The 38-Year Mystery Solved / Elderly Man’s Confession Solves Murder of 20-Year-Old in Florida

A mystery that had haunted a family and Florida authorities for decades has finally been solved after a 70-year-old man’s confession. Gary Glowacz was arrested after admitting responsibility for the death of Melissa “Missy” Taylor Ellison, a violent crime that shook Jacksonville in 1987.

The 20-year-old woman’s body was found in her bedroom, while her 13-month-old baby cried unattended in the living room. For nearly four decades, the case remained unanswered until an unexpected phone call changed everything.

On July 8, Glowacz contacted the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, expressing a desire to “settle accounts” over Ellison’s murder. According to arrest documents, he told investigators that in 1987 he had broken into her home looking for money or valuables to sell in order to buy drugs.

The suspect said he had read an article about the crime in March of this year and realized that he was the culprit. He now faces charges of second-degree murder, burglary and armed assault involving physical violence.

The tragic incident occurred on December 28, 1987. Ellison’s friends found her dead. She was known as Missy Taylor to her relatives. The medical examiner determined that she had died from severe head trauma caused by a blunt object and ruled the death a homicide.

Glowacz, who was 31 at the time and lived in a nearby neighborhood, confessed that he had forced his way through a window of the home. He found Melissa in bed with her young daughter, Casie. According to his statement, he used a piece of wood found inside the home to strike her once in the head. He then picked up the baby and left her on the living-room sofa before returning to search the victim’s mattress for money.

Investigators emphasized that Glowacz provided confidential details about the crime scene—information that had never been made public and was not included in the article he had read. No arrests had been made during the initial 1987 investigation.

For Casie Ellison, who was only 13 months old at the time of the tragedy, the news came as a shock after a lifetime filled with questions. She said that for years she had tried to bury her pain, but her emotions erupted powerfully about 25 years later, when her daughter reached the exact age she had been when she lost her mother.

“I saw myself in her. It was a moment of profound understanding,” Casie said. Detectives contacted her immediately after the arrest, before notifying her aunts, Glenda Blandford and Sissy Bennett, who were 17 and 15, respectively, when their sister was murdered.

The family had spent decades searching for the truth. Melissa’s parents pursued every lead tirelessly, repeatedly knocking on the sheriff’s office doors, but without results. In 2019, her mother, Catherine Taylor, died without ever learning what had happened that fateful night.

A friend of Sissy Bennett referred the case to the nonprofit organization Project: Cold Case, which supports the families of victims of unsolved crimes. In January 2026, the Ellison family and the organization joined First Coast Crime Stoppers at a news conference, calling for any information that could help uncover the truth.

“There is someone who knows in detail what happened that night. Someone remembers a fragment that has never been heard,” Casie Ellison said at the time. The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office confirmed that the news conference and several new pieces of information played a key role in Glowacz’s arrest.

Sheriff TK Waters said after the arrest that although detaining the suspect could not heal the void left in the hearts of the family members, it could serve as a first step toward peace. For Melissa’s loved ones, however, this is not the final closure of the wound.

Her aunts and daughter stress that suffering has been a constant companion over the years, a period during which the family also lost three other members. Casie, now a mother of three, believes that her mother lives on through the memories and the family she herself has built.

Missy is remembered as a girl with a deep passion for the beach. She is also commemorated through a purple Jeep Wrangler purchased by her sister Sissy as a tribute to her favorite song, Prince’s “Purple Rain.” The family had organized a memorial celebration for Melissa even before learning of the arrest. It will go ahead nonetheless, but now with a renewed spirit.

“We continue to pray for justice,” Glenda Blandford said. “We beseech God to shed light on this case and give the detectives strength. Because for now, we have an arrest, but not yet full justice.”