Post by Scumhunter on Mar 3, 2019 4:40:24 GMT -5
(Above photo credit: mycentraljersry.com)
From My Central Jersey:
EAST BRUNSWICK - It's been nearly a decade since 85-year-old Ellen Anne Elfstrom's body was found on the bed of her Lee Street Cape Cod-style home, dead from blunt-force trauma caused by blows to her head that crushed her skull and splattered blood on her bedroom walls.
And all her daughter, also named Ellen Elfstrom, wants is justice.
"Justice is immutable and my mother deserves justice," Elfstrom said via telephone from her Florida home.
"From Day 1 to Day 800 million, the need for justice is the same. It's very difficult to live with unanswered questions," Elfstrom said. "But I'm not the important one here, my mom is."
Ellen Anne Elfstrom's homicide is a cold case the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office is hoping to crack.
"What sets this one apart is that in this particular case we do believe there is somebody out there who knows something and should come forward," Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew C. Carey said.
"To the extent they might be involved in this or other criminal activity, we would still welcome them to come forward. We'd like to solve this murder which is the most important thing in this case, so we urge them to come forward even if they have things in their past that don't put them in the past light," Carey said.
"This is a case where we think there are people that know who did it," Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office Capt. Paul Miller said, adding Crime Stoppers of Middlesex County is offering a reward, of an amount that has yet to be decided, for information leading to the arrest of a suspect in the case.
Elfstrom also believes there is someone who knows something, but their anxiety may be preventing them from coming forward.
Blunt-force trauma
On the evening of Friday, May 1, 2009, East Brunswick police received a phone call from Ellen Anne Elfstrom's neighbor, who was worried about not seeing her for several days as her mail continued to pile up.
"She was a complete recluse. Nobody had seen her in like six months," Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office Lt. Scott Crocco said, adding Ellen Anne Elfstrom would order food once a day from a diner that would deliver a cup of coffee and a buttered roll to her doorstep, where she would payment.
"And that's all she would eat every day," Crocco said, adding the house had no running water or electricity and was filled with debris.
"She booby-trapped the house by piling things in front of the windows," her daughter said.
With no lights inside, police had a difficult time finding Ellen Anne Elfstrom's body on her bed, Crocco said.
She was pronounced dead at 8:19 p.m., according to a 2009 Home News Tribune report.
Due to her age, police initially didn't think the death was suspicious and the prosecutor's office wasn't called to the scene. But that changed three days later when an autopsy by the medical examiner's office showed Ellen Anne Elfstrom had died from blunt-force trauma to the head.
"It was a devastating blow to the head. Her whole skull was caved in," Crocco said, adding that during the daytime investigators found blood splattered on the wall right above her bed.
"Three days in we realize we have a homicide and that she had been dead for possibly a week before they found her," Crocco said, adding large garbage containers were brought in so police could clear debris and look for a murder weapon.
While police considered Ellen Anne Elfstrom a recluse, her daughter described her as a "very private person."
"Very Catholic, she valued her privacy," said Elfstrom, who had tried to get her mother to move to Florida.
"I couldn't release her from that place," said Elfstrom, who didn't learn much about her mother's living conditions until after she died.
Disabled and alone
Ellen Anne Elfstrom was the daughter of Irish immigrants and a native of Staten Island, New York. While engaged to be married she was hit by a car and dragged about 200 feet, leaving her partially disabled.
She moved to East Brunswick in 1950 with her husband, Donald. She worked for the South Brunswick School District as a secretary and later as a secretary for a doctor in New Brunswick. She enjoyed music, sewing and reading, according to her obituary.
She lived alone in the East Brunswick home following the death of her husband in 1996, whom she had divorced in 1980, and the death of her two sons, Dennis in 2007 and Bruce in 1991.
"The house was in a state when I went in 2009. A lot of repairs were needed," Elfstrom said, adding the house had been struck by lightning in 2003 or 2004, which impacted power service, but her mother never told her. The house also needed roof repairs, plumbing and electrical work.
"She did not like having people come into the house. She lived her life as she saw fit and did the best she could. We all would like to go back and change things," she said.
Neighbors said Ellen Anne Elfstrom, who formerly would come out to talk and walk to a nearby park, had stopping coming out of her home months before she died. A note was posted on her storm door in notifying visitors to call because she was under doctor's orders to rest, according to a 2009 Home News Tribune report.
Neighbors cut her grass, shoveled her snow and helped her pay her bills. One neighbor helped paint her house and did some exterior work.
But police had little help in finding her killer. There were few clues for their investigation and little physical evidence recovered at the scene other than Ellen Anne Elfstrom blood.
"The front door and back door were locked, we located a window on the side of the house which is believed to be the point of entry. You can see the cord is outside the house like someone dragged it out with them," Crocco said, adding there was a bucket underneath the window for someone to stand on.
Elfstrom questions if her mother was killed by a professional, or someone who just got lucky.
Crocco said the house is in a development behind Gusto Grill on Route 18, not far from the Old Bridge border. The houses in the neighborhood are close together, and police canvassed the area numerous times, but no one reported seeing anything.
Through the years, there have been several persons of interest in the case, but no charges have been filed. Crocco said there was a group of people, ages 18 to 22 at that that time, who hung out in the area and may know something.
Elfstrom said every year around mid-April leading up to the anniversary of her mother's murder, the loss begins to weigh heavily on her.
"I can't put a lot of energy in it because it makes me sick," she said.
"I had to clean out that house," said Elfstrom, who remembers going through every happy and sad memory of living in the home, along with her school records and her brother's ashes, all in a week.
"Every single thing I was responsible for. It was absolutely overwhelming, and I had to do it alone," she said.
"I have continued faith in the prosecutor's office and the East Brunswick Police Department that at some point this will be solved," said Elfstrom, who struggles with her own health challenges and is unsure if the resolution will come while she is still alive.
How you can help
In addition to the Crime Stoppers’ reward, Elfstrom continues to offer a $15,000 reward in connection with solving her mother's murder.
"But a lot of people just prefer to forget what they know regardless of how much money is involved," she said.
"Everybody deserves justice and I pray for that for my mom," Elfstrom said.
Anyone with information about Ellen Anne Elfstrom’s murder can submit it anonymously by calling 1-800-939-9600 or submit it online at www.middlesextips.com. Tips also may be sent by text messaging 274637 (CRIMES) with the keyword: “midtip” followed by the tip information.
Information also can be submitted by contacting Crocco at 732-745-8390 or East Brunswick Detective Joseph Bauer at 732-390-6990.
amp.mycentraljersey.com/amp/2996275002
Thoughts? What I theorize/wonder is if the suspect was someone who assumed the house was abandoned based on the state it was in -whatever their motive may have been for breaking in- and killed Ellen in a panic when she caught him by surprise. Of course the main problem with that theory is when a murder is this brutal it is usually personal. And then you'd have to question why anyone would want to hurt someone who literally never bothered anyone.
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