 |
| Former site of Service Drugs |
Louis Bellessa got a phone call on the evening of October 9, 1972. As a longtime Ellensburg pharmacist, who prided himself on providing service to his customers, it wasn’t that unusual that he would return to his business, Service Drugs at 410 N. Pearl Street, to fill a late-night prescription.
Bellessa, 51, told his wife, Betty, he would return shortly and headed into the cold night. She would never see him alive again.
The Bellessa family lived in a tidy four-bedroom home at 108 N. Sampson Street that had been built in 1915. Bellessa had owned Service Drugs since 1963 and had worked there since 1947.
According to police, between 9:30 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. Bellessa was in the pharmacy when he had a deadly encounter with an unknown party. The store was closed and, police said, there was no signs of forced entry or of a struggle.
At some point during that time, an assailant shot Bellessa twice in the head with a small-caliber weapon, instantly killing the pharmacist. The killer (or killers) then went to the pharmacy’s open safe to snatch an unknown amount of money and narcotics before exiting through a rear door.
Just before 10:30 p.m., Bellessa’s wife, worried that he had not yet returned home, contacted police to have them check on her husband. An officer quickly arrived and found the rear door unlocked (the front, however, was locked). Inside, he found the pharmacist’s dead body lying on the floor at the end of the prescription counter.
“At this time it would appear the motive was robbery,” Lt. Tom Pratt, head of the Ellensburg Police Department’s detective division told the Ellensburg Daily Record the following day. He said it appeared “some money and some drugs” were missing from the store but a full inventory would be taken in the coming days.
The next day, on October 10, the Associated Press quoted Pratt saying “we’re sure that there were (narcotics) drugs taken. We’re sure that there was a substantial amount of money taken.” He said that while police were not able to determine how much cash or the quantity or nature of the drugs taken, Bellessa “apparently kept large sums of money but relatively little narcotics on hand.”
Police scoured the crime scene during the next few days, looking for any clues, but came up empty. The Daily Record noted that officers had worked until 4 a.m. the night the murder was discovered “and then worked throughout the day until nearly midnight.”
“Anyone who saw anything anywhere downtown between 9:30 and 10:30 Monday night is asked to contact us,” Pratt said. “We will meet with them as their convenience. We will afford the deepest trust to anyone coming forward.”
Three days after the murder, Pratt told local media he had nothing new to report, but police were investigating several leads.
Despite the intensive efforts by law enforcement, very little new evidence turned up in the next few weeks. On November 16, the Daily Record published a story headlined, “Bellessa murder keeps police working,” that noted, “unlike television, the case was not solved in 30 minutes. The killing took place more than a month ago and the killer or killers are still unknown.”
Detective Pratt insisted, however, that the case had not been written off by Ellensburg’s three-person detective division.
“It has been under constant, intense investigation,” he said to the newspaper. “We are looking at the information and investigating leads daily . . . All I can say is it was a very well-planned crime. And it was a very vicious crime, and that it is still under investigation.”
The newspaper also noted that a reward fund had been established by the Ellensburg Chamber of Commerce. The bounty would be paid to anyone who could provide information leading the arrest and conviction of the killer or killers. The fund’s initial goal was to raise $2,500 and the reward would remain in effect for up to three years. In the end, only about $1,500 was raised.
Who Was Louis Bellessa?
Louis Bellessa was born in Cle Elum on April 29, 1921. He graduated from Cle Elum High School and attended Washington State University in Pullman before enlisting in the Army during World War II. After his discharge, he completed his education, earning a degree in pharmacy.
In 1947, he joined the staff at Service Drug in Ellensburg, becoming a partner in 1960. Three years later, he purchased the business from owners Mr. and Mrs. Jack Goettge.
Bellessa, then 39, married Betty Lou Mackner, then 34, in September 1959 in Seattle and the two settled into their home on Sampson. They had a daughter, Tammy Lou, in 1961. Betty also had two sons from an earlier marriage, Paul and Pat, as well as two daughters, Laurie and Linda.
A Seattle Daily Times story on November 8, 1972 noted that while Bellessa was not a prominent local businessman or much involved in Chamber of Commerce-type activities, he was involved in other ways in the community.
Detective Pratt said that his investigation had turned up the fact that Bellessa “loaned money and to all types of people. Some very surprising. And to many without any interest.”
Harry Clark, assistant manager at the Ellensburg State Bank, told the Times that “everyone who knew him liked him.” Clark said Bellessa’s murder was making local residents be more careful in their interactions.
“We sort of trust everyone,” he said, “I guess we can’t do that anymore.”
At the time of Bellessa’s killing, police said it was the first homicide in Ellensburg in 21 years. They indicated the last had occurred in September 1951, when a local man killed a woman with a shotgun during a quarrel.
The Search Continues
In late January 1973, Ellensburg Police Chief John Larsen told the Daily Record that his department had no new information that could be made public, but the crime was still being “actively investigated.”
About nine months later, on the one-year anniversary of Bellessa’s murder, the Daily Record noted that “a year later his killer or killers are still at large.” According to the paper, Detective Pratt and his team had put in long hours attempting to solve the crime and had distributed flyers to law enforcement agencies throughout the Pacific Northwest.
“This matter is still under active investigation,” Pratt said to the paper before adding “I feel I have to be very cautious about making any statements at this time. We have not exhausted all investigative leads. We are not at the point where there is nothing more to be done . . . the simplest way to put it is we haven’t come to a dead end.”
The paper, however, also noted that the public was starting to question whether the murder would ever be solved and many had wondered “whether police will eventually make an arrest.”
Sadly, after that there was little new to report regarding the investigation for more than two decades. An April 18, 1997 story in the Daily Record about unsolved murders in the area listed Bellessa murder as still active although no arrests had ever been made. After that, the crime was listed as a cold case, meaning it remains open but inactive until new evidence comes forward.
On January 14, 2013, the Yakima Herald announced the case—called the “only unsolved murder in Ellensburg history”—had been reopened by Ellensburg police. According to Ellensburg Police Captain Dan Hansberry, the department revived the case after a local resident, Steve Hall, began researching the crime, which led police to follow up on some new information.
“Unfortunately most of the witnesses are now deceased, but we have developed some new investigative leads,” he told the paper. He said investigators had already put in about 100 hours on the case, including following leads in southern Oregon and northern California.
He said the investigation hadn’t yet yielded any “groundbreaking information” but officers were encouraged by what they were learning.
“Our hope is there is someone still alive connected with this death,” Hansberry said. “We’re still trying to wade through all the information.”
In 2023, Marques Vickers, author of “Unsolved Western American Murders and Extended Cold Case Resolutions,” wrote, “time has obliterated the prospects for closure, as most of the potential witnesses are deceased and clues sparse.” Vickers noted that the former pharmacy site where Bellessa was murdered is now an art gallery. “Louis Bellessa is likely forgotten except to long-time residents,” he concluded.
As to the status of the case today, in a recent email Ellensburg Police Captain Cameron Clasen acknowledged the case was reinvestigated in 2013, but said it is currently classified as a cold case once again.
“Cold cases are sometimes revisited to see if another investigator can uncover anything new or if advancements in forensic technology could add value to the investigation,” he continued. “As of now, there’s no plan to reopen the case unless new information comes to the forefront.”
In the end, perhaps we’ll never know who killed Louis Bellessa on a cold October night in 1972.
