Neighbors of the woman who found the body of a wanted murder suspect in the trunk of her car Friday afternoon say they may have seen him nearby.
The body of Ross Elliott, 51, who had been wanted in connection to a fatal shooting on Thursday in Lowell, Massachusetts, was found in a car parked at a Chelmsford medical center.
The driver of the car had come from Lowell for a doctor’s appointment. Upon returning to her car she found her trunk ajar and noticed a human hand sticking out of it.
Those who live next to the elderly woman who found the suspect’s body say they think they saw him, too.
“We were just working on the deck and all the sudden this fellow comes through the driveway and my son saw him but he didn’t think anything of it," neighbor Karen McCarthy said. "Then the police started going that way when he jumped the fence because they checked all around the garage and found nothing."
No one in that neighborhood reported hearing gunfire. Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said a preliminary investigation indicates he died of a gunshot wound.
How he died and why he allegedly killed his ex-girlfriend remain part of the investigation.
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Authorities say Elliott gunned down 44-year-old Nicole White in front of family members, including her young daughter, at her apartment on Stevens Street in Lowell early Thursday morning. The shooting resulted in a manhunt that stretched into Friday.
Court documents show Elliott had been arrested several times, including an incident in 2005 when he was charged with armed assault to murder after he allegedly held a five-inch knife to his girlfriend's neck. He was also charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in a separate incident that same year.
