In the early morning hours of February 8, 2000, the quiet of a South Bend neighborhood was broken by the sound of a single gunshot. A resident in the 100 block of East Northshore Boulevard heard the shot around 3:00 a.m. and alerted the police. When officers arrived to investigate, they initially found nothing out of the ordinary. However, a short time later, a city Street Department supervisor driving in the area made a grim discovery: the body of a man lying face down in the street.
The victim was identified as Anthony D. Ebbole, a 47-year-old man. An investigation determined that he had died from a single gunshot wound to the torso. Ebbole, who was a prep cook at Damon's the Place for Ribs in nearby Roseland, was described by his supervisor as a quiet and well-liked employee. He was last seen at his apartment on North St. Joseph Street at 11:30 the previous night. What brought him to the Northshore Drive area, across town from his home, remains a mystery.
Investigators from the St. Joseph County Special Crimes Unit were tasked with piecing together the final hours of Ebbole's life. They interviewed friends and acquaintances in an effort to establish his whereabouts leading up to his death. While robbery was considered a possible motive, authorities stated they were not ruling anything out. They did, however, express a belief that the act was not random.
Despite the ongoing investigation, no witnesses came forward, and a motive for the killing was never publicly established. The case marked the first homicide of the year in St. Joseph County and shattered a period of more than seven weeks without such a crime. To this day, the death of Anthony Ebbole remains an unsolved case, with no arrests made and no suspects publicly identified. Authorities have periodically asked for the public's help in bringing resolution to the more than two-decade-old mystery.
