In Memory
Anthony D. Ebbole
Dec. 22, 1952 – Feb. 8, 2000
SOUTH BEND – A police officer’s knock jolted Elmer Carr from a sound sleep early Tuesday .
A shooting victim had been found dead in the street outside Carr’s home in the 100 block of East North Shore Drive.
“I can’t remember anything like this happening in this neighborhood ,”said Carr, president of the city’s Board of Public Safety. “But as we know, in this day and age, it can happen anywhere.”
“It is so very unfortunate.”
The body of Anthony D. Ebbole was found shortly after 3 a.m. near the curb on the south side of North Shore, across the street from where Carr had lived for 26 years. It is the first homicide of the year in St. Joseph County.
Ebbole, 47, of the 16800 block Cleveland Road, was a prep cook for Damon’s the Place for Ribs restaurant in Roseland.
No motive has been established and no witnesses have come forward.
“It may have been robbery, but at this time, we just don’t know,” said South Bend police spokesman Lt. John Williams.
We are not ruling out anything,” added Lt. James Clark of the St. Joseph County Special Crimes Unit. “I don’t think it is a random act.”
Investigators said Ebbole died of a single gunshot wound to the torso.
Clark and other investigators are interviewing friends and acquaintances of Ebbole, who was not married. “We are trying to establish his whereabouts over the previous 24 hours,” Clark said.
“He was just a model employee,”said Bob Reed, Ebbole’s supervisor at Damon’s.
“He was real quiet but would get along with anybody. Everyone is a poor mood around here after we got the news.”
Ebbole’s death ends a span of more than seven weeks without a homicide. The last homicide in the county took place on the afternoon of Dec. 17 on South Bend’s northwest side.
Police received a call about 2:55 a.m. Tuesday from a person who said he or she may have heard shots in the vicinity of the crime. When the police went to investigate, they found nothing unusual.
Then at 3:11 a.m., a street department supervisor discovered Ebbole’s body. A uniform officer arrived moments later. He could not find a pulse and called for an ambulance. Ebbole was pronounced dead at the scene.
“I didn’t hear a thing,” said a neighbor a few houses from the crime scene. “When I saw my next door neighbor leave for work this morning, he said he hadn’t heard anything, either. Because of the traffic around here, you learn to sleep through noises,”
“When I heard East North Shore on the news this morning, I couldn’t believe it,” he continued. “That meant it had to happen in our block.”
03/15/2022 DEC
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