Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “Milwaukee North Side Strangler” Walter E. Ellis

Episode Date: July 2, 2020

In his youth, Walter Ellis was prone to fits of physical violence. But as he grew older, he took on the role of a gentle and unsuspecting neighbor. Over the course of 20 years, it was this persona that allowed the man known as the Milwaukee North Side Strangler to avoid the detection of local police, who were facing a series of eerily similar murders. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of murder and assault that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. On a pleasant October afternoon in 1994, nine-year-old Ebony Owens and her cousin were playing out front of her Milwaukee home. Ebony's neighbor, an older woman, approached with a couple of garbage bags. She offered the girls 50 cents apiece if they would take. them to the trash for her. They were happy to oblige. Having dragged the bags down an alleyway, Ebony's small frame struggled to lift the heavy

dumpster lid. With help of her cousin, the two were able to pry it open. A pair of legs immediately sprung up. The young girls were so startled they couldn't even scream. They just stared in horror at the sight in front of them. Inside the dumpster lay the bruised and mangled body of 32-year-old, Karen Kilpatrick. Only 12 hours earlier, she had met her fate at the hands of Milwaukee's North Side Strangler. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. This is Serial Killers, a parcast original. Every episode, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. Today we're digging into the story of Walter E. Ellis, also known as the Milwaukee Northside Strangler. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa

Richardson. Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other podcast originals for free on Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. To stream serial killers for free on Spotify, just open the app and type serial killers in the search bar. This is a one-part episode covering Walter E. Ellis. For more than 20 years, Ellis terrorized his neighborhood, operating as a largely undetected serial killer. He was better known by his alias, the Milwaukee Northside Strength. We'll dive into how we earned that nickname right after this. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Whether you're hiring for a role or searching for a killer, the hunt can be exhausting.

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Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is, is waiting. Watch only on Prime. Walter E. Ellis was born in the poverty-stricken town of Holmes County, Mississippi, in 1960. Not much is known about his early childhood, but when he was still young, his parents, Leroy and Maddie, moved the family from Mississippi to Milwaukee. The Ellis family moved on the tail end of the Great Migration, a mass exodus of around six million black Americans, from rural cities in the south to urban hubs in the north and

Midwest. Cities like Detroit, Chicago, and Pittsburgh offered better job opportunities and fewer segregationist laws than the South. The north side of the city, where the Ellis family set down roots, was a primarily black community. Despite efforts to clean up crime in the area, it had a reputation as a home to drug dealers and sex workers. Growing up on the north side, Ellis made something of a name for himself around his neighborhood. Even at a young age, he was known for his hot temper and aggression. One neighbor in particular, Viana Jordan grew up down the street from the Ellis family. She recalled that as a preteen, Ellis attacked other neighborhood kids and beat them up. His anger was explosive and unpredictable.

Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show. Given what we know about Ellis's temperament as a child, it's possible he lived with intermittent explosive disorder, or IED. Those with IED often display intense behavioral outbursts that are grossly outsized in comparison to their trigger. These outbursts will sometimes involve the physical injury to another person, as Ellis's frequently did. Then again, he may just have been a run-of-the-mill bully, one who was allowed to operate underwent. checked by his parents. Looking back, Vienna Jordan wondered why no adults intervened when Ellis

was violent. According to psychologist, Mary C. Lamia, when a bully attacks, he or she is projecting their own shame and inadequacy onto the vulnerability of their victims. It gives them a feeling of power and excitement. Though not all bullies go on to become serial killers, terrorizing his young neighbors was certainly an early outlet for Ellis's aggression. Little else has been documented about Walter Ellis' home and school life. We do know that he was charged with attempted murder and robbery at the age of 14, but he was never convicted. Due to his age, his record was sealed, so no further details are available. It's possible this brush with the law sparked a change in Ellis.

Around this time, neighbors noticed that the local bully mellowed into a quiet, affable young man. It seemed to them that his aggressive ways were behind him. rest of his life, people who knew Ellis mostly thought of him as an average, forgettable guy. It may have appeared that way on the surface, but in reality, Alice just got better at hiding his rage and covering his tracks, and his criminal misdeeds would follow him into adulthood. In 1978, just months after he turned 18, Ellis was convicted of burglary. Instead of jail time, he received probation, but this warning didn't serve as much of a deterrent. Two years later, in 1980, Ellis and three accomplices were charged with robbing and beating

a man. Well, there was no concrete evidence, and the victim was unable to positively ID his attackers. The charges were dropped. One year later, 21-year-old Ellis was convicted of manufacturing and delivering narcotics. He received another sentence of probation. Though he continued to have legal troubles, Ellis seemed determined to live just outside the law, Less than six months later, he was arrested for possession with intent to sell. This time, his luck finally ran out.

The charges stuck, and he was sentenced to three years behind bars. In February of 1985, Ellis was released from prison and returned to Milwaukee's north side. At first, things were looking up. He started dating a woman and things were going great. But then he allegedly caught his girlfriend with another man and severely beat her in retribution. Then he threatened her with a gun before selling her body out for the evening. He watched and collected the money as he forced her to have sex with seven different men that night. It's clear that his explosive temper had reappeared, violent as ever.

As a result, Ellis came face to face with a judge. But then the charges against him were once again dropped. A disturbing pattern had begun to form. Until now, Ellis had largely escaped punishment for his crimes. It's possible that each time he escaped the consequences of his actions, the young man felt a greater sense of invincibility. In his mind, he was untouchable, no matter what he did, and he would soon put that theory to the test.

On the night of October 10, 1986, 26-year-old Ellis picked up Deborah Harris, a 31-year-old sex worker. Initially, the night went how you might expect. First, drinks and drugs, and eventually sex. But over the course of the evening, something caused Ellis to snap. In an instant, his hot temper came flaring back. He wrapped his hands around Deborah's neck and strangled her to death. When she was dead, he dumped her body into the Menominee River, where it was soon discovered.

Although we don't know exactly what said immoder, off. It's likely that the murders satisfied some kind of need for control inside Ellis. According to sociologist and criminology professor Scott A. Bonn, someone like Ellis would find the act of strangulation empowering because he got to decide when, how, and under what circumstances, his victim died. Much like his bullying passed, Ellis was able to dominate and control a physically weaker person. This rush of power developed Ellis' taste for murder. While police were pulling Deborah Harris' body from the river,

Ellis was already looking for his next victim. As he prowled the streets of the north side, he met 19-year-old Tanya Miller. Like Deborah, Tanya was a sex worker, and the unsuspecting teenager likely went with Ellis willingly. Unfortunately for Tanya, her night would end the same way it did for Deborah less than 24 hours earlier. After they had sex, Walter fed his true desire. There in his car, he strangled Tanya Miller to death.

It was his second murder in as many days, and the killing spree had only just begun. Coming up, Walter Ellis's murderous appetite grows. Own it all. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big board buck slot machine by aristocrat gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. The biggest prize in Yamava's history.

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Menominee River. Less than 24 hours later, he murdered 19-year-old Tanya Miller in the same way. But instead of tossing her in the river, he dumped the body behind an abandoned house. When police found Tanya's corpse, they couldn't ignore the similarities. between her murder and Deborah's. DNA was collected from both victims, but the technology was still in its early days, and it didn't offer any real leads. Making the search for a suspect even more difficult

was the fact that as soon as officials started their investigation, the killing stopped. It's unclear why Ellis stopped after these two initial murders, but it's possible it had something to do with his side gig, thievery. In May of 1987, he was concerned, convicted of felony theft and sentenced to nine months behind bars. Good behavior in prison earned him an early release,

but the behavior that won him his freedom wouldn't last for long. Within a month of leaving prison, Ellis was once again apprehended due to his criminal behavior. Having violated his parole, the judge deemed Ellis a risk to society and handed him a five-year sentence. When he was released in 1992, 32-year-old Ellis was. was assigned to a halfway house, a home that helps former prisoners adjust to life in general society. It was here that he befriended Carl Porter, a resident and former inmate who could be bribed for day passes out of the halfway house. In order to obtain a pass, occupants usually had to sign their name to a list. This is how local

law enforcement kept track of who was coming and going. But Carl, who had access to the list, exclude names as he liked, allowing residents to walk out undocumented for a price. Ellis made the most of the situation and took every opportunity he could to be out and about. And it was during one of these excursions that he ran into 25-year-old Irene Smith. On a cold November night, Ellis propositioned Irene, a sex worker. What happened next, though, was anything but consensual. Ellis forced himself upon her, over powering the young woman. He wrapped his hands around her neck, stifling her attempts to scream.

He squeezed until she could no longer fight back. At some point during the struggle, he also managed to stab her in the neck. After a few minutes, all the life in her body was gone. The next day, Irene's corpse was found stuffed in a trash bin in an alley. Police opened an investigation, but no immediate connections were noted between this murder, and those of Deborah Harris and Tanya Miller in 1986. Despite the similarities in the three cases, it had been so long between attacks

that the possibility of a serial killer was seemingly forgotten. Investigators gathered DNA evidence at each crime scene, but just as it was the case in the 1980s, there wasn't an easily accessible DNA database to which investigators could match the evidence. Within a month of Irene's murder, Ellis had tired of bribing Carl and left the halfway home without permission. But his freedom was short-lived and he was arrested two days later.

To avoid returning to prison, he cut a deal and ratted out Carl. He also told investigators which other halfway houses had participated in the bribery scheme. Satisfied with his help, the courts lifted Ellis's probation in 1993. After this, he managed to fly underline. the radar for about a year, which is not uncommon among serial killers, though there's no definitive answer as to why they sometimes go dormant. There are many theories. Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Bruce Harry of the University of Missouri School of Medicine believes it may boil down to the simple fact that killers get tired, bored, or just don't want to do it anymore. Whatever the case with Ellis,

his killer instinct resurfaced in 1994. In October of that year, he met 32-year-old Karen Kilpatrick, who had recently turned to sex work in order to make ends meet. After a brief encounter, he strangled Karen to death and left her body in a dumpster behind his mother's home. The next day, two young girls discovered the corpse. It was only one block away from where Irene Smith's body had been found less than a year before. After Karen's murder, police zes. zeroed in on one suspect, her boyfriend, Curtis McCoy. Karen and Curtis lived together with a roommate who told authorities that the two were arguing

on the night of her murder. The roommate revealed that he had then seen Curtis force Karen into his fan. Karen's five-year-old daughter corroborated the story, and charges were eventually filed against Curtis. Once the case made its way to court, Curtis's defense team argued that another man was responsible for Karen's death. They pointed out that her murder was similar to other unsolved slings in the area.

Eventually, Curtis McCoy was found not guilty, but life following the trial was unbearable. No matter what the jury had decided, locals still suspected him. Unable to escape the court of public opinion, Curtis left Milwaukee, never to look back. Karen's murder went cold. Meanwhile, Walter Ellis continued to have brushes with the law. In November of 1994, an argument with his new girlfriend got violent. He stabbed her with a screwdriver and choked her until she lost consciousness. He was arrested and charged with first-degree reckless endangerment, but due to a lack of solid evidence, the charges were dismissed.

This allowed 34-year-old Ellis to prowl the streets, for what would become his deadliest year. It started on April 24, 1995, when Ellis, strangled 28-year-old Florence McCormick. Her body was discovered the next day in the basement of a vacant house. Florence was found with a clothesline wrapped around her neck, suggesting that the killer used it to strangle her. Other than that, police had frustratingly little evidence to work with. Though DNA was collected, there were no matches in their system. That left Ellis a free man, confident that he was still impervious to the law and ready to kill again.

Less than two months later, he strangled 37-year-old Sheila Farrier. Her body was also discarded in a vacant house. Again, without a DNA match, police had few suspects to consider. Once more, Ellis waited a couple of months between attacks, making sure police weren't onto him. Then, when he felt it was safe to strike again, he went on the prowl with one goal in mind. On the night of August 27th, he took his time. wandering the north side, he glanced from one woman to the next, selecting his prey. After a while, he noticed 16-year-old Jessica Payne.

Jessica was a runaway from South Milwaukee. The prior evening, police had picked her up for fighting and she had spent the night in jail. If she hadn't been released, her fate may have been very different. Unfortunately, on those dark city streets, she caught the eye of Walter Ellis, and He was the last person to see her alive. Three days later, Jessica's body was found underneath a mattress behind a vacant house. Her murder wasn't linked to Ellis's other crimes because she didn't fit the established MO.

Up to this point, almost all of Ellis's victims had been strangled to death, but Jessica's throat had been slit. And there was one other point of difference. Jessica was white, not black. Jessica was a complete deviation in his victim profile. She was neither a sex worker nor black. It's unclear exactly why he chose her for his next victim, but it could have been due to the simple, tragic fact

that she was vulnerable and alone. Ellis falls in the category of a disorganized killer. First established by criminologist Roy Hazelwood, disorganized applies to killers who don't plan their murders in advance. disorganized killers will often attack based on opportunity, and Jessica apparently proved too good a chance to pass up. After her body was discovered, Milwaukee police had more luck finding answers than Anelis's other murders. A witness came forward who said that on the night of her murder, he drove a friend to the abandoned house where Jessica's body was later found. This friend, 21-year-old Chantey Ott, immediately jumped to the top of the suspect list,

and police obtained a search warrant for his home. There, they found potential murder weapons used to slash Jessica's throat. They arrested Chante on the spot. Chanty was charged with first-degree murder and attempted robbery. Prosecutors argued that Chanty intended to sell Jessica drugs, then rob her. When she tried to run away without paying, he slid her throat. After a short deliberation, the jury found Chanty ought guilty of murder. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Once again, 35-year-old Walter Ellis had gotten away with murder. And what's more? An innocent man had taken the fall. It may have been Chante Ott's conviction that spooked Ellis, or perhaps he simply grew bored. But after Jessica Payne's murder, he didn't kill again for almost two years. But in the summer of 1997, he gave in to his deadly urge, one. urge once again. In June, 36-year-old Ellis met Joyce Mims, a 41-year-old sex worker and mother. He returned to his original M.O. and strangled her to death. He then left her body in a vacant

house, not far from where his mother lived. In Joyce's murder, police were quick to zero in on a suspect, but once again, it wasn't Walter Ellis. George L. Jones was known to spend time with Joyce and had also previously gone to jail for stabbing a woman. But the physical evidence couldn't connect Jones to the murder. He was released, and the case went cold. Meanwhile, Ellis continued to operate unchecked. It's believed that he struck next in February of 1998. The strangled body of 39-year-old sex worker Mariette Griffin was found in a garage close to Ellis' home.

Again, Ellis was never suspected of the murder. A local low-level drug dealer named William Avery was eventually convicted instead. He was already serving time in prison when other inmates said he confessed to the crime. By now, 37-year-old Ellis must have felt untouchable. He'd murdered seven women and hadn't come close to being caught. Just as he showed no remorse over the deaths, he felt no sympathy for the men falsely imprisoned for his. crimes. As long as it kept police off his trail, he was content.

By August of 1998, Ellis was dating a woman named Karen Thomas. But just like his last girlfriend, the relationship didn't end well. During an argument, Ellis fell off the handle. He seized a hammer and began beating Karen over the head. She survived and made it to the hospital. Ellis was charged with second-degree reckless injury. It was one of the few charges that had ever managed to stick to the slippery crook. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison, and this sentence was very nearly his undoing. On January 1st of 2000, a new Wisconsin state law required all prisoners and convicted felons to provide a DNA sample. This was a game changer. Police had collected DNA evidence for each

of Ellis's murders, and with his sample, they would unmask him as the Northside Strangler. Ellis knew that if that happened, he had no hope of ever being released from prison, so he looked for a way out. Napoleon Clark was a fellow inmate and friend. He posed as Ellis and provided officials with his DNA. There were no photographs attached to the files, which made it all too easy for Clark to give a second sample in his own name. Somehow the simple scheme worked, though not everyone was duped.

A lab technician noticed the DNA from two different felons was identical. The technician flagged the issue, but for some reason, the prison was never contacted to correct the mistake. That breakdown in communication proved to have deadly consequences. Coming up, Walter Ellis walks free, ready to kill once more. Now back to the story. In July of 2001, 41-year-old Walter E. Ellis narrowly avoided being unmasked as the Milwaukee Northside Strangler, killer of seven women. Instead, just three years into a five-year sentence for assault, he was paroled. Over the next several years, the serial killer laid low to avoid breaching his parole. Though there hadn't been a Northside Strangler

murder for almost four years, local police were still trying to solve the case. Investigators spent countless hours interviewing potential suspects, hoping they could tie someone to the decade-long killing spree. But with no credible witnesses and frustrating DNA dead ends, their search was proving fruitless. Unfortunately, all they could do was hope that more evidence would turn up if the killer ever struck again. For years, they waited. Then in April of 2007, the Northside Strangler returned. The latest victim was 28-year-old sex worker Weithran Stokes. Her body was found in a vacant house. She had been strangled to death, but had clearly put up a fight. A canister of pepper spray was reportedly discovered near her body, and it was smeared with blood. Police tested the blood

from the canister, and it didn't match the victims. Weithran's final, desperate attempt to save her own life had ensured her killer left behind his DNA. The DNA matched to that found at the seven other crime scenes. After almost a decade of silence, the killer was back. But the DNA still had no match in the database. For now, again, there was little else police could do. But this DNA evidence wasn't entirely useless. By 2008, Shantae Ott had served over 12 years.

in prison for the murder of 16-year-old Jessica Payne. But in light of strong evidence that he was innocent, he launched a new appeal. In December of that year, Chanty's conviction was overturned and a new trial was ordered. Two weeks later, he was out on bond. By June, the charges had been dismissed. Chanty's exoneration, which the state had opposed, now meant that Jessica's murder was still unsolved. It was perhaps this mounting pressure that prompted the creation of a task force in May of 2009. Investigators were done waiting for the Northside Strangler to slip up.

They were taking the fight to him. Detectives knew that their killer had never given a DNA sample, so the best thing to do was start fresh with a new suspect list. So they set to work reviewing the daybooks from each of the murders. These daybooks are full of details noted by police in the aftermath of a crime. Officers canvass the area surrounding a crime scene and make note of who they talk to and any potential witnesses. By comparing details from the books, they hoped to find credible suspects. Around the same time, now retired Detective Steven Spengola published a detailed profile of the killer based on his own years of working the case.

He suggested that the killer was a black man in its late 40s, who had committed other acts of violence, but fallen through the cracks. People who knew him would consider the killer a regular Joe. This description matched eerily to one name at the top of the new suspect list, Walter E. Ellis. In August of 2009, police executed a search warrant on Ellis's apartment and took with them only two items, a toothbrush at a razor. Until they could definitively link him to the murders, they couldn't arrest 49-year-old Ellis. By the time the crime lab matched Ellis's DNA to the samples pulled from his victims, he had fled with his girlfriend.

At all points, bulletin was immediately issued, along with a warrant for Ellis's arrest. Authorities in the area were told to look out for a man matching his description and the car he was driving. They were so close, but police were afraid he'd slipped through their fingers. In an effort to box Ellis in, they set up roadblocks and used every available unit to patrol. control Milwaukee's streets. Their hard work finally paid off on September 5, 2009. In the early morning hours, Detective Scott Siller received a phone call from the Franklin County Police Department, about 20 miles south of Milwaukee. A Franklin County officer had spotted Ellis's car at a local motel. Siller wasted no time. He jumped into his unmarked vehicle and raced to the

park motel. of backup, he arrived at the motel, but didn't make a scene. The last thing he wanted was to give Ellis a chance to escape. Siller identified himself to the front desk clerk and showed them a photo of Walter Ellis. The clerk confirmed that Ellis and his girlfriend were there and gave Detective Siller their room number. Once they had evacuated the surrounding rooms, police stormed into Ellis's suite. His girlfriend was subdued, while Detective Siller made for for Ellis himself. Siller dragged him off the bed, but Ellis was determined to go down fighting.

Even at 49, he was fast enough to grab an officer's weapon. Without thinking, Siller tackled him to the floor. It was over. Milwaukee's Northside Strangler had finally been apprehended. When news broke that Walter E. Ellis had been arrested for decades' worth of murders, his neighborhood was in shock. Just as Steven Spengola's profile predicted, people thought of Ellis as an average Joe, though there were a few who weren't so surprised.

Purvis Mims, the son of Joyce Mims, who Ellis killed in 1997, always believed that his mother knew her killer, which proved true. When asked about Ellis, Mims described him as a regular guy, saying, you never know what's going on behind closed doors. Then there were those like Vienna Jordan, who had known Ellis for most of her life. At first, she thought of Ellis as an affable neighbor who would stop to chat with people on her block. Then she remembered his explosive anger from childhood. Those who knew him finally realized that side of him had never gone away.

It was just hidden beneath the surface. Criminologist Dr. Scott A. Bond points out that serial killers are often, like Ellis, hiding in plain sight. Psychopaths are like chameleons who do their best to not stand out. Though he was never diagnosed as a psychopath, Ellis demonstrated several key traits. His lack of empathy and sympathy were chief among these characteristics, not just for his victims, but for the men who had been charged with the murders he committed. But on that score, the scales were about to level out at last. In 2010, William Avery, who had been wrongly convicted of the 1998 murder of Marriette Griffin, was released from prison. Curiously, no further charges were filed in Marriette's murder. It seems

prosecutors were content with charging Ellis for seven murders. One more they may have thought wouldn't make a difference. That was because they were determined to get it right this time. After his 20-year murder spree, Walter Ellis was heading for a much publicized trial. refusing to work with his court-appointed lawyer, he represented himself. According to criminal defense attorney Tony Messina, there are any number of reasons why a defendant may choose to dismiss their attorney. Chiefly, though, it seems to represent an inflated sense of ego. Ellis, who'd gotten away with murder for so long, may have felt like he was better equipped than any lawyer to win his own freedom. It's also possible that he dismissed his attorney in an explosive.

display of anger and then had to live with the consequences. In the end, it didn't make much difference. Ellis pleaded no contest to the murder charges against him. The plea frustrated the loved ones of his victims, who wanted answers, and for Ellis to accept responsibility for his crimes. But Ellis had no interest in easing their pain. His plea allowed him to accept punishment without admitting guilt and denied prosecutors the to definitively prove he was the Northside Strangler.

When asked in court about the murders, he remained silent, refusing to reveal his motives. In February of 2011, Walter E. Ellis was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. There was no chance he would ever be free to kill again. Ellis served his sentence until December of 2013. That month, at the age of 53, the Milwaukee Northside Strangler died of natural causes. He passed away infamous, unrepentant, and alone. Thanks again for tuning it to serial killers. We'll be back soon with a new episode.

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Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, sound designed by Mike Ramos, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden, and Joshua Kern. This episode of serial killers was written by Matt Clifford, with writing assistance by Abigail Cannon and stars Greg Paulson and Vanessa Richardson. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up, getting ready for bed, is brutally beaten and killed.

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