Apr 30, 2018 2 min read

MARIANNA – A West Bethlehem Township man is facing a string of charges, including kidnapping, over allegations he held his ex-girlfriend against her will and threatened to kill her and others early Sunday.

State police filed the charges against Scott Edward Deditch, 33, of 176 Topsail Lane, after the woman managed to briefly free herself from his pickup truck and call 911, court records show.

Troopers were sent about 2:30 a.m. to a gamelands at Dutch Glory Road and Loves Hill Road to look for a black truck, but it wasn’t there. The vehicle later was pulled over by different troopers on Dutch Glory Road, and they took Deditch into custody without incident, according to the affidavit of probable cause.

Shortly before Deditch left his truck, Kate Wheeler got out of its passenger door and ran behind a police cruiser for protection, police stated in the court record.

Wheeler also screamed, “The gun is in the truck, it’s in the truck, in the center console,” the record indicates.

Wheeler later told police Deditch had picked her up earlier and that they had drinks at three area bars before ending up at The Lamphouse bar in Marianna.

They began to argue about one of Wheeler’s friends and she asked Deditch to take her home, court records show.

As Deditch drove, Wheeler became afraid of him and she tried several times to jump out of the moving truck, but she was pulled by the hair back into the vehicle. At one point, her clothing was ripped, police allege in the affidavit.

She told police Deditch’s vehicle struck a deer and mailbox, and that he was screaming “someone will die” as he pulled out a handgun and waved it around the cab, police stated in the record.

Wheeler said she convinced Deditch to allow her out of the truck at the gamelands. She walked down a path, called 911 and tried to run away, but was captured and taken back to the truck.

She also told police she “feared she would not make it home alive,” a trooper noted in the record.

Deditch also is charged with making terroristic threats, reckless endangerment, aggravated assault, simple assault and harassment.

He is free on $100,000 bond set by District Judge Larry Hopkins.