Indiana State Police and the FBI have arrested an Evansville man previously convicted of murder and preliminarily charged him in a Gibson County homicide that had gone unsolved for the last 32 years.
Timothy Farber, 61, now faces a murder charge in the death of Norman Ellerbrook after advances in forensic technology allowed a cold case team to order new DNA tests, according to court records unsealed Wednesday.
Ellerbrook, 64, was found dead in his Warrenton, Indiana home on Sept. 2, 1993. Police said he’d been stabbed and suffered blunt force trauma to the head.
Police questioned Farber in connection with Ellerbrook’s death back in 1995, but never arrested him, Courier & Press archives and court records show.
The ISP’s Cold Case Unit and an FBI task force began reviewing the unsolved case in April 2024, according to Farber’s arrest affidavit, after a person who hasn’t been publicly identified contacted the authorities and said they believed Farber had been involved in Ellerbrook’s killing.
How police were led to the suspect in the Ellerbrook killing
ISP Det. Toni R. Walden, writing in the affidavit, detailed what the existing case files revealed about the 1993 investigation and why suspicions initially fell toward Farber.
One day after officers found Ellerbrook deceased inside his home, the ISP received a report that Ellerbrook’s missing 1981 Lincoln had been located behind Ol’Sweig Tavern in Evansville near the corner of First Avenue and Louisiana Street. It had first been seen there around noon on Sept. 2.
At the time, Farber reportedly lived at 1206 Oakley Street less than 140 feet from Ol’Sweig.
“Farber lived across the alley from the back parking lot of the Ol’Sweig Tavern where Ellerbrook’s vehicle was located,” Walden wrote.
When detectives interviewed Farber as a potential suspect in Ellerbrook’s killing on March 29, 1995, Farber denied having any involvement and repeatedly denied ever entering Ellerbrook’s residence or vehicle.
“(Farber) did acknowledge knowing who Ellerbrook was, but denied ever having any physical contact with Ellerbrook at any time,” the affidavit states.
The Ellerbrook case went cold, and in 1997 Farber was convicted of murder in the 1995 stabbing death of another man: 44-year-old Brian Russell. The deaths of Russell and Ellerbrook came about a year-and-a-half apart.
Vanderburgh County Superior Court Judge William Brune initially sentenced Farber to life in prison without parole, but the sentence was later overturned. Farber was released from the Indiana Department of Corrections in 2019.
DNA testing
In July 2024, detectives sent evidence collected in 1993 as part of the Ellerbrook investigation to the ISP Evansville Regional Laboratory for comparison against Farber’s DNA.
Walden wrote that DNA and biological evidence had not been examined since 1995, and that forensic science had undergone “extensive technological advances” in the intervening years.
A little less than a year after the items were first submitted for testing, on July 18, the ISP lab produced a certificate of analysis stating Farber’s DNA was detected on three pieces of evidence.
”Farber’s DNA was located on Norman Ellerbrook’s fingernails, a knife located in the kitchen sink and a rag located in the family room of the residence,” Walden wrote in the affidavit.
The initial investigation determined that an altercation took place in the family room – where crime scene technicians located a large amount of blood – prior to Ellerbrook’s killing, court records state.
According to Gibson County court records, officials issued a warrant for Farber’s arrest on Tuesday. Authorities arrested him just after 4 p.m. later that day after Evansville police spotted him walking near Fulton Avenue and Maryland Street, ISP wrote in a news release Wednesday.
He’s currently lodged in the Gibson County jail.
Ellerbrook was a veteran of the Korean War and a Central High School graduate, his obituary stated. Before his death, he worked at Zeidler Flower Shop and as a post office employee.
“By totality of the evidence collected and information obtained, all evidence leads to the conclusion Timothy Farber killed Norman Ellerbrook and stole his vehicle,” Walden concluded.
This story will be updated.
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Affidavit: DNA evidence, tip lead to arrest in 1993 Evansville-area cold case
Reporting by Jon Webb and Houston Harwood, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
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