A man who is charged with murdering a puppy in Ross County was on parole and has a twisted morbid past, which includes burglarizing his own aunt’s home while she went to claim her dead husband’s body at the morgue.
Joshua Keets, Chillicothe, has been charged with animal cruelty for the abuse and death of a puppy that was handed over to the Ross County Humane Society earlier this week.
This is not Keets’ first run in with law enforcement, however. In 2015, he was sentenced to six years in prison after he, his mother, and brother ransacked and burglarized his own aunt’s home. The aunt was not home at the time of the robbery because she was at the morgue claiming the body of her dead husband who had died from a fall at a fitness center. Police said that while the woman was gone, the four family members broke in and stole guns and $10,000.
Keets, his mother Mary Young, and brother Ronald Murphy, along with Tracy Shorten, ransacked the Leesburg home and were charged.
Keets and Murphy pleaded guilty to burglary and grand theft and were each sentenced to six years in jail.
Keets is currently on parole for the crimes. In addition to the animal abuse charges, he has been slapped with a parole violation.
