Video shows him killing a Waffle House waitress. Biloxi man claims ‘God pulled that trigger.’

In his own words on Wednesday, Johnny Max Mount said he killed Waffle House waitress Julie Brightwell but insisted he was innocent because he was acting out God’s will.

“God pulled that trigger,” he said.

“Was He acting through you?” Assistant District Attorney George Huffman asked.

“Yes,” Mount said.

On the second day of his murder trial in the Harrison County Circuit Courthouse, Mount testified in his own defense. He called himself “King and Lord Johnny Max Mount” and asked to read a 700-page document of his thoughts to the jury. Judge Lisa Dodson denied that request.

Mount instead took the stand with a Bible, a dictionary and a copy of The Cider House Rules. He said he was a victim of “psychological warfare” by national security officials and complained that video evidence that shows him shooting Brightwell is “nefarious.”

Instead, he said, the killing was not his choice and happened because he grew frustrated beyond control.

“I felt as if there was so much heat I was being electrocuted,” Mount said. “I had to dissipate the anger within my mind.”

Mount also claimed Brightwell was yelling at him to stop smoking, though the video footage shows her talking to Mount for just a second, and no one appears to be yelling.

The video did not have any sound.

“I looked at Julie Brightwell, and I was yelling at her, ‘Stop yelling at me, stop yelling at me,’” he said. “She wouldn’t stop yelling. I feel like I was being electrocuted to death. When she ducked down, it was too late. I had to fight for my life.”

Brightwell suffered a single gunshot to her head and died face-up on the floor, where she fell as the blood seeped from her wound.

Psychiatrist: Mount knew killing Waffle House waitress was wrong

Wednesday’s testimony inched closer to the case’s crucial question, which is not about whether Mount killed Brightwell but instead hinges on whether he knew what he did was wrong.

Under cross-examination, Huffman demanded multiple times that Mount answer whether he pulled the trigger and tried to establish that Mount knew the restaurant would become a crime scene if he did.

Prosecutors framed the case as a rational act committed by a man who understood the shooting and its consequences. They have shown the jury two videos from different camera angles that both record Mount pushing back his chair, pulling out a gun and leaning over the counter to aim at Brightwell. Huffman said the case is one of the most straightforward he has ever seen.

But Mount’s attorney, Jim Davis, is arguing an insanity defense.

Thomas Recore, a forensic psychiatrist hired by the state, said Mount knew murder was a crime but pulled the trigger anyway.

Mount killed Brightwell after she asked him not to smoke an e-cigarette inside the restaurant. He stood up, drew his gun from its holster, and shot Brightwell as she ducked helplessly behind the counter.

Then he walked outside, placed the gun on a customer’s white pickup truck, and realized he had to use the restroom. He returned inside to do that, Recore said, because he knew urinating in public was illegal. Recore also testified Mount stayed at the Waffle House because he did not want to flee the scene of a crime and placed his hands on the glass window to wait for police.

“All those things speak to knowledge of wrongfulness,” Recore said.

Suspect’s mother testifies

Irish DuRapau, Mount’s mother, testified for the defense on Wednesday and told the jury her son was a “good guy” who suffered a terrible accident. Mount lost a leg, endured a traumatic brain injury, and almost died after a car hit him on Highway 49 in Gulfport two decades ago. Now, he uses a wheelchair and a prosthetic leg. A scar still cuts across his scalp.

Mount got a degree from the University of Southern Mississippi, lived alone at an apartment in Biloxi and rebounded remarkably after the accident, his mother and others testified.

But later, Mount came to believe his mother’s granddaughter was a spy, thought banks interfered with his checking accounts, and “just didn’t say things right,” DuRapau said. “He just wasn’t the same Johnny as before.”

She saw him once a week for dinner on Fridays, and said just as often he would come home drunk and rambling. Recore, the psychiatrist, and Mount both said he had been drinking the night he shot Brightwell. He said he’d also taken part of a prescription painkiller for a toothache.

As DuRapau passed her son on her way out of the courtroom, she did not greet him or smile.

She just kept walking.

32 bullets and a gun at Waffle House

The hours before the Nov. 27, 2015, shooting seemed normal. Mount went to an aunt’s house for Thanksgiving. He was not angry, he said.

But he returned to Biloxi with delusions and frustration. That night, he drank beer, took part of a pain pill, grabbed a gun and 32 bullets to protect himself from what he told the jury was a national security agent he thought might attack him, and walked to Waffle House.

“I couldn’t control the anger,” Mount testified.

After he pulled the trigger, he said he thought: “There is no turning back.”

The trial is expected to conclude Thursday when both sides make closing arguments.

This story was originally published June 15, 2023 at 9:37 AM.

Margaret Baker

Sun Herald

601-909-0541

Margaret is an investigative reporter whose search for truth exposed corrupt sheriffs, a police chief and various jailers and led to the first prosecution of a federal hate crime for the murder of a transgendered person. She worked on the Sun Herald’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Hurricane Katrina team. When she pursues a big story, she is relentless.

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Martha Sanchez

Sun Herald

Martha Sanchez is a former journalist for the Sun Herald