Report #2003 – The Death of Garret Ellis

By Dennis Detwiller,  ©1998.

DATE: September 5, 1994
AGENTS: Marcus, Bruce
SUMMARY: A strange pair of murders and seeming resurrections in New York state.
CASE STATUS: Open


This report wraps up the investigation into the odd events surrounding the unusual “chain-lightning” murders in Hempstead, New York, from 7JUL94 to 29AUG94.

This case came to the attention of Agent Adam who forwarded it to me on 8JUL94. At that time only one body had been recovered.

The oddities of this case are many. The first victim, Harold Melvin Peris, was found dead in the South Hempstead reservoir on 7JUL94. The Nassau County Medical Examiner’s report notes ligature marks around the wrists, ankles, and throat, and odd ritualistic knife cuts around the genitals. These marks were what brought the FBI in on the case. Agent Adam moved for the case to be investigated, albeit quietly, by Cell M.

Initial investigation revealed little. The marks were located in a book called The Workings of the Spirit World by Lewis Tremont (Harcourt 1931). Apparently they represented a theft of life essence in the Polynesian cultures they originated from. Investigation into the victim, Mr. Peris, led the team to come to the conclusion that Peris was an ordinary citizen, without any links to the occult. It is thought he was selected as a sacrifice randomly.

Peris’s body disappeared on 8JUL94 from the Nassau County Medical Center. Its morgue reported no intruders, or anyone entering or exiting from the time the body was last seen at 10:30 P.M. The body was discovered to be missing at 7:30 A.M. the following morning when morticians arrived to pick it up.

Several strange things were discovered in the morgue. On a hunch, we dusted the morgue for prints. Peris’s prints were all over the place, in ways which suggested that he had come to life (some sort of life) between 10:30 P.M. on 8JUL94 and the following morning. Discrepancies in the morgue attendant’s reports were also discovered through questioning, leading the agents to believe that the attendant had fallen asleep that evening.

The investigation kept going, slowly, consisting mostly of bookwork. On 20JUL94 the body of Garrett Ellis was located in Eisenhower Park in Glendale. The body had been ritualistically scarred in a similar but more profound manner than Mr. Peris’s. Nearby, the body of Mr. Peris was also located, now quite dead. His body (consistent with a corpse twelve days old) showed severe mortification although the ritualistic scars were no longer present. Mr. Ellis’s body was found to be covered in Peris’s prints, as if the corpse had come to life long enough to make another corpse.

Both corpses were moved to the Nassau County Medical Center Morgue, where autopsies were performed by DG friendly Bruce. In addition, by pulling strings, agents Marcus and Bruce were able to stay with the corpses that evening.

Nothing conclusive was discovered in the autopsy, except that the last meal of the new victim, Ellis, had been some sort of odd rice. Samples were removed for study.

At 12:00 A.M. the corpse of Ellis sat up suddenly and made a break for the door. Gunfire ensued. Bruce attempted to restrain Ellis and was thrown more than fifteen feet by the corpse. It was shot ten times at close range with no effect. Finally, it let out a strangled scream and faded from view, seemingly dropping out of focus and then disappearing into thin air. The effect was quite startling. It was gone. Bruce was slightly injured and declined treatment. The two DG agents fled the scene before the real authorities arrived.

It was then that Cell M re-evaluated the crimes. An exhaustive search throughout the files revealed a single linking fact between the two men. They both had been born on the dates of their deaths, a seemingly meaningless convergence, but one that was felt to hold some possibility for further study. Research into this type of occurrence revealed very little, except one strange and anomalous case from 1881 which seemingly mimicked these murders. Four bodies suffering from similar genital cuts were discovered over a period of three months in the summer of 1881 in southern Brooklyn, New York. Little about this case is still on file.

Lacking further leads, Marcus and Bruce returned to the house of Harold Peris which, lacking an inheritor, was up for public auction. Marcus and Bruce closed off the building and searched it thoroughly, finding nothing. Inquiries in the area led to some odd conclusions.

Mr. Peris had apparently been suspected of the kidnapping and murder of the then eight-year-old Charles Whitley in the summer of 1951. He was considered so guilty of the crime–although no evidence against him was ever located–that he was shunned and even tormented by neighbors. The police had to be called several times to investigate cases of graffiti, vandalism, and even an attempt at arson in Mr. Peris’s garage.

Marcus then set about searching the Peris house more carefully and discovered an odd patchwork in the concrete foundation. Soon, the bones of a child were uncovered. It is believed these are the remains of Charles Whitley, murdered by Peris and buried in the basement since 1951. The remains were removed and autopsied without any further facts coming to light.

Bruce, acting on a hunch, contacted a friendly at the New York Police Department for the file on Garrett Ellis. Ellis, too, had been linked to the disappearance of a child in 1981, although prosecution never occurred. The child’s remains were still missing.

On 4AUG1994 a search of Ellis’s former residence revealed a similar light patch in the foundation of the household, and when it was searched it yielded similar results. The bones of Louis Craft, the young boy who Ellis was suspected of kidnapping, were found sealed in the floor, his hands and legs and throat still surrounded loosely by a rotted and frayed rope.

When the bones were removed and turned over to the local authorities, Bruce and Marcus attended the autopsy, finding little of interest.

When the second set of bones were interred on 29AUG1994 in a pauper’s grave at the state cemetery, the body of Garret Ellis was discovered by groundskeepers lying on the grass during an evening search of the grounds. The body was consistent with a twelve day old corpse.

It had no markings or ritualistic scars on it.

Little has been learned on this operation, and it is strongly felt that it is over, for whatever reason. The interment of the two boys’ bones seems to have satiated whatever force animated the two bodies.

Frankly, whatever it was seems to have been doing us all a favor.

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