Man charged with 1979 murder of Cape Girardeau woman

A 61-year-old man was arrested this afternoon on charges of first degree murder for allegedly robbing and killing a Cape Girardeau woman nearly 30 years ago, said Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle.

Max Allen Ellison Jr. faces charges of murder in the first degree and robbery in the murder of Deborah Martin, who was found dead in September of 1979 on the first floor below her Broadway residence.

Ellison Jr., a former Stoddard County Sheriff's Deputy, was paroled recently after serving part of a 65-year sentence for kidnapping in a federal correctional facility, Swingle said.

He was taken into custody by the US Marshal's Fugitive Task Force in Christian County, Mo., and will be transported to Cape Girardeau County. Bond is set at $10 million cash only.

Martin was a 24-year-old business owner from Sikeston, Mo., who had left Southeast Missouri State University to pursue her lifelong love of botany.

Her shop, the Mother Earth Plant store, located at 605 Broadway below Martin's residence, occupied most of her time.

Her plants and her cat, Arlo, who helped her by patrolling the shop for bothersome insects, were her best friends, she told the Southeast Missourian shortly before her death.

One of Martin's employees discovered her bruised, nude body lying near the staircase the morning of Sept. 16, 1979.

She had apparently fallen on a plastic display case on the first floor of the shop.

Former Cape Girardeau County Coroner Harold Cobb ruled the death a homicide after an autopsy revealed that Martin sustained injuries that could not have been caused by her fall.

Police found men's clothing on the second floor of the building, and her boyfriend, Ross Alan Milburn, had been in Texas at the time of her death.

Because of his alibi, Milburn was not considered a suspect in Martin's death but was later convicted of federal drug charges in connection with a large-scale drug ring in southeast Missouri.

Police were able to whittle leads down to a handful of suspects in the killing, considering the crime one of passion where the culprit didn't intend for Martin to die.

In 1986, a grand jury was asked to review the case, then a common practice in unsolved homicides.

After the grand jury rested, then Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Ferrell announced that they had determined how Martin was killed, and named the person responsible for her death, but declined to release any details or file charges.

The grand jury helped authorities to recover two key pieces of evidence, using subpoena powers and the testimony of a witness who'd previously been uncooperative with police, Ferrell said.

By 1989, lead detective John Brown told the southeast Missourian police were convinced they knew who committed the murder, and that the person was in a federal penitentiary, but that charges wouldn't be filed.

None of the information available could be used in prosecution, Brown said.

Look for more on this story later at semissourian.com and in Saturday's edition of the Southeast Missourian.