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SALT LAKE CITY — A Smithfield man has been arrested and accused of trying to kill his father.
Ethan Drake Mortensen, 20, was booked into the Cache County Jail on Thursday for investigation of attempted murder and intoxication.
Police say Mortensen and his father had been fighting in their garage. A witness who heard the verbal argument went to see what was happening and then tackled Mortensen when he saw he had “a hatchet raised in the direction of his father,” according to a police affidavit.
The father told police he had caught his son “drinking heavily in the garage” and told him “they were going to have to kick him out of the house for drinking at home after they had asked him not to,” the affidavit states.
The conversation got heated, however, and police say Mortensen grabbed a hatchet and knife out of his backpack. He began cutting his own neck before turning his anger to his father, the affidavit states, and then “went after him with the knife and hatchet and said, ‘I am going to kill you.’”
The father was cut on his hand as he tried to prevent his son from stabbing him, police say.
Mortensen’s blood alcohol content was checked at a local hospital after his arrest, and registered at 0.273%, the affidavit says.
