Cape Girardeau couple feeling 'violated' after weekend vandalism

Frank Ellis was getting ready for church early New Year's Day when he stepped outside. He looked at his Dodge Durango in the faint early morning light. The SUV's windshield wipers caught his attention.

"They were twisted, like a tornado had come through," said Ellis, of 215 Alpine Drive.

He moved to the side of the Durango and saw the obscene graffiti, the racial epithet, the deep sandpaper scratches along the body of the vehicle. Spray-painted on and near the garage door were "La Voca," "XVIII" and "Chicano Power," words his wife, Sylvia, believes to be gang symbols. A skull and crossbones was painted on the concrete in front of the main entrance to the home. He later discovered similar markings on a glass door in the back of house, with the words "Death to You" painted on the left side of the door.

"I felt horrified for her [Sylvia] to have to see the graffiti painted on the house and the vehicle," said Frank Ellis, a veteran educator and former principal in the Cape Girardeau School District.

"I felt like I had been totally raped and violated," said Sylvia Ellis, a teacher in the Cape Girardeau School District.

The Ellises didn't make it to church.

"I said, 'This is one day, Lord, that I'm trying to go to church that I'm going to have to back out on you because Satan is here,'" Frank Ellis said.

On Wednesday, Darrell Nice, the 49-year-old Cape Girardeau man charged with vandalizing the Ellis home and now facing hate crime charges in the case, was reportedly close to gaining his freedom. After a change of judge, Nice's $15,000 cash-only bond was amended, allowing him to post 10 percent of the value.

Sylvia Ellis was aghast when the Cape Girardeau County prosecuting attorney's office informed her of the change.

"This man put a death threat on my life," she screamed into her cell phone at Julia Koester, Cape Girardeau County assistant prosecuting attorney, during a call from her living room. "My mouth is so wide. I can't believe that."

She questioned the justice, feeling betrayed by the judge in the case and the prosecuting attorney's office.

Koester did not return a call Wednesday seeking comment on the case, but she told Sylvia Ellis in the phone conversation that Nice's charge of first-degree property damage had been amended to a hate crime, a felony charge, and another felony property crime charge. The Ellises are black.

Conditions of his release demand Nice have no contact with the couple and that he stay at least 1,000 feet from their home and places of work.

According to the Ellises and court documents, Nice was attending a New Year's Eve party at a home on Greenbrier Drive, near Alpine Drive. After midnight, Frank Ellis asked the neighbors to turn down the music. They complied later after police were called to the home.

After police discovered footprints in the victims' flower bed and underneath their porch, they asked to see the Nice family's shoes.

The tread pattern of Darrell Nice's tennis shoes matched the footprints around the victims' home, according to the probable-cause statement. Officers searched Nice's home and the clothes he had worn New Year's Eve and found a piece of sandpaper with paint on it in a jeans pocket.

When questioned by police and asked to explain the evidence against him, Nice admitted to damaging the vehicle but didn't recall using spray paint on the home or the car, according to an affidavit.

Frank Ellis doesn't believe Nice acted alone. Law enforcement authorities said the investigation continues.

Sylvia Ellis said she has received several calls from advocacy organizations like the NAACP and the Southern Poverty Law Center. While the attack on her property used racial epithets, she said the vandalism was retaliatory and could have happened to anyone.

The Ellises await a definitive estimate, but the SUV, which authorities said had some kind of oil in the gas tank, is a total loss. Sylvia Ellis estimated damages to the home in the tens of thousands of dollars. On Tuesday, much of the siding on the home Frank and Sylvia Ellis have lived in for two decades had been removed, with the Tyvek wrapping exposed.

Sylvia Ellis said she hasn't had a good night's sleep since the incident and that she started counseling Wednesday.

"When I tell you I can't sleep in my bed at night, I'm traumatized," she said. "I want peace."

Frank Ellis, known to neighbors for his easygoing personality, kept a calm tone when he talked about the case and the resolution he's looking for.

"I want true justice," he said.

mkittle@semissourian.com

388-3627

Pertinent address:

215 Alpine Drive, Cape Girardeau, Mo.