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Seth A. Ketelhut (Douglas County Jail)
A 37-year-old man in Nebraska was arrested this week for allegedly beating his own mother and then abducting and terrorizing his own father, restraining him to a chair for nearly a full day while repeatedly flipping a coin and asking whether the older man was going to “live or die.”
Seth A. Ketelhut was taken into custody on Monday in Cass County and charged with one count each of kidnapping, false imprisonment, use of a firearm during a felony, violating a protection order, and making terroristic threats, as well as two counts of second-degree assault over the attack on his 67-year-old father, records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
Ketelhut is also charged in Dodge County with one count of first-degree assault, abuse of a vulnerable adult, and felony theft for allegedly brutally attacking his 68-year-old mother and stealing her car earlier this month.
According to court documents obtained by the Omaha World-Herald, the attack on Ketelhut’s mother took place on Nov. 4 inside her home in Fremont. His mother told investigators that she said something insulting about one of Ketelhut’s children, which made him furious.
The mother reportedly said Ketelhut began “punching her” before “slamming her to the ground.” He then allegedly left in his mother’s 2021 Ford Escape, resulting in the felony theft charge, authorities said.
A copy of the formal charges against Ketelhut from Dodge County obtained by Law&Crime states that Ketelhut “intentionally” caused “serious bodily injury” to his mother. The document also alleges that he took her “movable property” with “the intent to deprive them thereof, said property having a value of more than $5,000.”
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By the time authorities arrived on the scene, Ketelhut’s mother was suffering from numerous “serious injuries.” Her eyes were allegedly “swelled closed and she had ‘raccoon’ bruising around both eyes,” police reportedly wrote in the affidavit. Police also reportedly noted that she had “dried blood on her hands, in her hair and on her teeth.”
Ketelhut’s mother was initially transported to Fremont Hospital and later transferred to the Nebraska Medical Center where she was admitted to the intensive care unit because the attack caused her to suffer a cerebellar stroke and a vertebral artery dissection.
Ketelhut on Nov. 5 at about 10:20 a.m. went to his father’s home and forced his way through the front door, the World-Herald reported. He then reportedly made his father sit in a chair for almost 21 hours straight.
When authorities arrived at the home at about 10:20 a.m. on Nov. 6, Ketelhut’s father told investigators that while he was in the chair, his son stood next to him holding a .22-caliber handgun and “would flip a coin and ask ‘are you going to live or die?”” He said that Ketelhut flipped the coin “to intimidate him,” claiming it occurred “over and over again several times.”
Lincoln ABC affiliate KLKN reported that Ketelhut also grabbed a knife and repeatedly swung it at his father’s feet in order to make him “keep his feet moving.”
Ketelhut is also accused of hitting his father in the head multiple times with a PVC pipe, brandishing and threatening him with a gun, and biting him on the head and both ears.
Ketelhut was booked into the Douglas County Jail where he is currently being held on $750,000 bond, records show.
