On the evening of October 10, 2014, tragedy struck a quiet rural residence on East Quantrill Road in Vernon County, Missouri, near the towns of Nevada and El Dorado Springs. Law enforcement officers, responding to a 911 call, arrived at the home to discover the bodies of 77-year-old male Herman Eugene Ellison and his wife, Rosie Ellison. Both had suffered fatal gunshot wounds inside their shared residence.
The initial investigation by the Vernon County Sheriff’s Office, assisted by the Southwest Missouri Major Case Squad, quickly determined that the couple had been deceased for some time before their discovery, leading authorities to launch a homicide inquiry into the circumstances surrounding their deaths.
Investigators soon focused their attention on the couple’s grandson, Logan Ellison, who also resided at the home. Though the teenager initially claimed the shootings were accidental, discrepancies in his account led to further questioning. He eventually confessed to the intentional killing of his grandparents on the previous day, October 9. According to court records and his admissions, the grandson used two different firearms, a. 30-30 caliber rifle and a. 22 caliber rifle, to carry out the attack. He admitted to shooting his grandfather in the head and chest, later stating he fired the second shot to 'put him out of his misery' after the first wound did not immediately kill him. Following the murders, he took money from his grandfather’s wallet, disposed of spent shell casings, and attended school and a football game the following day as if nothing had happened.
Logan Ellison was arrested and charged with the murders of Herman and Rosie Ellison, as well as first-degree robbery. In July 2016, rather than facing a trial, he accepted a plea agreement with prosecutors. He pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and one count of first-degree robbery. During the sentencing hearing on August 30, 2016, the presiding judge followed the terms of the plea deal, sentencing the grandson to three concurrent prison terms of 22 years. Under the stipulations of his sentence, he is required to serve at least 85 percent of the time before becoming eligible for parole.
