2 fallen McHenry County deputies ‘forever remembered’ with Honor Chairs from Saving a Hero’s Place

Two personalized Honor Chairs have arrived in the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office to memorialize two fallen deputies.

The sheriff’s office last week unveiled the handcrafted chairs, built and delivered by Texas nonprofit Saving a Hero’s Place Inc., in honor of Sheriff’s Deputies Dwight Maness and Jacob Keltner, who were both killed in the line of duty.

Maness’ mom, Kathey Filppula, of Chicago, who attended an unveiling ceremony last week, said the chair is “so beautiful, and those people who made it are so nice.”

“The whole family was very grateful and we are so proud that (the sheriff’s office) is supporting us and keeping their thoughts with my son all the time,” she said.

The late deputy’s widow, Susan Maness, of Antioch, said it makes her “feel good” that will “be forever remembered.” Her husband who died in 2015, about a year after being shot by a Holiday Hills man during a well-being check.

“He’s just not ‘out of sight, out of mind’ anymore,” she said. “He’ll always live in people’s minds and [they will] remember him and who he was and what he did. I want people to remember how caring, respectful he was to everybody. Anybody that met him loved him.”

Maness, 47, had been recovering from injuries sustained when he was shot by Scott B. Peters on Oct. 16, 2014, when Maness and his partner, Deputy Khalia Satkiewicz, responded to a call for a domestic situation.

Maness was shot in the back and leg and remained dependent on a wheelchair or walker. He’d vowed to walk and get back on his motorcycle.

Before dying from a blood clot, Maness’ doctors had told him he was healing better than anticipated.

Peters was convicted on multiple attempted murder charges and was sentenced to 135 years in prison.

After Maness died, prosocutors reviewed the case but did not file murder charges against Peters.

Satkiewicz, who recovered from her physical wounds and still works for the Sheriff’s Office, said “it means a lot” to have both deputies remembered in this way.

”They will not ever be forgotten,” she said. “They were a part of our family and the chairs just, you know, means a little bit more that they will always have a place in our memory. In everything [we] do, they always will be there with us.”

Keltner, 35, died March 7, 2019, while working in his role as a marshal with the special U.S. Marshals Service task force. He was serving a warrant on Floyd Brown in the Extended Stay America hotel in Rockford.

As other marshals attempted to enter the room from the hallway outside Brown’s third-floor hotel room, he jumped out of the window and shot and killed Keltner, who was nearby outside the hotel, according to courtroom testimony.

Brown, of Springfield, was found guilty by a federal jury in a Rockford courtroom of second-degree murder in Keltner’s death and second-degree attempted-murder for shooting at three other marshals. He was sentenced to 55 years in prison.

Keltner’s widow, Rebecca Keltner, of Crystal Lake, said she and the Keltner family are “very thankful” for the “beautiful gift.”

“The chairs represent that Jake and Dwight will always have a place in the hearts of those at the Sheriff’s Office lucky enough to know them,” Keltner said.

She said the chairs will serve “as a reminder to those that come after them to remember those that sacrificed all. Jake and Dwight’s spirit will always have a place at McHenry County Sheriff’s Office thanks to those chairs.”

Keltner’s sentiments echo the reason behind Tommy Capell’s inspiration for building the chairs and founding the nonprofit in 2013.

”They will not ever be forgotten.”

—  McHenry County Sheriff's Deputy Khalia Satkiewicz who was with Dwight Maness when he was shot on Oct. 16, 2014

Capell, a former police officer in San Antonio, Texas, said he wanted to do something to honor the growing number of police officers who were killed in the line of duty, including those close to him. A friend was killed just two months after finishing the academy. He was also inspired by others in his department who were slain, as well as by MIT Police Officer Sean Collier, who was shot by the Boston Marathon bombers in April 2013.

Collier’s death, he said, kept him up at night.

“They walked up and killed the officer in his squad,” Capell recalled. Before then, he’d built one chair for a fallen officer as a hobby. “I didn’t even know [Collier]. That just really bothered me. I got really angry and told my wife I am going to reach out and ask [the MIT Police Department] if I could build them a chair.”

He said he didn’t expect a response, but he got one. The officers in Boston “were devastated,” so he built the chair and his wife started raising money so they could deliver it.

After getting the chair to Boston and seeing how important it was to the family and the department, the couple brought in their neighbor, who was a CPA, formed a board and established the nonprofit.

They got so busy that Capell had to quit his job as a police officer in 2019 and focus solely on fundraising, building and delivering chairs.

Today, he works as a reserve police officer for his department.

Since 2013, Saving a Hero’s Place has built 267 chairs for fallen police officers and firefighters in 29 states.

Including those featuring Maness and Keltner, Saving a Hero’s Place has built and delivered chairs to 10 departments in Illinois, including Riverdale, Matteson and Naperville, and five to the Illinois State Police, he said.

The hand-crafted chairs are personalized with Bible verses, phrases meaningful to the family or the department, badges, coins or whatever is requested.

The cost to sponsor a chair is $2,500.

The nonprofit does not ask departments for money but is supported through sponsorships, donations and an annual fundraiser.

But Capell said they build the chairs “no matter what” the department requesting one chooses to donate.

“Saving a hero’s place means to save the place of the officer or firefighter killed in the line of duty,” he said. “They spend so much time there, at the department. When they are not there anymore, we want to make sure their place at the department is saved.”

His wife, Robbie Capell, added that a chair is more prominent than a plaque or picture hanging on a wall, which can go unnoticed as people walk by.

“But the chair is always out there, so that way the hero is never forgotten, no matter how many years and people come in and out,” Robbie Capell said.

McHenry County Sheriff Robb Tadelman said while the department will never forget Maness and Keltner, “these chairs will forever save a place at McHenry County Sheriff’s Office.”

Sheriff’s Deputy Jennifer “Jen” Garafol, who learned about the nonprofit about a year-and-a-half ago and jumped in to order them, worked with both deputies.

She wanted to ensure future officers knew who they were.

“I’m not going to be there forever and Dwight and Jake’s stories need to be told, especially to these younger guys,” Garafol said.

After discussing with former Sheriff Bill Prim, she gathered the officers’ coins and badges and chose the Bible verses inscribed on the chairs.

“They were both amazing,” Garafol said. “I worked with Dwight on midnights. He was a guy I could rely on. If Dwight was showing up on a call, you knew you were going to be all right. Dwight always had your back. Jake was the same way. … They were both just great people and a loss to not just the sheriff’s office but to the community.”