Walter E. Ellis has now been charged with seven murders, and that may be just the beginning.
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Suspected serial killer Walter E. Ellis is now charged with murdering seven women over 21 years, after prosecutors expanded their case against the unemployed factory worker Thursday.
Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm said he wouldn't be surprised if the number of victims tied to Ellis grows as the State Crime Laboratory continues DNA testing on 20 other cases of prostitutes strangled in Milwaukee.
Not included in the new counts against Ellis are the homicides of Carron D. Kilpatrick, 32, from 1994 and Jessica Payne, 16, from 1995 - even though investigators have found Ellis' DNA on both victims.
In each case, another person was charged. In the Kilpatrick homicide, Curtis McCoy was acquitted. In the Payne case, Chaunte Ott was convicted but was later freed after Ellis' DNA was found on her.
Ott filed a lawsuit in federal court Thursday, suing the City of Milwaukee, two former police chiefs and several detectives, claiming that the police conspired to frame him for Payne's murder.
Chisholm said the Kilpatrick and Payne investigations remain open.
"We do not feel at this time that we can meet our requisite burden of proof on those cases," Chisholm said.
The amended complaint against Ellis charges him with killing Deborah L. Harris, 31, and Tanya L. Miller, 19, both in October 1986; Irene Smith, 25, in 1992; and Sheila Farrior, 37, and Florence McCormick, 28, in 1995.
Ellis was charged earlier with killing Joyce Mims, 41, in 1997, and Ouithreaun Stokes, 28, in 2007.
Ellis faces life in prison for each homicide. He is being held in lieu of $1 million bond.
Chisholm declined to say if Ellis has confessed to any of the crimes. There is no indication in the nine-page complaint that he admitted to anything.
Ellis has a long criminal history and spent five stints in prison. His DNA should have been in a state database of all felons, but it wasn't. Officials are still not sure why.
Ellis was in prison in 2001, and Department of Corrections records show that his DNA was taken. It was shipped to the Department of Justice, a corrections spokesman said.
But officials with the Justice Department said they never received the sample. They said the sample also was not received by a different lab in Texas that was developing profiles for the state at that time.
Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said an investigation into what happened is ongoing.
That missing DNA sample was a major screw-up. It may have been a matter of life and death.
Thank God Ellis is finally locked up.
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Amended Criminal Complaint
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Related posts:
Walter E. Ellis
Walter E. Ellis: Criminal Complaint
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