Melissa "Missy" Ellison and her then-baby daughter, Casie, in a photograph taken just before she was murdered in 1987 in her Westside home. | Project Cold Case/Ellison family
Published on July 9, 2026 at 3:51 pm
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A 70-year-old man has been arrested in the 39-year-old killing of Melissa Ellison in her Westside mobile home, Sheriff T.K Waters says.
Gary Edward Glowacz was arrested after calling the Clay County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday and saying he wanted to provide information about Ellison’s death, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
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Glowacz, a Clay County resident, was taken to Jacksonville, where detectives interviewed and arrested him. He was charged with murder and burglary with assault.
Waters announced the arrest at a news conference Thursday as members of Ellison’s family sat in the audience.
Clubbed to death
Ellison, 20, was clubbed to death in her bedroom. Her then-13-month-old daughter Casie was uninjured, police said
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Ellison’s family joined First Coast Crime Stoppers and police in January to push for new leads in the murder. That plea bore fruit, Cold Case Detective Ray Reeves said.
“There is some information that did come (out) that played a pivotal role in this,” Reeves said.
First Coast Crime Stoppers played a role, and “because of that, we did gather some information,” he said.
Ellison, known by many as Missy Taylor, married out of high school, then had Casie. Ellison and her husband separated, and she lived with Casie in a mobile home on Coljean Court off Normandy Boulevard, with two other roommates, according to Project: Cold Case.
Just before 5 a.m. Dec. 28, 1987, someone broke out a window to get in, then hit Ellison in the head with what police later said was a charred log from her fireplace.
Ellison’s roommates found her body in her bedroom. Casie had been moved out of the room to a couch in the living room, where she was found surrounded by pillows. The log was left at the front door, family members said.
At the news conference in January, Casie Ellison asked the public for help. She said someone should know what happened to her mother.
“She was unarmed; she was not engaged in criminal activity; she posed no threat to anyone,” Casie Ellison said then. “No one has been held accountable. That means someone has lived for 38 years knowing exactly what happened while our family has lived for 38 years without the truth. Someone knows who did this.”
The news conference included Project: Cold Case, an organization begun in 2015 to log and publicize Jacksonville’s unsolved murders.
Glowacz has an extensive arrest record from the 1980s and 1990s, including charges of burglary and grand theft, according to court records. He has listed addresses in Jacksonville and Middleburg.
The Sheriff’s Office provided no information about Glowacz’s activities over the past 39 years. His arrest report was not available Thursday.
Glowacz remains jailed without bail awaiting his first appearance before a judge on Friday, jail records show.
During the news conference Thursday, Waters said the arrest illustrates his department’s commitment to “seek justice for victims no matter how long achieving that justice takes.”
“These cases shatter the loved ones left behind, and they also weigh heavily on those of us charged with bringing these murderers to justice,” the sheriff said.
