For nearly four decades, the murder of 20-year-old Melissa Taylor Ellison in Florida remained unsolved. The young woman was found dead in her bedroom in December 1987, while her 13-month-old daughter was found crying in the living room.
The case took a new turn this July 8, when a 70-year-old man from Middleburg, Florida, contacted the Clay County Sheriff's Office and said he wanted to provide information regarding an old unsolved case.
According to CNN, Gary Glowatz told authorities he wanted to "settle things" in connection with the death of Melissa Ellison. According to the arrest report, he admitted to hitting the 20-year-old with a piece of wood while breaking into her home to rob her of money.
The 70-year-old told the Jacksonville Police Unsolved Crimes Unit that he read an article about the murder in March of last year and then realized he was responsible for her death.
He was charged with second-degree murder and armed robbery with assault or violence. He is being held without bail in the Duval County Jail and his next court appearance is scheduled for Thursday.
The 1987 murder
Melissa Ellison, known to family and friends as Missy, was found dead in her bedroom on December 28, 1987, by her two roommates.
The coroner's office ruled her death a homicide due to blunt force trauma to the head. Despite an investigation, no arrests were made at the time.
According to what Glovac allegedly told police, he had entered the house looking for money or items he could sell to buy drugs. He lived less than a kilometer from the 20-year-old's home at the time.
In fact, on the same day Ellison was found dead, Glowatz was arrested as a suspect in another burglary case.
The man, then 31, reportedly said he entered the house through a window and headed to the bedroom. There, he found Melissa lying in bed with her young daughter, Casey.
As he told police, he took a stick he found in the house and hit the 20-year-old once in the head. He then took the child out of bed, placed her on the living room couch, and went back into the bedroom to look for money under the mattress.
Investigators noted that during his testimony, the 70-year-old described details from the scene that had not been made public and were not included in the article he had read.
When asked why he decided to confess so many years later, he reportedly replied that until he read the article, he did not know that the woman had died from the stroke.
Her daughter was only 13 months old.
Casey Ellison, who was just 13 months old when her mother was killed, was the first relative contacted by police after Glowac was arrested.
For years, she says, she tried to suppress her feelings about her mother's murder. About 25 years after the crime, when her daughter reached the age she was when she lost her mother, she began to see what had happened differently.
"I realized this was a little Casey. I was seeing myself," she said.
Almost four decades of searching for answers
The family continued to search for clues about the case for years. Melissa's parents reported every piece of information they could to authorities, but there was no progress.
Her mother, Katherine Taylor, died in 2019 without knowing who had killed her daughter.
A year ago, the case was turned over to Project: Cold Case, a nonprofit organization that supports families of unsolved murder victims. The organization created a dedicated page for the case, compiling evidence the family had collected over the years.
In January 2026, about 6 months before Glowac's confession, the family attended a press conference making a public appeal for information.
"Someone knows exactly what happened that night. Someone remembers a detail that was never told," Casey said at the time.
The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office said that publicity given to the case in January contributed to the investigation and that information that came out afterward played a role in the arrest.
"We have arrest, not justice"
Despite the arrest after nearly 40 years, Melissa's family says they still don't feel the case is closed.
Her two sisters say they still think about Missy every day, and her memory lives on in her daughter, who now has three children.
The family had planned a memorial service for Melissa before learning of the arrest. The event will go ahead as planned, with her family saying they are still waiting for the legal process to be completed. ©LAPSI.al
