A Mason City man is charged with first-degree murder after allegedly attacking his mother with a hatchet. The Mason City Police Department says they are holding 23-year-old Jordan Scott Johnson in the Cerro Gordo County Jail after his mother, 49-year-old Rita Seely, was found dead by police shortly before midnight Saturday night at her home.
Police have not released the official cause of Seely’s death but say an autopsy will be performed at the state Medical Examiner’s Office in Ankeny later today. Friends of the family say that Johnson allegedly locked Rita Seely’s husband of one year inside the basement Saturday night and then killed his mother with a hatchet. Johnson is being held in the Cerro Gordo County Jail on $100,000 bond.