First Posted: 7/31/2013

ST. PAULS — Jennifer Espey Ellinger’s aunt will never forget the way her niece’s smile lit up a room.

“Jennifer has always been that way,” said Tee Hall, who works as a secretary and bookkeeper at St. Pauls Middle School.

Three days after her death, the St. Pauls community continues to grapple with the murder of the woman whose easy smile made her popular in the community.

“She was a good girl,” said Hazel Walters, a dispatcher at the St. Pauls Police Department, on Tuesday. “It’s real sad.”

Jennifer, who was 42, was visiting 53-year-old Wayne Britt at his home at 15568 U.S. 301 North in St. Pauls on Monday when her ex-husband, James David Ellinger, entered the home, shooting Jennifer to death and stabbing Britt several times in the neck. Sheriff Kenneth Sealey did not want to release Britt’s name, but The Robesonian learned it from multiple sources. He characterized the two as friends.

Ellinger, who was charged with first-degree murder, fled in a pick-up truck and was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside a Fuquay-Varina home at about noon on Tuesday. He killed himself as Harnett County sheriff’s deputies surrounded the home and tried to talk him into coming outside.

Britt, who suffered deep knife wounds, continues to recover.

On Ellinger’s Facebook page, family and friends have posted condolences and memories about the person most remembered for her bright personality.

Hall said she doesn’t yet know how to feel.

“It’s awful it happened like that,” she said. “I’m mad … I’ve been around the child ever since she was little — I’m lost. I’m really lost.”

Hall said she never met Jennifer’s killer.

“I never met the man face to face,” she said. “Jennifer would show me pictures … but I’ve never seen him face to face.”

Dawn Clayton, Jennifer’s childhood friend, said Ellinger had been threatening Jennifer on social networking sites, and Jennifer had changed her phone number several times following their split.

Clayton, who knew Ellinger for 20 years, said she never saw him become violent.

“I had never seen that side of James,” she said. “James was always a fun, happy-go-lucky person. He liked to cut up, he liked to joke, he liked to have fun.”

Hall and Jennifer had always maintained a close relationship and had moved around the country together, living in places like Texas and Long Island when their spouses had to relocate for work.

“When my daughter had her first child, Jennifer was right there — she was always there,” Hall said. “Her smile and her personality. My daughter read her testimony at the church … She was trying so hard to turn it all around and she did. She will truly be missed.”

Hall said Jennifer was one of the kindest people she knew.

“She would would give you the shirt off her back,” she said. “She was great.”

Sealey said Jennifer, who worked in the record’s division of the Sheriff’s Office since 2010, was someone “who always had a smile on her face and something kind to say.”

Jennifer worked at the front office of the department, where she handled requests for paperwork and opened doors to the building’s inner offices for law enforcement officials. She would cheerfully greet reporters from The Robesonian as they visited the Sheriff’s Office to check crime reports.

“She enjoyed her job and she enjoyed working with the girls in the records division,” Sealey said. “She was an excellent person to greet people when they came to the door.”

Jennifer was one of several in her family involved in Robeson County law enforcement. Her father, Tommy Espey, worked his way up the ranks to captain at the St. Pauls Police Department before coming to the Sheriff’s Office, where he retired as a lieutenant in 2009, Sealey said. Jennifer’s brother, Tommy Espey Jr., works as a magistrate for the county.

Jennifer’s mother Lou Espey served for 17 years as the town clerk.

Hall said Jennifer’s parents are doing the best they can to cope with the loss of another child. Billy Espey, Jennifer’s brother, died in a car accident several years ago.

Jennifer is survived by three children, ages 22, 18 and 14, from a marriage.

“The kids are really, really good kids — they seem to be doing well,” Hall said. “The parents … they’re really holding it together.”

Members of the community wishing to pay respects can attend Jennifer’s visitation, scheduled to be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday at the St. Pauls Funeral Home at 565 W. McLean St. The funeral will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday at Life Center Pentecostal Holiness Church in St. Pauls.

The Robesonian as of this morning had not received a full obituary on Ellinger.