A jury will decide whether a father of three is guilty of a crime when he and his wife abducted their own children in an alleged incident more than four years ago in Killeen.
Jury selection began Monday in Judge Steve Duskie’s courtroom in the case of Jeffrey Scott Gilseth, 36, of Brady, according to the Court Coordinator’s Office for the 426th Circuit Court.
Gilseth and his wife Maria Gilseth, 36, were each charged on May 15, 2019 with interference with custody at state prison. A jury trial is also scheduled for Monday in the Maria Gilseth case, but it has been postponed to another date.
Both Gilseths have been released from prison on bail.
The Gilseths were taken into custody by U.S. Marshals in Kansas on February 27, 2019 after fleeing a court-supervised visit with their three sons on February 21, 2019.
A Killeen Police Department detective testified during a bail reduction hearing in 2019 that an extensive manhunt took place.
“I received a statement from the woman who oversaw the visit (to Killeen),” said Det. Angela Mathews of the Victims’ Task Force. “She said Mrs Gilseth said something like ‘I can’t do this anymore’ and called her children over.”
After the children were with their mother, Mathews said the woman said Jeffery Gilseth stood between the supervisor and his wife and children to allow them to leave.
A search of the Gilseth home in Brady turned up a handful of Google maps with targets in Kansas, Missouri, North Dakota and Montana, Mathews said.
The Gilseths’ attorney, Austin Shell, argued during the hearing that his clients thought they were doing the right thing.
“This was done to extricate their children from what they felt was an abusive situation in the CPS, but it was the wrong approach,” he said.
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