John Jonchuck: 'Voices' told him if 'Phoebe didn't die, everybody was going to go to hell'

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- John Jonchuck told a doctor that he was "hearing voices" that drove him to drop his 5-year-old daughter, Phoebe, off a bridge, according to court documents.

In court filings that were recently made public for the first time, Jonchuck, now 29, described some of the things he felt and experienced leading up to the night he allegedly dropped Phoebe into Tampa Bay from the top of a bridge. Jonchuck apparently revealed these feelings to Dr. Emily Lazarou, a psychiatrist chosen by the state to evaluate his mental state.

Parts of Lazarou's interview with Jonchuck from October 2017 and May 2018 were detailed in a deposition by Dr. Ryan Wagoner, another doctor chosen by Jonchuk's defense team to evaluate Lazarou's methods.

"I was hearing voices saying that if me and Phoebe didn't die, everybody was going to go to hell," Jonchuck said.

When Lazarou asked him "who's everybody?" Jonchuck said, "Everybody in the world."

Phoebe Jonchuck died Jan. 8, 2015, after falling more than 60 feet from Dick Misener Bridge in St. Petersburg. A responding police officer said he saw Jonchuck stop on the bridge, take Phoebe from the car and drop her over the edge of the bridge into Tampa Bay. Jonchuck is charged with first-degree murder, aggravated fleeing and eluding and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon on a law enforcement officer.

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Jonchuck told Lazarou that he still thinks about Phoebe every night.

"I still have bad dreams where I feel that she's laying there and I couldn't get her to wake up and she's really not in here," he said.

When Lazarou asked Jonchuck why he cared about "everybody in the world" going to hell, Jonchuck replied: "Because I felt like with that Bible that night I was telling everybody that I was the Creator."

And, "Because I felt like the voices were telling me something that was real."

And, "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."

In October, a judge ruled that state prosecutors will get to re-question defense experts and the defense team will get to re-question state experts regarding Jonchuck's sanity. Jonchuck's trial is set to begin on March 18, 2019.

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