1979 murder suspect to be transferred to Cape Girardeau County this week

Max Allen Ellison Jr. is being transferred from a Christian County jail cell to one in Cape Girardeau County this week.

He stands accused of killing and robbing a Cape Girardeau merchant in 1979.

Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle said Tuesday the date and time of the move will not be made public for security reasons. Ellison's bond was set at $10 million. He was arrested Friday at his Nixa, Mo., home by Christian County authorities and U.S. Marshals.

Asked why Ellison, 61, was not charged more than 20 years ago after a grand jury was convened in 1986, and when, in 1989, it became apparent he was a suspect, Swingle, who was not the county prosecuting attorney at the time, said, "I can't comment on that."

Ellison is scheduled to appear before Cape Girardeau County Associate Circuit Judge Gary A. Kamp on Thursday.

The jail transfer is perhaps the simplest part of Ellison's tale.

At least four stories have been told to account for Ellison's actions the night Debbie L. Martin died.

Her body, battered and nude, was discovered Sept. 16, 1979, by an employee at Martin's plant and antique shop, Mother Earth, at 605 Broadway in Cape Girardeau. The coroner's report indicated she'd been choked and had been "pushed or thrown" over the stairway banister leading from her shop to her second-floor apartment sometime between 2:30 and 6 a.m. Sept. 16, 1979. She fell at least 14 feet and died of massive internal bleeding and a cut on her head, according to the autopsy report.

Ellison at the time denied killing Martin and said he spent the night with his wife. After his wife said he may have left the family home after midnight, Ellison told police he'd gone to meet a woman for a tryst, a statement confirmed by an unnamed woman. On March 21, 2008, that woman told FBI Special Agent Brian Ritter and Cape Girardeau Detective Jim Smith her story was a lie, according to the probable-cause statement.

Between 1987 and 2007, Ellison had told several investigators a third story: that a friend of Ellison's had killed Martin and asked Ellison to help destroy evidence. The unnamed friend, according to the probable-cause statement, "vehemently denies that he killed Debbie Martin. In fact he says he never met Debbie Martin in his life." The statement goes on to say no witnesses were located who could establish any connection between the unnamed man and Martin.

Ellison had lived in Nixa since leaving federal prison in 2007. Once a Stoddard County sheriff's deputy, Ellison was later convicted of armed robbery in Knox County, Tenn., and of kidnapping, use of a firearm in a crime of violence and transportation of stolen goods in 1985 in Illinois. He served about half of his 65-year federal sentence before being paroled.

The probable-cause statement lists a fourth story attributed to Ellison: "On Dec. 17, 1985, Max Allen Ellison, who was in the federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas at the time, called Sheriff Ralph Mouser of Stoddard County and admitted to him over the telephone that he had killed Debbie Martin in Cape Girardeau."

The probable-cause statement quotes another unnamed woman, one who claims she was Martin's best friend. That woman said Martin and Ellison were involved in a moneymaking scheme and that, though Martin was living with another man, she was having an affair with Ellison.

pmcnichol@semissourian.com

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