How An Unsolved Murder Led To The Creation Of The Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit

TUSCALOOSA, AL — Friends of University of Alabama freshman Paula Lee Ellis said she went to dinner at the Cotton Patch restaurant in nearby Eutaw the night of April 20, 1973.

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From there, the 18-year-old from Miami returned to her dorm room at Martha Parham Hall before taking her bike and leaving again around 12:30 a.m. for a concert on Woods Quad.

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, just a few months removed from the release of their iconic all-star album "Will the Circle be Unbroken" were in Tuscaloosa that night to play a show for 6,000 students as part of the University Program Council's "Rave-Up" event.

This was also the Watergate era, with news of President Richard Nixon's illegal exploits in office dominating news coverage even in the Tuscaloosa News.

Ellis never returned to her dorm that night and to this day it remains unclear if she attended the concert at all, although her bicycle was found in a bike rack on The Quad after she was reported missing.

When the sun came up that morning, University of Alabama Police Department investigators Irvin Fields and James Junkin were tasked with locating the missing teenager.

Fields reflected on the case years later and told the Crimson White in 2013 that he and his partner initially believed Ellis had stayed overnight with a friend after attending the concert.

"We went to every friend's apartment that we could find out that she knew and began looking for her," he recalled. "Because a lot of times people go to others' apartments, and you think they are missing, and somebody divulges where they're at. That's what we thought we were dealing with."

After a full Saturday of working to locate Ellis, the investigators received a call around 9 a.m. on Easter Sunday from the Northport Police Department. On a small bridge spanning Mill Creek, three quarters of a mile from the intersection of Flatwoods Road and Highway 43, a purse belonging to Ellis was found with its contents scattered along the road.

“I told my partner there, I said, 'I think I'm just going to go up the road there and scan the side of the road and see if there is anything else that might have been thrown out',” Fields told the student newspaper. “I went up the road towards Hick's Barbeque, about 100 yards, and found her body in the ditch on the north side of the road."

The murder of Paula Lee Ellis remains unsolved after spurring a decades-long investigation that's included twists and turns ranging from an Alabama football player as a prime suspect to hypnosis being used on a potential witness in a vain attempt to gather fresh leads.

The cold case remains the oldest unsolved murder in Tuscaloosa County and with the inevitable passage of time, the trail leading to an arrest has grown colder than ever. One of the only positives that came from a young life brutally cut short was the creation of the multiagency Tuscaloosa Homicide Unit, which has since evolved to become the Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit.

"The entire reason the Violent Crimes Unit was started is because of the different agencies working separately and independently and that case is still open," Captain Jack Kennedy, commander of the metro unit, told Patch on Friday. "We discovered working together that it would be more efficient and effective."

Born Out Of Tragedy

In present-day Tuscaloosa, Kennedy reflected on the evolution of criminal investigations in the years since the murder of Paula Lee Ellis and cited the swift action of the metro unit in apprehending a suspect for the murder of a woman on Thursday as the latest example of how far the multi-agency unit has come.

"We had a victim discovered deceased in a vehicle," he explained, "and immediately all agencies were participating, sharing intelligence, law enforcement databases, forensics units. Another thing we have going for us is that we go fast. When we get the call, we immediately hit it hard. Every possible thing that can be done proactively in the investigation is done immediately in every case."

The synergy and day-to-day cooperation between local law enforcement agencies is regularly praised for its efficiency today but few are old enough to realize that this was not always the case.

Indeed, from the early stages of the investigation into the 1973 murder of Paula Lee Ellis, there were multiple agencies working independently of one another and sharing very little in terms of information and evidence. Their theories differed just as much as their individual approaches to the case and many at the time argued that the disjointed relationships of local agencies allowed Ellis's killer to slip away.

A medical examiner performed an autopsy on Ellis's body at Tuscaloosa's Strickland Hayes Funeral Home and police publicly narrowed down the potential cause of death, speculating that she was likely strangled with a belt. Further examination also concluded that, despite being found partially nude, there was no evidence suggesting she had been sexually assaulted.

According to the autopsy's findings, her time of death was believed to have been between 1 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. that Saturday morning.

Seven months after the killing, investigators seemed no closer to an arrest than the day they started and local leaders threw their support behind the formation of a metro homicide division consisting of officers from the various local agencies.

The charge was led that summer by Tuscaloosa County District Attorney Louis H. Lackey, who suggested the formation of a unit consisting of 5-6 investigators from different local agencies.

"An idea would be to have two men from the city, one from the county, one from the University, one from the state and maybe a man from Northport," Lackey said in 1973.

Another less-notable incident also played a crucial role in the creation of the homicide unit, with Lackey arguing that some deaths receive a considerable amount of attention while others, which could possibly have been the result of foul play, receive little to none.

Lackey pointed out an example of another Florida teenager who was killed nine hours after the body of Paula Ellis was found in Northport. Alabama state troopers said Patrick Lee Blue, 17, of Tampa, was killed when the motorcycle he was riding ran into a cable which had been strung across the Scales Lake Road near Peterson. What's more, Sheriff Beasor Walker said possibility of foul play was being considered and investigated.

As reported by the Tuscaloosa News, this set off a calamitous series of exchanges with local law enforcement agencies as a reporter worked to obtain information from the agency running point on the investigation, only to be referred back-and-forth between the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office and the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency.

Lackey insisted the entire incident would have been handled properly had there been a cooperative metro unit tasked solely with investigating unnatural deaths and murders. While Ellis's murder commanded news coverage for years to come, very little is known about any conclusions reached by investigators in the death of Patrick Blue.

Despite Lackey advocating for a metro unit, aided by a grand jury's recommendation in support of the concept, the leaders of local law enforcement agencies were far more skeptical at the time.

Floyd Mann, who served as special assistant to University of Alabama President F. David Mathews, said in 1973 that he didn't see a need for the unit because the different agencies cooperated so well with one another.

Mann then publicly downplayed the impact of the Paula Ellis case, seemingly in an effort to remove any blame on the university's perceived failure to make progress on investigating the murder of one of its students.

"My comment would be that we've never had any problem with agencies working together," Mann said. "Since I've been at the University, we have only been involved with one case [Paula Ellis] where the homicide squad would involve us. ... "Chief investigators are always assigned to homicides, anyway, and if you had a man who was specialized for homicides it would leave you short-handed when it comes to investigating other things."

Tuscaloosa Police Commissioner James Chancy — a World War II veteran who helped liberate the Nazi death camp at Dachau — concurred with the university's view of the proposed unit, saying in a newspaper interview that he worried such a specialized task force would cause local police departments to become too fragmented.

"I think consolidation of services is a good thing, but you can't fragment your departments too much," Chancy said."With specialization, any phase of law enforcement in any department could be improved. Our investigations have been as adequate as the personnel we have had to work them."

Celebrated war hero and longtime Tuscaloosa County Sheriff Beasor Walker, whose influence can still be seen in local law enforcement today, also expressed concerns that a metro homicide unit would negatively impact the investigations of cases other than homicides.

"Our investigators investigate everything from pig stealings to murders, and when they are not involved with a murder case, they need to be available for other things," Walker said.

On the other side of the issue, Tuscaloosa Police Chief William Marable and Northport Police Chief Doc Bowen both publicly supported the formation of a cooperative unit similar to the county's fledging narcotics task force.

"If it worked as well as other joint efforts have worked, I think it would be a good idea," Marable said. "If it could be put together something similar to the narcotics squad, I think it would work. ... I think our department has done the best possible job, as limited as we are. There is a lot left to be desired which I feel this proposed unit might cure."

Regardless of their differing opinions, Sheriff Walker and Chief Marable were instrumental in conceptualizing the homicide unit and used similar task forces in Gainesville, Atlanta, and New Orleans as templates for how it could be done in Tuscaloosa County.

The Tuscaloosa County Homicide Unit was officially formed on Nov. 25, 1973, and, according to a report released a year and half after its creation, saw four employees assigned to duty — two detectives from the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office and two from the Tuscaloosa Police Department.

Following the creation of the homicide unit, the small team of seasoned investigators hit the ground running under the leadership of its first commander, TCSO Chief Deputy Warren Miller.

However, the exhaustive effort that saw Miller and other investigators drive thousands of miles across five states to interview over 500 potential witnesses initially began with two potential suspects, the first being Alabama football defensive lineman Doug Faust.

A contributing member for the Crimson Tide under coach Paul "Bear" Bryant, Faust's most notable action came on a blocked punt against Mississippi State as he went on to earn a national championship ring for the 1972 season.

When Faust was first publicly named as a potential suspect, friends of Ellis claimed she had turned down the Tide lineman's multiple requests for dates. She had a boyfriend at the time who was out of town and quickly cleared as a potential suspect.

Miller also cleared Faust as a suspect after he passed a polygraph test and told investigators that while he was in Tuscaloosa the night of the murder, he had been on a date at his residence with a teacher from Gordo — an alibi that was corroborated by the woman.

Despite the evidence suggesting his innocence, Ellis's roommate insisted to her family that Faust had called her dorm room phone three times the night before she disappeared.

"We have no reason to doubt Faust's story," Chief Miller told the Tuscaloosa News in 1988.

The focus of the investigation then turned to Northport native Charles Michael Brewer, who represented a much closer fit to the profile constructed of Ellis's killer.

Brewer first came to the attention of local law enforcement the year after Ellis's murder when he pleaded guilty to attempted murder in an unrelated case. For this crime, Brewer was accused of choking and severely beating a woman.

In 1981, however, investigators immediately noticed distinct similarities when Brewer was found guilty of strangling Dianna Lynn Holland to death. Similar to Paula Lee Ellis, Holland's nude body was dumped in a rural area and evidence suggested she had not been sexually assaulted.

Brewer is still considered by many to be the most likely suspect, but Miller lamented years later that there simply wasn't enough evidence against Brewer to bring the case to trial.

Charles Michael Brewer is currently serving a life sentence for murder at the Camden Community Work Center in Wilcox County. According to inmate records with the Alabama Department of Corrections, he will be up for parole again in 2028.

Other potential suspects in the Tuscaloosa County Homicide Unit's sprawling, multi-state investigation were two suspects employed by the carnival that accompanied the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band concert that night on Woods Quad.

This also proved a dead end, though, with investigators unable to locate the transient individuals for questioning.

As leads grew cold, the family of Paula Lee Ellis grew increasingly desperate for answers and issued public pleas for someone to come forward as the reward money kept increasing in an effort to keep attention on the case.

Efforts by individual agencies prior to the creation of the Tuscaloosa County Homicide Unit likely did little to ease the pain for the young woman's family, as some of the outdated techniques used in the early stages of the investigation yielded little and have since been supplanted by more proven methods.

Indeed, the July after Ellis was murdered, state investigator Bob Moore said Ellis was last seen outside of her dorm room around 2 a.m.

Just how did he reach this conclusion? Hypnosis of the victim's roommate, of course.

"She was supposed to meet a group of people and go to a party and something was mentioned about a lake with a park," Moore said in 1973.

Three different hypnosis sessions were reportedly conducted by an unnamed clinical psychologist and likely did more to muddy the clarity of the investigation than to help it.

It should be noted that the U.S. Department of Justice says the use of forensic hypnosis, in certain limited cases, can be an aid in the investigative process. In the present day, though, officials insist that its use is subject to serious objections and should be used only on rare occasions, especially when considering admissibility when building a murder case.

Nevertheless, the hypnosis sessions also extracted several names from telephone conversations Ellis allegedly had hours before her murder.

"These are the names: Andy, Aaron, Eric, Irwin and Zukowski. Now that last one may be a sound-alike," Moore said. "Sylacauga came out in some conversations and also Scottsboro. But we've checked Scottsboro out and we can't find anybody by those names. We've now got investigators checking Sylacauga."

The hypnotized roommate also claimed that Ellis called to her from across the street in front of the dorm shortly after 2 a.m., saying that she was locked out.

Moore went on to say that Ellis asked her roommate to leave the door open for her, to which she propped the door open with a brick.

The state investigator elaborated on the findings of the hypnosis session to say Ellis was seen standing in a group across the street in the "shadowy glow of the street lights," before describing a couple of members of the group as "a hippie with glasses, a possible broken finger and long stringy hair" in addition to "a blonde-headed boy with muscular build."

"We are also trying to locate a girl who will be described as kind of chubby, with a rather pretty face, short dark brown hair," Moore insisted. "The only name we've heard is that she was called Billie. We don't know where she's from. We rather think she's from out of town, but we don't know if she's from out of state."

While Moore publicly relayed the findings, he also conceded that intelligence gathered from the hypnosis sessions was "somewhat spotty."

"We do think this was the group of people she was seen with," he said. "If we could find some of these people, they might possibly be able to give us some information concerning who the last person that Paula was seen with might be or something of that nature. We feel like if we can find anyone of that group that she was seen standing with at 2 a.m., that one of them is someone she knew. If so, they could probably give us some good information as to where she went from there."

Over 5o years later, the efforts at hypnosis proved about as effective at bringing Ellis's killer to justice as the myriad other archaic approaches used in vain to track down leads across five states — and at a time when the technology used by investigators was minimal.

Captain Jack Kennedy, the unit's current commander, reflected on the changes he's witnessed over the course of his career, saying that the individual agencies that make up the unit do still act independently of one another to a large extent.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, he said, just the nature of the way the system is set up.

"For those agencies, they are responsible for their shareholders first and their prime area of responsibility is to their city," Kennedy said.

While Kennedy has high praise for the officers under his command, he spoke in general terms about the root causes of inter-departmental conflict in law enforcement. These can be the result of policy changes, leadership styles and different forms of funding, just to name a few contributing factors.

"Some of our computer systems still don't talk to each other," he said. "But we're actively investigating ways to make these databases speak to each other. Some of this new digital stuff we have — from surveillance cameras, two cybercrime units, two crime scene units — is more advanced than even some of the stuff they were doing 10 years ago."

In terms of comparing the number of cases from the earliest days of the unit to the present, Kennedy said the rapid population growth seen in Tuscaloosa likely resulted in more adverse impacts to relationship building in the community than to causing the rate of violent crimes to rise.

The Violent Crimes Unit has also grown from its modest beginnings with only four investigators to 10 detectives at present, with an additional four supervisors, a clerk and a victim's services officer.

"The case load is probably semi-equivalent and they probably had less personnel back then," Kennedy said. "I have looked at a lot of cases and it was a completely different type of investigation back then. It was more relationship-intensive and doing personal outreach to the victims' families. We may have lost that a little as our city and county have gotten bigger. We still have a lot of that personal touch but we also have a lot more on the forensics side."

Regardless of its origins and evolution over the decades, Kennedy expressed pride in where the Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit is today. While each passing day makes it more unlikely that the person or people responsible for the murder of Paula Lee Ellis will ever be brought to justice, the sweeping changes brought on by her death have no doubt spared countless families from having to process a tragedy without any answers or justice.

"We have such proficient and component agencies that are top-notch and when all of us share resources and buy into that synergy, you can take the best of everybody and now you've got the best people for the job."

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