that the jurors had not been properly instructed by the judge. But at the end of 2019, John Jonchuck was denied a new trial.
When you look at a little girl, and she’s dancing, and you see her smile, and you see her little ringlets of hair, and she was so young, and you just… how in the world? Nobody can do that. I just couldn’t believe that a father could do something like that. I mean, he just took his daughter and he threw her away. How do you do that?
Every year since Phoebe Jonchuck’s death, Margo Adams-Reed and Lou Falco honor her life by throwing flowers into Tampa Bay. “Okay, and I think about that when we throw the flowers in. I think, ‘Here’s a little girl not being forgotten, here for you, Phoebe.'” They never met Phoebe; they’re just strangers who felt called to do something. “I don’t think there’s anybody with a heart that wasn’t impacted. I don’t think there’s anybody who ever cared about a child in their life that wouldn’t have greatly cared about something like that happening.” Margo and Lou set up a scholarship in Phoebe’s name. “We’re going to make sure that she’s remembered in the community and everybody else’s hearts. That’s the way I look at it, and that’s why I did it. I just… I still can’t believe it years later. It just bothers me so much; makes me sick to my stomach. I like it when they float that way, towards that part of the bridge. So, for you, Phoebe.”
On the morning of January 14th, 2015, mourners gathered for Phoebe’s memorial service, and instead of wearing the normal black to the funeral, everyone wore bright colors—a nod to the little girl’s love of vibrant hues. Many of them also carried beautiful multicolored bouquets. During her memorial, Phoebe’s teacher at Cleveland Elementary School would address the crowd. She remembered the little girl who loved attending school. One of the things that she also said was that Phoebe’s classmates now blow kisses to heaven for her and talk about Phoebe being in “cloud school.”
Well, thank you for listening to another story today. What John did to his little girl seemed like it was very premeditated, but when he actually carried through with his plan, it seemed completely not thought through. He was racing down the highway at 100 miles an hour, suddenly pulled over after he had gone past a cop; it just seemed very erratic and like he was not trying to get away with it. So, it’s kind of weird. I feel like maybe he used the Bible and all the bizarre things surrounding it to make it seem like he was mentally unstable. And since the Bible was something he had gotten weeks prior to Phoebe’s death, it makes me wonder if maybe he had been planning this for quite some time. But what do you think? Either way, poor little Phoebe must have been so scared, wondering why her daddy, who said that he loved her and would protect her, had just done this to her. It’s an awful and gut-wrenching thought.
