Casie Ellison and her family waited 38 years saddled with “the not knowing and the speculation and the hurt” of her mother’s unsolved death in 1987.
In July a 70-year-old man came forward claiming responsibility after reading a cold case article about Melissa “Missy Taylor” Ellison, Casie’s mother who was killed on her bed with 1-year-old Casie at her side.
The stunning development was “a huge relief that’s been lifted,” Ellison told The Florida Times-Union in a lengthy Aug. 3 interview. Gary Glowacz, the small-time criminal arrested, wasn’t the “convenient” scapegoat speculated. That would be “the elephant in the room,” Ellison’s father, she said.
Glowacz, who lived a half-mile away from the Jacksonville mobile home park where the 20-year-old mother was clubbed to death, pleaded not guilty Aug. 13 to second-degree murder and armed burglary with assault or battery at his arraignment. That detail about where he lived was among the new information recently released in his court-filed arrest report.
Another “jarring” revelation was he had been arrested 18 hours later in a nearby burglary after leaving Casie and her mother. Court records show he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year in jail.
News clippings stated that investigators were aware of a string of burglaries in the area but discounted them because they weren’t convinced Ellison was the victim of a burglary ― only a set of keys and two pictures of her in a bathing suit were unaccounted for at the time.
What was known was someone moved baby Casie from the bed to a living room couch with pillows tucked around her as if to prevent her from falling.
’The elephant in the room’
Melissa and Mark Ellison had recently separated, and he told the Times-Union in a 1990 article that he was accused from the start but was as frustrated as anyone that it remained unsolved. He said he was just trying to continue his life and raise Casie.
He also was conspicuously absent from a January livestream by First Coast Crime Stoppers and Project: Cold Case where Casie and her aunts implored the public for tips that might lead to some closure. Although Casie Ellison said she had a good life growing up with her father — she had shared custody with both sides of the family until she was 12 and then was fully with her father — there was still friction in the family.
“For practically my whole life, I’ve genuinely had to lie about who I was just because of the inconvenience of the situation of who could it have possibly of been,” she said. “Because there were no leads that panned out other than the assumption of it being who it’s turning out not to be of course, the elephant in the room is my dad, right? I’ve had to be very careful and walk on eggshells about any discussion of it because it was inconvenient for everybody else. So now at this point with it leading in this direction, it’s time for Casie to focus on little Casie and heal.”
She said the family can also now heal and is “doing much better every day.”
“I think that he has experienced the biggest set of relief because of that speculation,” she said of her father. “He’s had to carry that. He’s a great character of a person, I love him very much. For him to have that weight of just feeling like people are wondering, that’s not a thing anymore. It’s like a weight lifted off of him as he deserves it. I’m so happy that’s happened in our lifetime. I truly never thought that this was going to be an opportunity.”
“I’ve got a heart, I understand love is such a small word, but what a powerful one it is,” Casie Ellison said. “It’s hurt him this whole time because he and I our relationship has been: He looked at me wondering if that’s what I thought of him; I looked at him wondering if that’s what I thought of him knowing he’s wondering. It’s always been a boulder, it’s always been a huge crater, like in an elephant in the room of course. I’ve had to defend and I’ve had to be a rope in between the families. It was the gravity of the situation.”
What else was in Gary Glowacz’s arrest report?
Glowacz, who had moved to Middleburg, called police on July 8 to set the record straight, he told them. He said after reading an article on the cold case, he realized that he was responsible for Mellisa Ellison’s death. He said he wasn’t aware she died, although he knew it was a possibility.
He was 31 at the time and said he was on drugs and needed money. He was in the area sifting through a junkyard but didn’t find anything of value, so he said he decided to burglarize a nearby trailer. He didn’t know who lived there and entered through a window.
“He walked into a bedroom and he discovered a female lying on the bed,” he said in the report. “Also on the bed was a baby. Glowacz then left the bedroom and picked up a wooden log that was by the fireplace. Glowacz then reentered the bedroom and struck the female on the head by her neck, one time with the log.”
The report continued: “Glowacz stated he heard the female tell her baby, ‘it will be all right,’ before she passed out. Glowacz picked up the baby from the bed and took her into the living room where he placed the baby on the couch. After placing the baby on the couch, he placed pillows around the baby to secure her on the couch. Glowacz then returned to the bedroom to look for money.”
He said he moved the woman somewhat so he could look under the mattress where he thought money might be hidden. The report did not say anything about what was stolen during the break-in.
Glowacz provided details during the interview that had not previously been released and were not included in the article he read when he learned that the victim was deceased. All of the details he provided were consistent with the crime scene and evidence collected during the investigation, according to the report.
Glowacz was asked why he wanted to come forward after all of these years. Now realizing she died that night, he said “he waited until today to admit what he had done because he wanted to get through the holidays to avoid ruining them for the family of the victim.”
Casie Ellison’s thoughts on new details in mother’s cold case
Learning more of the narrative, Casie Ellison ― who also attended the plea hearing with her father and two aunts ― didn’t express much sympathy for Glowacz, using the words “heartless” and “cold-blooded.”
“That’s a 1-year-old child displaced from her mom, and it’s changed my life radically,” she said. “I’ve had to really overcome a lot of depression.”
She said her mother’s last words were “hard to hear” but also were “validating at the same time.” She said it helps her understand her sleep disruption issues over the years.
“He’s saying that he wants to talk to us,” she said of Glowacz. “I’m very looking forward to getting to a point to have that conversation because I’d like to see him face to face. But also though with that being said, that’s not going to make a difference. That’s not going to make any type of resolution to what he’s taken. … It’s not just going to make it all better.”
“There’s no justice that’s going to take away any of the harm that this has caused my family over these years,” she said. “Does my mother’s life need to be held accountable for, yes absolutely, and someone needs to be held accountable for taking it. However, in addition to that, there’s been so many people that have passed away because of the grief of my mom and losing the luster and the will of life to live and the not knowing and the speculation and the hurt and the grief that it’s just taken for almost 40 years.
“Respectfully, this guy’s in his 70s,” she continued. “If he is the one, there’s not going to be a balance to that. How long is he going to live, and he’s going to be well-taken care of in there with his three meals, a cot and health insurance.”
Casie Ellison also wants to make it clear “that just because there’s been an arrest made doesn’t mean that it’s done. He’s officially innocent until proven guilty, so we still have to go through whatever that looks like.”
Finding grace
When Casie Ellison’s own daughter turned 1, “that’s when it really hit me about my mom. I don’t truly believe that I understood what an impact it made on my life until then because I had to suppress it.”
She said just thinking about how much her children clung to her for everything, “to understand that I was this age in the bed with my mom one minute safe and and asleep and sound, and then I imagine being awoken and just not understanding what’s going on, a bunch of like scary something. And then my mom’s gone, and my life is never going to be the same. It just feels like I have been that 1-year-old baby crying in the middle of the hallway begging for my mom to come and pick me up and let me know everything is OK for the last 38 years.”
She said it wasn’t until Project: Cold Case picked up their case up about eight or nine years ago that she could be honest about who she was and what happened that night.
“So I’ve gotten the opportunity to get some grief counseling through Project: Cold Case and understanding traumas and triggers,” she said. “All these things are very real, this is stuff that I’ve had to just bury down because it was inconvenient for everybody else. Now that it’s no longer inconvenient for anyone, I get to go full force and say this is what happened.”
She “can look at it from a different perspective now and focus on my own personal healing and give my own self some grace.”
Casie Ellison also founded the nonprofit Change the Face of Depression as a resource for people struggling with depression.
Her and her family have planned a private Prayer for Justice — Missy’s Light Still Shines remembrance on Aug. 29.
“I’m excited to simply celebrate that the narrative has changed,” she said. “I’m super excited to meet and love on friends and family in a new perspective and just have like a fellowship, like a come-together, and celebrate that there’s movement in the case and just keep the momentum and also celebrate the fact that we can move forward now.”
(This story has been updated to clarify the remembrance isn’t open to the public.)
Scott Butler has been an editor/reporter specializing in public safety coverage for 26 years with The Florida Times-Union. He can be reached at sbutler@jacksonville.com.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Time to heal as father absolved in 1987 cold case, ‘weight lifted’
Reporting by Scott Butler, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union / Florida Times-Union
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Scott Butler, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union | USA TODAY Network
