JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The family of Melissa Ellison, a Jacksonville woman killed in her Westside home in 1987 during an apparent home robbery, says they’re trying to move forward now that there is finally closure in a murder that remained a cold case for decades.
Gary Glowacz, 70, pled guilty and was sentenced to 24 years in prison on Thursday.
Glowacz was arrested a few months ago after he called the Clay County Sheriff’s Office with information about Ellison’s death.
Casie Ellison and Glenda Blandford say they’ve waited 38 years to tell the man responsible what their lives have been like without their mother and sister.
“You think that it’s going to be this monster,” Casie Ellison said. “Like a two-headed, scary, evil, you know, thing. It was really this weak, slinky loser of a man.”
Casie Ellison was just 13 months old when she says her mother was murdered by Glowacz. She said she was in bed, lying beside her mother, when it happened.
She says reading her impact statement was a cascade of emotions.
“As I finished and I was walking away, he yelled out, ‘I’m so sorry,’” Ellison said. “You stole my mother from me, and you’re nothing like what I thought you were gonna be.”
Casie Ellison said that although Glowacz seemed remorseful, it does not take back what he did.
“It does not ever add up to just take somebody’s life,” she said. “You’ll never be able to make sense out of a senseless act.”
Ellison’s sister, Glenda Blandford, said Glowacz’s 24-year sentence will never be enough to make up for the time they have lost.
“She should have been growing old with me,” Blandford said. “I should see her wrinkles, but she will forever be 20 years old.”
“He got to choose how he lived his life for the last 38 and a half years — We didn’t get to choose how we lived ours.”
The family largely thanks Project Cold Case for bringing Melissa Ellison’s case to light, and never letting the world forget her name, face and story.
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