Officer Jason Ellis' murder unsolved, widow speaks to families of fallen officers

RICHMOND, KY (WAVE) - A Louisville Metro police officer killed in the line of duty will now forever be enshrined on the Kentucky Law Enforcement Memorial.

Speaking to the family of Nick Rodman and others on Thursday was a woman who knows their pain too well, Amy Ellis, the widow of Bardstown Police officer Jason Ellis, whose murder is still unsolved after he was ambushed and killed almost five years to the day.

The sound of bagpipes can be almost as heart wrenching as the reading of names.

A roll call of five Kentucky law enforcement officers killed while serving during the past two years.

"These heroes," Alex Payne, the Commissioner of the Department of Criminal Justice Training, said. "They live on forever."

Now, forever won't just be in the memories of their loved ones, but etched in stone on the Kentucky Law Enforcement Memorial.

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"We need you," John Tilley, Secretary of the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, said. "We're safer because of you."

This year, the pain is still new for the family of Nick Rodman, the Louisville Metro Police Officer killed in March 2017, after Wathaniel Woods, 37, crashed into him during a police chase.

Thursday, a woman delivered encouragement to his family, who had first felt a similar pain almost five years ago to the day.

"The next few days were devastating," Amy Ellis, the widow of Bardstown Police officer Jason Ellis, said. "Not only did I have to tell our two boys that their daddy had gone to heaven, and wasn't coming home, but there was fear because there wasn't yet a suspect."

Jason Ellis was gunned down on a ramp to the Bluegrass Parkway in 2013. His murder is still unsolved.

"It is still scary that someone who could calculate something like that and carry that out, that they're still walking around," Ellis said. "It is still scary."

A scary five years, she said she has constantly been in contact with the Kentucky State Police, who are investigating the case, and she feels will not stop until Jason's killer is found.

Until then, closure may be hard to find as Ellis said she lives her life one-day-at-a-time in a way that would make Jason proud.

"By remembering him as a person because Jason was more than an officer," Ellis said.

To her, he was a husband, and a father, that died too soon.

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