As of press time Monday, Vero Beach Police were still searching for the man who executed two people with an automatic rifle in the parking lot of the Indian River County Main Library at 1600 21st St. on March 24 before driving to South Beach Park for a long swim in the Atlantic Ocean.

Due to a well-planned ruse involving a staged suicide, or to a series of bizarre, coincidental events, the killer got a full day’s head start on police before the public knew who was wanted for the shocking double homicide.

Alleged killer Jesse Scott Ellis, 64, is a native of rural Vermont. He’s white, with a pinkish complexion and blue eyes, gray hair, receding hairline and a mustache. He’s 6 feet, 4 inches tall with a medium build and was last seen wearing cargo shorts – in other words, he looks a lot like thousands of men who live, work and play on Vero’s barrier island and elsewhere up and down Florida’s east coast.

But unlike many other older white guys on the island, he’s an avid hunter, boater, collector of firearms, skilled marksman and a proficient swimmer. He’s physically strong, handy and resourceful.

He’s an experienced electrician who regularly worked in the island’s most exclusive gated communities installing pricey chandeliers, designer ceiling fans, outdoor lighting, Tesla charging stations and top-of-the-line generators.

He’s also almost certainly at the most desperate and distraught point in his life, facing two first-degree murder charges, with nothing much left to lose.

The morning he unloaded nearly two dozen rounds into his wife of 13 years and her presumed lover, Danny Ooley, Ellis left his gun safe open for police. He left his cellphone and a sticky note with the PIN to unlock it. He left his wallet, identification, passport, credit cards and some cash behind. All of this pointed to a planned suicide.

License plate cameras clocked Ellis and wife Stacie Mason driving in separate vehicles into Vero Beach at U.S. 1 and Fourth Street from their South County home early in the morning on Tuesday, March 24.

Moments after Mason parked her Volkswagen SUV and joined Ooley in the front seat of Ooley’s Ford Ranger king cab pickup truck, a man resembling Ellis was captured on surveillance video walking up to the driver’s side and firing multiple shots into Ooley, some of the bullets shattering the back passenger window on the way out.

Then as Mason tried to exit the front passenger door of the truck, Ellis walked around to the passenger side, shooting her roughly twice as many times as he shot Ooley. Police found 21 bullet casings. Reportedly there were five bullets remaining in the standard 30-round magazine of the AR-15 left on the scene, which was registered to Ellis.

After the shooting, Ellis walked back to his own truck and drove to South Beach Park.

All of this happened shortly before and after 7 a.m. that Tuesday morning.

By 7:01 a.m., police dispatchers had taken two 911 calls from the neighborhood around the library reporting multiple shots fired and dispatched Vero Beach Police to the scene.

Vero officers arrived to discover Ooley and Mason dead. Any Fire-Rescue personnel who responded would have been quickly waved-off to the next call as there was no one to save.

The next part of this tragic story took hours – not minutes – to unfold. Things do not typically happen as fast in real life as they do in television cop dramas.

On TV, moments after a murder, a crime scene is cordoned off and swarming with homicide detectives and crime scene technicians taking photographs, marking bullet casings and bagging evidence while the medical examiner lifts the yellow crime scene tape, walks up to the victim and someone gives an on-the-spot theory about the killer.

Vero Beach has no dedicated homicide division, only a half-dozen or so general-purpose detectives who mostly investigate car break-ins, bar fights, vandalism, home burglaries, retail theft and fraud. Very rarely do they work on a homicide, let alone a double homicide. Detectives typically start their shift at 8 a.m. so they got urgent pleas to come in early and report to the library, as did crime scene technicians.

It took every officer and supervisor on duty, plus help from Sheriff’s deputies to secure a perimeter around the two victims, shield their bodies from view and direct traffic as the preschool next door opened for drop-off and locals took to the road on their morning work and school commutes.

While a mobile incident command was set up, detectives began the task of seeking answers to the most pressing questions: Who were the victims, and who would want to kill them?

Search warrants had to be obtained to search the Ford Ranger and Mason’s SUV. Police Chief David Currey said notifying next of kin is always a top priority in the age of social media with reporters, photographers and TV cameras arriving on the scene.

After determining that Ooley and Mason were both Indian River County Public Works employees, detectives interviewed co-workers to see what they knew about the pair.

Slowly, the picture of Mason’s troubled, end-stage marriage emerged, and Ellis became a person of interest in the murders.

It took nearly four hours for the police to publish a “be on the lookout” or BOLO for Ellis. That notice was distributed not by the Vero Beach Police, but by the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office’s Real Time Crime Center “before 11 a.m.,” Currey said. But it was not broadcast to the public, only to law enforcement. The bulletin said Ellis was a person of interest and was “considered armed and dangerous.”

It would be a full 24 hours later, on Wednesday, March 25, before reporters and citizens first saw a driver license photo of Ellis and heard his name while watching an 11 a.m. press conference at the Vero Beach Police Department.

Currey told the roomful of media that Ellis likely only posed a danger to police who might corner or confront him.

South Beach Swimmer

The drive to South Beach Park took Ellis about 10 minutes after leaving the bloodied library parking lot. Ellis backed his truck into a space in the palm-shaded lot and got out – likely wearing the same shorts and lightweight shirt and ball-cap he wore while executing Ooley and Mason – clothes that would be washed clean by saltwater.

Inside the truck, Ellis left a journal he’d kept over the last few weeks as his marriage disintegrated, and he and Mason prepared to list their South County house for sale and begin divorce proceedings. Currey said Ellis had hired a private investigator to follow his wife, receiving the report he paid for on Monday evening, shortly before the Tuesday morning murders.

According to Currey, Ellis had packed the truck “like he was moving” with enough clothing and gear to stay away for a while. Ellis had written down account numbers for his adult kids, and left a signed note that read, “Sorry guys.”

Ellis may or may not have had a .38 caliber pistol tucked away, perhaps in a plastic bag, during his ocean swim. An empty holster and a .38 magazine were found in the truck later in the day.

Walking through the sea grapes that separate the parking lot from the sand, Ellis headed north on the beach. East of the Riomar golf course, a group of Riomar women on their sunrise walk saw him entering the surf. One woman saw Ellis and his clothing clearly enough to positively identify him when shown a photo that afternoon.

When the women saw the clothed man swim far out into the ocean, one of them called 911 to report a swimmer in distress. According to Currey, that call came in at 7:58 a.m. Lifeguards don’t arrive at the beach until 9 a.m., so none were on duty.

There’s been a lot of confusion about the swimmer being “fully clothed,” as if he went into the water wearing heavy jeans and a hoodie. But long shorts with pockets and a lightweight dri-fit shirt are not unusual for ocean swimming.

Firefighters and paramedics from two stations responded to the beach walker’s call, the crew from Station 2 by Riverside Cafe bringing what Chief Dave Johnson called a 10-foot rigid inflatable boat, or RIB, that is used for near-shore water rescues.

These were not the same firefighters who responded to the library an hour earlier out of a different fire station. The firefighters and paramedics from Station 2 and Station 6 near St. Edward’s School would have only been vaguely aware of a shooting at the library over on the mainland. The BOLO with a photo of Ellis was not distributed until nearly three hours later – and then only to law enforcement.

The RIB launched from the Riomar Beach Club can only hold three people, so two firefighters went out. Two Sheriff’s Office deputies providing mutual aid remained on shore.

Around 8:30 a.m. the firefighters in the boat made contact with the swimmer about 900 yards out, but he refused help. The swimmer assured them he was fine, that he frequently swam that far out. He gave them a fake name when asked.

“They stayed there quite a while until he cursed them out,” Johnson said during a press conference Friday.

There’s been a lot of handwringing in the community about why firefighters did not force the swimmer into the boat. Johnson explained they cannot legally do that under Florida law. Only if a person is unconscious or unresponsive can they act without consent.

Johnson said if his firefighters had any clue they were potentially approaching a wanted criminal, a larger boat would have been used, with law enforcement on board.

The firefighters, who later identified the swimmer as likely being Ellis when shown a photo, were grateful they made it out of the encounter unharmed, Johnson said.

The Village Spires

Two and a half hours later, a mile and a half up the beach, a man using a life preserver briefly helped an older white male swimmer out of the water just east of the Village Spires condos at around 11 a.m.

The swimmer rested on the sand for a few minutes but declined further assistance, saying he had a cramp. The action was captured from a distance by a video camera on the Spires property. Witnesses later told police they thought the swimmer was Ellis.

Around 11:10 a.m. a man matching Ellis’ general description was caught on video – again, from a distance – walking on the beach.

Police found Ellis’ gray Ford F-150 truck at South Beach Park around 12:45 p.m. Tuesday. But by that time he had returned to the truck, changed clothes and left again.

Since a silver sunshade was blocking the windshield, and side windows were tinted, police smashed a back window to see if Ellis was inside, then sought a search warrant and secured the area.

Meanwhile, at 6:02 p.m. the evening of the murders, Indian River County Administrator John Titkanich identified Ooley and Mason as county employees in a press release.

As darkness fell, the truck was towed away and later searched. Currey stated during his 11 a.m. Wednesday press conference that the truck was being searched “as we speak.”

Combing the beach Wednesday morning were officers from Vero Beach, Indian River Shores and Indian River County on ATVs, plus the Sheriff’s Office Hawk helicopter, Fish and Wildlife boats and Coast Guard personnel, all looking for Ellis’ remains.

Meanwhile officers had found the wet, sandy clothing Ellis wore while swimming – making it apparent he had not drowned.

In the five-plus hours his truck went undetected, Ellis had returned to the vehicle at least once to change into dry clothes and possibly pick up the .38 caliber pistol from its holster, which was found empty.

Helicopter runs continued and a cadaver dog searched wooded areas from South Beach to Tracking Station Beach on Thursday and Friday but came up empty.

Based upon evidence gathered and Ellis’ apparent escape, an arrest warrant was issued Thursday afternoon for two counts of first-degree, premeditated murder.

By the time a second press conference was held on Friday morning, a man resembling Ellis had popped up on numerous security cameras. Currey said one person who may have been Ellis was spotted walking shirtless the afternoon of the murders on the beach, headed toward the St. Lucie County line.

Currey urged locals to remain vigilant and report anything suspicious but doubled-down on earlier statements that Ellis likely poses no danger to the public – only to law enforcement if he’s cornered or confronted. Currey called the crime “an isolated marital dispute.”

“He has no resources,” Currey said, noting that all of Ellis’ known bank accounts and credit cards have been flagged, but he added that Ellis could have found a way to leave the area.

Along with local partner agencies, Currey thanked the FBI, the U.S. Marshal and the Department of Homeland Security for flagging Ellis on wanted and no-fly lists.

Vero police released no updates in the case over the weekend or on Monday except for a fresh set of photos of Ellis on Saturday.

Nick Samuel and Josh Kodis contributed to this report