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A Sixth District Court of Appeals panel upheld Steven Rodvold's murder conviction in the shooting death of his father, rejecting his self-defense claim in a Huron County case.

Rodvold, then 26, called the Huron County Sheriff's Office on the evening of Sept. 17, 2009, and said he had "had to" shoot his father, Keith Rodvold, 51, at the home they shared in Clarksfield Township, near New London. Deputies found Keith Rodvold's body on the back deck with six gunshot wounds, one to the top of his head.

Steven Rodvold surrendered a .357-caliber revolver to deputies and was taken into custody without incident. Huron County Sheriff Dane Howard said Rodvold repeatedly described the shooting as self-defense, but evidence at the scene did not support that account. "It was an ugly situation," Howard said at the time.

Trial testimony showed Rodvold had left the Army after seven and a half years of service and moved back in with his father, who taught plumbing and did carpentry work. On the day of the shooting, Rodvold learned his unemployment benefits appeal had been denied, made angry, threatening phone calls to state unemployment workers, fired a gun into a backyard tree and armed himself with a different weapon before an argument with his father on the deck ended in gunfire.

Rodvold testified his father had threatened him with a handgun, though he gave conflicting accounts of the threat to investigators and at trial. A grand jury indicted him on charges of aggravated murder and murder, both with firearm specifications; prosecutors said the evidence pointed to a planned killing.

A jury convicted Rodvold of murder and the firearm specification after a trial in May 2010. Huron County Common Pleas Judge James W. Conway sentenced him to 15 years to life in prison, plus a mandatory three years on the gun specification.

In its Feb. 17 ruling, the appeals court rejected arguments that jury-selection issues and the denial of a change-of-venue motion had deprived Rodvold of a fair trial. He remains incarcerated at Richland Correctional Institution, with a parole eligibility date in 2027.