In the early hours of a March morning, 44-year-old James J. Ellis was shot and killed after an armed confrontation with law enforcement in Orleans County. Deputies and a New York State Trooper had responded to a domestic disturbance in the Town of Shelby around 2:45 a.m. after reports that Ellis had gone to his ex-girlfriend’s residence armed with a handgun and threatened her while demanding the location of her new boyfriend. Ellis fled before officers arrived.

Officers later spotted his vehicle and lost it while it was traveling at high speed on Route 31A. The car was found crashed into a telephone pole in the Town of Clarendon, and Ellis was located hiding in nearby woods armed with a .45 caliber handgun that was later determined to be recently stolen. Deputy James DeFilipps was shot twice in the abdomen; his vest prevented serious injury and he returned fire, fatally wounding Ellis. A grand jury later cleared DeFilipps, finding the use of deadly force justified. Ellis had prior felony charges and was on probation at the time.

Did anyone in the area witness the vehicle or the crash that night, or have information about Ellis’s movements before the disturbance?