Body Found in Vero Beach Woods Identified as Double Homicide Suspect

For two months, the question hung over Vero Beach like humidity: Where was Jesse Scott Ellis?

The answer was 30 feet from a quiet dead-end street, hidden behind a wall of oak canopy and palm undergrowth so dense a person could stand on the sidewalk and see nothing.

A pool worker discovered a body Wednesday around noon in a wooded area in the 2000 block of Cove Drive. On Thursday, Vero Beach Police Chief David Currey confirmed through dental records that the remains belong to Ellis, 64, the prime suspect in the March 24 double homicide outside the Indian River County Main Library.

Evidence at the scene indicated Ellis died by suicide shortly after the killings, hanging himself from a small tree with a belt that bore his initials — JSE — inside the leather, Currey said at a Thursday afternoon news conference.

The body was in an advanced stage of decomposition consistent with the two-month timeline since the shootings, officials said.

Danny Ooley and Stacie Ellis Mason, both Indian River County employees, were gunned down outside the library in what investigators called a "crime of passion." Ellis and Mason had been married for 13 years but were planning to separate or divorce. Mason and Ooley had been seeing each other for a short period, which police said they believe motivated the attack.

Two first-degree murder warrants had been issued for Ellis following the shootings.

The hours after the killings were chaotic. Ellis jumped into the ocean at South Beach Park and was spotted roughly 900 yards offshore. Fire rescue launched a boat, believing they were responding to a person in distress — unaware the swimmer was the murder suspect. Ellis refused help from rescuers but eventually made it back to shore with assistance from beachgoers, public records show.

A large-scale manhunt followed. It produced nothing.

Currey explained Thursday why Ellis eluded searchers for so long. The wooded patch sits between two homes on a dead-end street, choked with vegetation.

"You could stand on side of the road, like I did, and not see a thing, so not in the open by any means," Currey said.

"While nothing can undo the pain caused by the senseless act of violence, we hope locating and identifying Ellis provides some measure of closure to those affected," the chief added.

The discovery closes a case that shook Indian River County — a daytime double shooting at a public library, a suspect who vanished into the Atlantic, and a community left to wonder for 65 days whether the man responsible was still out there. He was. Just not alive.

This article was generated with AI assistance using publicly available information. It was reviewed and approved by a human editor before publication. TC Sentinel uses AI writing tools in accordance with FTC guidelines.