St of NE v Roy Ellis ~ Amanda Harris Murder

[Pauli]

Roy Ellis Charged With Harris' Death, Sexual Assault

Omaha Police Plan News Conference On Amber Harris

http://www.ketv.com/2005/1206/5479343_240X180.jpg (http://www.ketv.com/news/10932677/detail.html#)

OMAHA, Neb. -- A convicted child sexual abuser was charged Monday morning in the death and sexual assault of Amber Harris.

"This morning we arrested Roy Ellis and charged him with first-degree murder," said Omaha Police Chief Thomas Warren. "Our detectives have conducted over a 100 interviews over the course of this investigation. Along with forensic evidence, we have established sufficient probable cause to arrest Roy Ellis for the murder of Amber Harris.

"Roy Ellis, 53, was questioned last year about the 12-year-old's death. He was questioned, detectives said at the time, because he lives near the spot where Amber's backpack was found and because he has a history of child sexual assault.

Warren said the bookbag figured as a critical piece of evidence in building the case against Ellis and that it specifically ties Ellis to the crimes. Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said there is forensic evidence -- including DNA -- against Ellis. Warren said there is ample evidence and that he is confident in the case against Ellis.

At the one-year anniversary of the girl's disappearance last fall, investigators said they continued to focus on the backpack and the area it was found at 22nd and Lake streets. Ellis had been in prison for two months on unrelated charges when the bag was found.

"We have a theory about how the bookbag arrived at that particular location -- who may have been responsible for placing the bookbag at that location," Warren said. " The fact is, we do have evidence contained in that bookbag that ties Roy Ellis to this particular crime.

"Ellis has nine felony convictions on his record, dating back to 1975, including two sexual assaults of children in 1999. Ellis is currently in custody awaiting sentencing on a witness tampering conviction.

Ellis is a Level 3 sex offender who was charged with making terroristic threats, first-degree false imprisonment and domestic abuse charges against his girlfriend for a September 2005 incident.

"The charge reads that Mr. Ellis did kill Amber Harris ... during a perpetrated sexual assault," Kleine said during a news conference Monday morning.

Kleine and Warren were asked whether Ellis has confessed to the charges regarding Amber, but they wouldn't say. They did say he invoked his constitutional rights.

Ellis will be arraigned Tuesday afternoon. Kleine said he will present aggravating circumstances, including Ellis' "significant history of assault and terrorizing activity." The prosecutor said the girl's murder was committed to cover another crime, which was the sexual assault. Kleine said he may also go after a third aggravating factor in the charges that relate to the heinousness of the crime.

Kleine said he will seek the death penalty if Ellis is convicted.The 12-year-old got off a school bus on Nov. 29, 2005, and vanished, police said. Her body was found in Hummel Park in May.

Police have said Harris died of blunt-force trauma.

There has been criticism of the Omaha Police Department's handling of the case all along.Warren said he has felt from the beginning that his department has properly handled the girl's disappearance and death investigation. He said his investigators learned a lot during their work on the case. He said his investigators poured their hearts into the case.

"I'm confident we handled this case properly. I'm proud (of the work)," Warren said. "We devoted resources from the onset -- Nov. 29, 2005. We feel we devoted sufficient resources to finding her from the very beginning."Amber's parents planned an 11 a.m. news conference to talk about their reaction to the arrest.

History: Case Got Local, National Attention

Numerous vigils were held in the days and months after Harris disappeared and a reward fund grew to try to help track her down. Family, police and the Klaas Foundation all led searches for the girl, or clues leading to her abductor. The story was also featured on "America's Most Wanted."Harris' parents, Michael and Melissa, took a polygraph test in the months after her disappearance. It was part of the larger investigation that Warren outlined a couple of months after Amber Harris disappeared.

The police chief listed a day-by-day analysis of what his department did to try to locate the girl. Warren said his officers went to 3210 N. 16th St. on a report of a missing juvenile after 7 p.m. on Nov. 29. The child's mother, Melissa Harris, told officers that she last saw her daughter get on her school bus at 6 a.m. on that day.

Warren said officers talked to the Harris family and others who were on the same Laidlaw bus that Amber boarded after school that day. One of the bus riders told officers that Amber may have asked to get off near Miller Park on that day.

Warren said his officers covered the area around Miller Park and between there and the Harrises' home. The night the 12-year-old disappeared, Warren said, a K-9 unit was not used to track the girl. They worked through the night, and continued to interview the family and other bus riders.The media was not notified that the girl was missing until the evening of Nov. 30. At that time, a photo of the girl and the phone numbers for Omaha police were released to the public asking for help to find the girl.

"We had no indication (initially) that there was any foul play involved," Warren said. "We investigate these matters from all possible perspectives -- from worst-case scenario, if there may have been an abduction, to the individual running away voluntarily. At the time of the initial radio call, we didn't have any indication that this was anything other than a runaway. But as the time elapsed, you have concern that there's a missing 12-year-old.

"Investigators said Amber was dropped off at Lothrop Street and Florence Boulevard and was seen headed east on Lothrop toward her home.

Warren said at the time that his department had expended considerable resources in the hunt for Amber, including many officer hours, the use of the department's helicopter and use of the FBI for help.

"We looked at the dynamics of the family, interviewed family and friends and associates of the missing person," Warren said. "I cannot tell you that we've had any confirmed sightings of Amber Harris since her disappearance. We're working, literally, hundreds of leads.

"Omaha police also enlisted the FBI to help search for the girl.

Police said they had a tip early on that Harris might be with a boyfriend.Amber was listed by the National Center for Exploited and Missing Children and on the Nebraska State Patrol's Missing Persons Information Clearinghouse for months.

Late last year, the person who found the body of a missing Omaha 12-year-old hired an attorney. KETV NewsWatch 7 learned that the unidentified man had not been paid the reward money, and that's why he sought legal counsel.

http://www.ketv.com/news/10932677/detail.html

[Pauli]

Roy Ellis Headed To Trial

http://media.graytvinc.com/images/Roy-Ellis-Preliminary.jpg

Omaha, NE- The convicted sex offender who is accused of killing Amber Harris is now headed to trial. Roy Ellis did not have anything to say Wednesday morning as he headed into court to waive his preliminary hearing. Prosecutors say DNA in Amber's backpack links Ellis to her murder. The 12-year-old was last seen in November 2005 getting off a school bus on her way home from school. Her remains were found in Hummel Park last May.

Fifty-four pages of sealed court documents were also unsealed on Wednesday. The papers tell us there was blood on Amber's jeans and jacket found inside her backpack. Some of the blood was Amber's, some of the blood belonged to Roy Ellis.

In addition to blood evidence, court papers say Roy Ellis confessed to Kenneth Wells, another inmate at the Douglas County Jail, that he killed Amber. He reportedly told a friend, Gino Lindsey, before Amber's disappearance, that he wanted to take a female to a secluded area, dig a grave and threaten to bury her. Lindsey found Amber's backpack in his backyard.

An autopsy on Amber found that she died after someone smashed in her head. A hammer was one of the items police seized from Ellis' house. Police also looked over cars that Ellis drove. A friend named Rodger Turner told police that Ellis used to borrow his car for a few hours at a time. Around the time Amber disappeared, Ellis kept the car overnight. When he returned it, a black sheet covered the back seat. Ellis would later tell Turner, "there are things I need to take car of" and "I need to clean my trail."

Also in court documents, a Douglas County Corrections officer told police that Ellis had an "intense interest" in news stories about Amber and wanted to know how long DNA lasted, and how long it took for a body to decompose.

Amber's parents say police have given them the details. They were in court on Wednesday and say they still have trouble looking at Ellis in court. Mellisa Harris says, "I felt a slight glance from him today. No remorse, just nothing."

The court affidavit also points out that Ellis had a history of hurting young teenage girls. He did prison time for sexually assaulting his two stepdaughters. He was also accused of abducting an ex-girlfriend, taking her to Hummel park and threatening to kill her.

Posted February 21, 2007

http://www.action3news.com/Global/story.asp?S=6118115

[Pauli]

Courthouse Tightens Security For Ellis Trial

Deputies Plan To Follow Plan Developed By Marshals

POSTED: 4:51 pm CDT April 9, 2008
UPDATED: 9:05 pm CDT April 9, 2008

OMAHA, Neb. -- One of the most highly publicized trials in recent history is about to begin in Douglas County and the courthouse staff is preparing for a high-security situation.

Roy Ellis will stand trial in connection with the rape and murder of 12-year old Amber Harris. Jury selection begins on Monday.

The Sheriff's Department uses a system called a high-risk trail plan, which was developed by the U.S. Marshal Service and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office. As part of it, a remote device that delivers 50,000 volts of electricity if an inmate gets out of line will be used next week, deputies said.

"This is going to be the defendant's table for Roy Ellis and he has two attorneys assigned to him, so we'll control the seating inside this courtroom," said the head of courthouse security, Lt. Wayne Hudson, as he toured preparations on Wednesday.

Along with controlled seating near the defendant, the plan also includes further divisions for the courtroom.

"We'll have part of the courtroom reserved for the defendant's family and part for the victim's family," Hudson said.Other measures include metal detectors, required identification for courtroom access and controlled access in the hallways. Hudson said some of the security measures his team will take will not be released to the public.

"The public can't know because we don't want anyone to try to get around some of our security measures or help him escape," Hudson said.Melissa Harris, Amber's mother, said she's also been preparing mentally for the trial. She said she's been praying a lot and hoping for some justice for her daughter.

"You don't want any chaos. It's hard enough the way it is. The justice would be he not out here hurting anybody else -- any other little girls," Harris said.Ellis will be briefed on the rules he must follow in front of his attorney before entering the courtroom. One of the rules is that he not have any contact with the Harris family -- not even eye contact.

Hudson said the judge, defense attorneys and prosecutors in this case have sat down to discuss the case and its security. Ellis attorney Patrick Dunn said getting ready for the trial has been stressful. Dunn said he has talked with Ellis on Wednesday morning and he said both he and his client are ready for the trial.Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine also said on Wednesday that he's ready for Monday's trial.

Previous Stories:
February 21, 2008: Judge Will Allow DNA Evidence In Roy Ellis Case (http://www.ketv.com/news/15371053/detail.html)
January 25, 2008: Ellis Asks For Change Of Venue, Exclusion Of Evidence (http://www.ketv.com/news/15137702/detail.html)
December 27, 2007: Ellis Asks For Change Of Venue (http://www.ketv.com/news/14934380/detail.html)
November 9, 2007: Ellis Trial Moved Back To April (http://www.ketv.com/news/14551130/detail.html)
June 28, 2007: Rewards Paid In Amber Harris Case (http://www.ketv.com/news/13589585/detail.html)
May 11, 2007: Harris' Body Found 1 Year Ago In Hummel Park (http://www.ketv.com/news/13303974/detail.html)
April 11, 2007: Ellis Denies Some Charges As Judge Reads Record (http://www.ketv.com/news/11590956/detail.html)
February 22, 2007: Amber's Mother Reviews Search Warrants For First Time (http://www.ketv.com/news/11072753/detail.html)
February 7, 2007: Ellis' Victim Says She Wants Justice For Herself, Amber (http://www.ketv.com/news/10953033/detail.html)
February 6, 2007: Ellis' Former Victim Speaks After Charges Read (http://www.ketv.com/news/10943496/detail.html)
February 6, 2007: Man Who Found Bag Says Ellis Was 'Weird' (http://www.ketv.com/news/10936487/detail.html)
February 6, 2007: Harris Family Reacts To Arrest (http://www.ketv.com/news/10933929/detail.html)
February 5, 2007: Roy Ellis Charged With Harris' Death, Sexual Assault (http://www.ketv.com/news/10932677/detail.html)
February 5, 2007: Roy Ellis' Criminal Record Stretches Over 32 Years (http://www.ketv.com/news/10936268/detail.html)
February 5, 2007: Harrises' Neighbors Say They Still Don't Feel Safe (http://www.ketv.com/news/10936017/detail.html)
February 2, 2007: Man Interviewed In Harris Death Labeled 'Habitual Criminal' (http://www.ketv.com/news/10915022/detail.html)
November 30, 2006: Crowd Gathers To Memorialize Amber Harris (http://www.ketv.com/news/10430023/detail.html)http://www.ketv.com/news/15838148/detail.html?rss=oma&psp=news

[Pauli]

Roy Ellis In More Trouble

The man accused of killing 12 year old Amber Harris of Omaha is in more trouble.

Douglas County officials say Roy Ellis is under lockdown for threatening a female guard at the prison.

He's now restrained and only allowed out of his cell for one hour a day.

Ellis is awaiting trial on murder charges in the death of Amber Harris.

http://www.klkntv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8080677

[Pauli]

Roy Ellis' Criminal Record Stretches Over 32 Years

POSTED: 4:28 pm CST February 5, 2007
UPDATED: 4:35 pm CST February 5, 2007

OMAHA, Neb. -- The man charged with first-degree murder and sexual assault on Amber Harris has a criminal record that dates to 1975, records show.Roy Lee Ellis, 53, has nine felonies, including sexual assault on two children.

He began serving time for his crimes in 1995.

After his release from prison in 2004, Ellis was in and out of jail on various misdemeanor charges, records show.

In 2006, he was charged with more felonies, including failing to register as a sex offender and making terroristic threats and false imprisonment. Those charges came after Ellis' ex-girlfriend told police that Ellis kicked down her door, then drove her to Hummel Park and tried to force her into the trunk of the car. When she refused, she said, he threatened to cut her throat and cut off her head. Ellis eventually let her go.

Officers arrested Ellis for the charges against his girlfriend in June. He was picked up at his home on 25th and Ohio streets -- one block from where Amber's bookbag was found. But police weren't ready yet to call Ellis a suspect in the 12-year-old's disappearance.

Since his June arrest, Ellis has also been charged with felony witness tampering.

On Friday, a judge declared Ellis a habitual criminal. That is a label requiring three felony convictions in Nebraska, and it can mean longer sentences.

http://www.ketv.com/news/10936268/detail.html

[Roamer]

Hopefully, he'll never draw another free breath. I'd like to see him get the DP. I don't think he's going to get much sympathy from a jury when they hear what he did to this poor little girl. :mad:

[Nut44x4]

Omaha World - Herald (Nebraska)
April 17, 2008 Thursday

Trial's first day is all about Amber

Todd Cooper and Erin Grace, Omaha World-Herald, Neb.


Apr. 17--Melissa Harris swore she wouldn't break down on the stand, swore she would steel herself against the rawness inside her since her daughter Amber disappeared 30 months ago.

Harris was staring at Exhibit No. 140 -- the gold cross Amber used to wear -- and at the cross she's had to bear: a courtroom full of exhibits and Amber's last outfit and the gaze of the man she and prosecutors blame for Amber's death.

Then prosecutor Brenda Beadle presented Harris with the simplest item -- a photo she passes every day in her living room, the last school photo of Amber, with that Mona Lisa-like half-smile and those hoop earrings.

"Can you tell us who that is?" Beadle asked.

"That's my daughter," she said, her voice breaking as she refused to talk about Amber in the past tense.

Indeed, Wednesday -- Day One of Roy Ellis' first-degree murder trial -- was all about Amber, all about the last images her loved ones and teacher and even a random bus driver had of the 12-year-old girl who vanished on Nov. 29, 2005.

Wednesday promised to be in stark contrast to the rest of the two-week-long trial. Much of the trial will focus on Amber's unspeakable death and what prosecutors say is the surprisingly outspoken way Ellis, jailed on unrelated charges, bared his worry to guards and fellow inmates.

Ellis' attorneys, Patrick Dunn and Jerry Hug, told the jury of six men and six women that they will challenge those jailhouse accounts and pick apart DNA experts' testimony.

It didn't take long for the trial to heat up in Courtroom No. 2.

Two witnesses in, Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine dropped a suggestion: that Ellis was spotted near Amber the summer before her disappearance.

Jalesa Harris, Amber's sister, shuffled in from the hallway. Her flip-flops whisking against the floor, she took the stand and matter-of-factly recounted seeing the defendant once before.

It was in the summer of 2005, Jalesa said. Amber was outside feeding Sparky, an abandoned dog the Harrises adopted.

Who else was in the alley?

Jalesa, 15, said she didn't know his name at the time but she now knows him as Roy Ellis.

Ellis, a stocky man, leaned his head back and looked at Jalesa -- as he did at all witnesses -- out of narrowed eyes.

Was Ellis near Amber? Kleine asked.

"Yes," Jalesa said.

Did he touch her?

She shrugged.

"It's possible," she said.

At that, Hug objected. Douglas County District Judge Greg Schatz told Jalesa to answer the question directly.

"No," she said.

Fast forward to Nov. 29, 2005:

Jalesa -- who shared a room and clothes with Amber -- recounted waking up at 6:30 a.m., about the time Amber and her mom walked to the bus stop so Amber could catch her ride to Beveridge Magnet Center, a school with an arts emphasis.

Jalesa spotted Amber, her younger sister by a year, in a red sweater.

"So I guess you're wearing my sweater today?" Jalesa recalled saying.

Amber finished tying her shoe, looked up at Jalesa and smiled.

It wasn't the only image of Amber Wednesday.

Kleine asked Jalesa if she could identify the sweater in its current state.

He briefly hoisted the red sweater -- now squeezed between Plexiglas sheets.

Formless and lifeless, the sweater remains coated with raisin-size dirt clods from the spot where Amber's partially clothed remains were found buried in Hummel Park, six months after her disappearance.

A slight mustiness -- the smell of damp dirt -- seeped from the edges of the plastic.

"That's my sweater," Jalesa said.

Earlier, Beadle asked Melissa Harris to identify exhibit No. 138.

Those jeans, marked by pink stitching around the belt, were the last pair Amber wore, her mother said.

In court, they were marked with something else: The squiggly lines left by a marker on the hem, a pocket, the lower pant legs -- anywhere investigators thought DNA samples could be recovered.

Beadle told jurors in opening statements that the lower pant-leg marking represents damning evidence against Ellis: skin cells matching Ellis' DNA profile.

But Dunn conceded nothing. He said a DNA expert won't be able to say with certainty that it's Ellis' DNA, won't be able to identify other purported DNA splotches on the jeans and won't be able to tell when or how the DNA was placed there.

And there's one important piece authorities won't be able to tell jurors, Dunn said: who left Amber's book bag in a container outside a flophouse at 2115 Lake St.

Prosecutors say that Ellis used to stay at the house -- and that he made countless calls from jail to his girlfriend, who lived nearby, asking her to check on the house and what was happening there.

Dunn noted that Ellis was in jail on Feb. 14, 2006 -- the day the book bag, complete with Amber's jeans, jewelry and notebooks, was found. The people who found it said the bag hadn't been there the day before.

"The question is, who put it there?" Dunn asked. "Why was it put there, and what did that person have to do with the death of Amber Harris?"

There was one thing that Dunn and Hug didn't try to dispute: the heartache family and friends felt over the loss of Amber.

Her language arts teacher, Cheryl Heineman, took the stand and described Amber as an outgoing student, a girl who was singing when she wasn't talking. Heineman described how she had challenged Amber to work on her math skills by helping tutor an elementary student.

Initially reluctant, Amber soon accepted the challenge -- and her parents heartily supported it, though it meant she wouldn't arrive home until evening some days, Heineman said.

Heineman choked up as she identified Amber's photo and described how she delivered Amber and her other students to the dock on Nov. 29 to catch the late bus.

On that late bus, driver Jeff Decker said, Amber was the only calm kid.

A surveillance video of the bus ride, played in court, seemed to back him up.

In the back of the bus, several boys clown around, bouncing on the seats. Amber sits up front by herself -- her face occasionally illumined by car headlights streaming through the bus window.

About 5:32 p.m. -- 10 minutes from her stop -- Amber lowers each eyelid and rubs away some eye shadow. Earlier, Jalesa testified to the reason: Their father, Michael Harris, doesn't allow his girls to wear makeup before they turn 15, and Amber didn't want to get caught.

In the video, jurors can see Amber wearing the same red sweater, windbreaker and jeans that are now exhibits in the case before them.

One juror, a young black man, leaned forward and watched Amber intently as the stamped time on the bus video ticked on.

5:41:14.

The bus rocks to a stop. Amber steps to the front, almost squarely in the center of the camera.

5:41:15.

The door slides open. She descends the steps.

5:41:16.

She's gone.

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=574&topicId=100020825&docId=l:777717616&start=4

[Nut44x4]

April 17, 2008 Thursday
Omaha World-Herald Nebraska

Girl's last day draws tears A prosecutor in Roy Ellis' murder trial lays out the evidence. Roy Ellis trial

The two men sat less than 10 feet away from each other in the small fifth-floor courtroom.

One was the 54-year-old defendant wearing navy pinstripes and shiny black penny loafers, his silver-framed oval glasses resting upside down on the table as he slumped in his seat next to his two court-appointed attorneys.

The other was the buzz-cut, doe-eyed, 22-year-old brother of the victim, a 12-year-old girl whose side ponytail and Mona Lisa smile became a ubiquitous symbol of a missing child and a family's anguish.

The accused, Roy Ellis, and the brother, Jeremy Swagerty, stared ahead as prosecutor Brenda Beadle stood with notes clutched behind her back and launched the trial.

This trial, in which Ellis could receive the death penalty, caps the saga of a 12-year-old girl who went missing in late 2005 and whose picture was plastered all over the city. Her decomposed body was found in a ditch in woodsy Hummel Park in May 2006.

Ellis was charged with firstdegree murder in February 2007.

In her nearly 36-minute opening statement, Beadle, chief deputy Douglas County attorney, laid out the state's case: DNA evidence linked to Ellis found on the girl's blue jeans behind a house where Ellis had lived; Ellis' comments in phone calls from jail; his interest in the case; his general queries about DNA contamination and outdoor graves; and an overheard admission that he killed her.

"The evidence will show he brutally murdered her and disposed of her body in a shallow grave in Hummel Park," Beadle said.

W. Patrick Dunn, one of Ellis' attorneys, faced the jury with no notes and said sternly that the evidence will show that Ellis has been consistent in his comments to authorities, telling them: "I don't know. I can't help you."

"He has pled not guilty," Dunn told the jury in a 10-minute statement, adding that jailhouse informants and DNA evidence are not fail-safe evidentiary measures. He called upon the jury to view evidence critically and ask questions.

Beadle opened by describing a November Tuesday that started off like any other for the family of Amber Harris.

The middle child rose, donned blue jeans and her older sister's red sweater, topped the outfit with a too-thin black jacket and grabbed a Nike book bag. She headed out with her mom to the corner near her north Omaha house where she caught a bus to a middle school in southwest Omaha. It was 6:40 a.m.

"That was the last time Melissa saw her 12-year-old daughter. Ever," Beadle said.

Jury members, picked after 2 1/2 days of selection, stared at Beadle with big eyes.

One woman teared up as Beadle went through the rest of the middle school student's day: staying for a tutoring program after school, calling her dad to say that she was on the late bus, telling the bus driver to let her out at a stop near her house, wiping off her makeup as she exited the bus, not arriving home.

"That would be her last bus ride," Beadle said.

She told the jury that in the months that followed Amber's disappearance, Ellis, who was in jail on a different charge, was talking.

In recorded phone calls to his girlfriend, he says there is something he needed to get from his old house -- a party house he lived in during the month Amber disappeared. Things that could be detrimental to his life, Beadle told the jury. Ellis asks his girlfriend about activity at the house: What does she see? Is anyone there?

She said those queries stopped when people living at the house found Amber's book bag in a makeshift trash container behind the home. In it are books that say: "Amber Harris," along with a jacket that appears have blood on it, a young girl's bra with dirt on it and a pair of jeans.

The woman juror blinked back tears.

Beadle said a DNA analysis of the items identifies the blood as belonging to a female child of Michael and Melissa Harris. She said DNA on the jeans is from Ellis.

Swagerty, the brother, wiped his eyes and then dropped his head into his hands. Ellis, resting his chin on his hand, stared ahead.

Beadle said Ellis talked to inmates and guards, asking questions. One inmate, she said, overheard Ellis tell someone else he "strangled her when he was raping her and he busted her over the head."

Swagerty, face in hands, breathed heavily.

Beadle described how two hikers in Hummel Park found Amber's remains six months after her disappearance.

All jurors' eyes were fixed on Beadle. The brother took slow breaths as she described the cause of Amber's death: "blunt force trauma to the head."

Dunn, the attorney for Ellis, said testimony from inmates who knew Ellis reflects facts that had been public knowledge. He further told the jury that Nebraska law calls such inmates "jailhouse informants" and warns that their testimony may not be very reliable.

He also said to view DNA evidence critically.

"The DNA that is there on the jeans," Dunn said, "there's no way they can tell you when it got there and there's no way they can tell you how it got there. . . . This is not an episode of 'CSI Miami.' This is a real world episode of a science that is not perfect.

"I ask you to critique the evidence, critique the testimony, scrutinize the science."

Roy Ellis trial

The charge: First-degree murder

The victim: Amber Harris, 12

The possible penalty: Death or life in prison

The latest: Amber's last day is detailed by loved ones.

Up next: Amber's father testifies; officers describe their big break -- the discovery of Amber's book bag.
http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=574&topicId=100020825&docId=l:777477096&start=13

[Grande]

BREAKING: Verdict Reached, Ellis Guilty
Updated: April 25, 2008 11:36 AM CDT

OMAHA (KPTM) - A verdict has been reached in the trial of the man accused of kidnapping and murdering 12-year-old Amber Harris. The announcement made is that Roy Ellis has been found guilty of first degree murder.

Amber's remains were found in May 2006 in Hummel Park in far northeast Omaha. She had been missing since 2005.

It will now be up to the same jury to decide if Ellis will face the death penalty. Attorneys in the case will meet with the judge this afternoon to discuss how the jury will decide if Roy Ellis should face the death penalty and also any motions that may be filed in the case.

The jury will reconvene on Monday at 9 AM to decide on the whether the death penalty will be applied. The Harris family has expressed they hope to now move on and begin the healing process, but that their family will never be the same.

http://www.nebraska.tv/Global/story.asp?S=8227014

[Nut44x4]

Omaha World - Herald (Nebraska)

April 27, 2008 Sunday

Making the case against Roy Ellis

Apr. 27--They saw the blood on her jacket, looked at each other and knew.

A hard knot formed in Omaha Police Detective Tom Rummel's stomach. Sgt. Trevor O'Brien went from elated at the find -- the first big break in the case -- to crushed.

In the 77 days since Amber Harris stepped off a school bus and into a nightmare, the two police officers were among those working around the clock to find the missing girl. As the tips had poured in, the detective and the sergeant had checked out some 200 rumors: Amber was at Crossroads Mall, she was in California with relatives, she was calling her friends.

Each tip -- which sometimes took days to check out -- had led to a dead end. The door-to-door, car-to-car, horseback-and-helicopter combing of her northeast Omaha neighborhood had turned up nothing.

As the two stood in the police crime lab staring at what probably was Amber's blood on Amber's jacket, they now realized they would be looking for Amber's body.

And Amber's killer.

Within a day or so that February in 2006, Rummel was face to face with him. Rummel just didn't know it at the time.

Roy Ellis was like so many others whom police were interviewing. His name had surfaced with seven other names in connection with the 2115 Lake St. home outside which the jacket had been found, stuffed into a book bag. The nylon Nike bag had been tossed atop a makeshift trash barrel.

The detective had already interviewed scores of others who had histories of drug use, no employment and criminal records. To Rummel, Ellis -- a crack-abusing, unemployed former convict -- didn't stand out, at first.

To begin with, Ellis wasn't on the list of registered sex offenders Rummel was checking, although the Level 3 sex offender -- a classification that means most likely to offend again -- should have been. Ellis had been convicted about seven years earlier after raping and impregnating his two adolescent stepdaughters.

Ellis told Rummel he had heard about the book bag -- it had been all over the news. Then Ellis volunteered that he was in Lincoln on Nov. 29, 2005, when Amber disappeared.

Ellis, a man in his 50s who was in jail at the time for violating a protection order, didn't seem special.

Then Ellis' ex-girlfriend, whom he had taken to Hummel Park and threatened, told authorities that Ellis hadn't registered as a sex offender. That tacked extra days onto his jail time and turned the lens onto him.

By then, Steve Henthorn, a white-haired homicide detective with two-plus decades on the force, had been pulled in. He had listened to 30 hours of recordings of Ellis' phone calls from jail.

In 125 calls Ellis made to a friend and neighbor of the 2115 Lake St. home, Henthorn heard urgency in the inmate's voice and heard a pattern of repeated questions: What was going on at the house? Who was coming and going? Ellis needed to get out of jail and go to the home -- break in if he had to -- to retrieve some of his "paperwork." Not doing so, Ellis said, would be "detrimental" to his life.

Another pattern soon emerged in interviews Henthorn and Rummel conducted with inmates and guards who knew Ellis from Mod 19 of the Douglas County Correctional Center. Ellis, they said, had been asking a lot of questions about semen, DNA and Hummel Park.

Then on May 18, 2006, the Nebraska State Patrol confirmed that a hospital lab's profile of DNA found on Amber's jeans matched Roy Ellis.

The detectives took the information to prosecutors, who then began building their case inside a forgotten-about little room on the ninth floor of the City-County Building, away from their busy courthouse office.

Their war room, adjacent to the tax-foreclosure office, was quieter and offered the space and privacy needed to spread out their strategy and paperwork. And in the 14-hour workdays and weekends that followed, that's exactly what Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine and chief deputy Brenda Beadle did.

They filled more than a dozen binders, examined thousands of pages of police reports, stuffed boxes with files, collected tape-recorded interviews and papered the place with poster-size Post-Its on which they had mapped how Ellis was linked to 12-year-old Amber Harris.

In marker scrawl on white posters, the prosecutors started a timeline beginning with the day Amber disappeared. They tacked up yellow posters onto which they scribbled links: DNA, Guards, Book bag.

This montage formed the basis of the wagon-wheel graphic that was flashed onto a large projection screen in court Thursday as Kleine and Beadle wrapped up the case in their one-two-punch closing argument.

"They all interlock," Kleine told jurors, pointing to the chart with Ellis' name in the hub and, along each spoke, the different areas of evidence. "They're like pieces of a puzzle."

Puzzle had been the appropriate metaphor in a case marked by two lucky breaks: the sudden appearance of Amber's book bag on Feb. 14, 2006, and a ghost hunter's unexpected discovery May 11, 2006, of her remains in Hummel Park.

Without an inmate's report of Ellis' boasts, investigators might not have focused on Ellis' phone calls.

Without the phone calls, investigators wouldn't necessarily have known about Ellis' obsession with what had been left behind on Lake Street.

Without the book bag, they wouldn't have found Amber's jeans. Without the diligence of a DNA analyst at the Nebraska Medical Center, they wouldn't have found Ellis' faint handprint on the jeans cuff. And they wouldn't have found out the chances of it being anyone but Ellis: 1 in 2.36 billion.

Without Ellis' DNA? Well, Kleine hesitated to say whether prosecutors could have convicted Ellis.

"All the evidence was important," Kleine said.

Ellis' defense attorneys had argued that nothing -- no DNA and no other forensic evidence -- had linked those remains to Ellis. And there was no evidence, attorney Patrick Dunn said Thursday in his closing argument, of a sexual assault.

"Are you kidding me?" a stunned Beadle, the mother of three, practically shouted in her rebuttal.

She held up the dirt-caked red sweater found on Amber's remains and demanded, more than asked: "Why is she clad only in this red sweater?"

"When she's laying up there only in a sweater," Beadle continued, "that's sexual assault."

Following closing arguments Thursday, the prosecutors and detectives -- including Henthorn, who is now retired and works as an investigator for Kleine -- holed up in Kleine's office awaiting the jury's decision.

They rehashed the trial over Diet Cokes and joshed and passed a few anxious minutes trying to beat the "Jeopardy" contestants on TV.

The day grew late until finally, hours after the courthouse had closed, it was time to go home with no decision.

"It's agonizing," Kleine said, after trying to figure out a question the jury had submitted.

Beadle, waiting for the jury Thursday, rapped her nails on the table: "I hate this."

Then, heading Friday to hear the verdict: "My stomach hurts. I'm worried to death."

When the guilty verdict was read, their relief was palpable. Beadle pressed her fingers to her eyes and wiped her nose.

In the crowded fifth-floor hallway, Amber's mother, Melissa Harris, sought out and hugged Rummel, O'Brien and Henthorn.

At one point, she and her husband, Michael, had criticized the police response to their daughter's disappearance.

But after hearing some of the officers' accounts in court, Melissa Harris said she hadn't realized how many hours went into trying to find her daughter.

"I think when you're a parent of a missing child, you always think things are going too slow," she said. "Then when you find out all the man hours -- especially when I found out the testimony from Tom Rummel -- what they were doing a day, two days after -- it eases your mind. I'm totally grateful for their work."

She praised the prosecutors, too.

"They were involved in this emotionally also," Harris said. "We could never thank them enough."
http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=574&topicId=100020825&docId=l:782537077&start=5