With his red hair and light eyes, Wayne Francis Elliss Jr.’s Irish heritage was obvious. And he was proud of it.
“He thought he came from Dublin,” his aunt Dawn Squares-Adams said, laughing. “He was all about being Irish.”
Wayne graduated from North Catholic High School in 1998, and his daughter Haley was born that October. She had inherited his eyes and his red hair.
After a brief stint in the U.S. Navy—he received an honorable discharge after boot camp due to an issue with his ears—he eventually became an emergency medical technician.
Wayne had plans on the horizon: Get married, switch careers and become a corrections officer, continue to be a great father, watch his daughter grow up.
But on July 28, 2002, a week before his 22nd birthday, Wayne was shot and killed during what police believe was a robbery.
After hanging out with some friends at a nightclub, Wayne began walking from Front and Spring Garden to his grandparents’ house at Belgrade Street and Frankford Avenue in Fishtown. He had almost reached his destination when he was attacked.
Nearly 17 years later, no arrests have been made.
What followed was a series of additional family tragedies: Wayne’s grandmother Joan Squares died of cancer seven months later. His mother, Valerie McKeen, died “of a broken heart,” Dawn said, in March 2010.
And in February of this year, his 20-year-old daughter, Haley Morris, a student at West Chester University, died suddenly of an undetected congenital heart condition.
“We were a very close family before Wayne died,” Dawn said. “My whole family is gone.”
In the years since Wayne’s murder, Dawn has called the homicide division of the Philadelphia Police Department a few times a month, but no leads have materialized.
She has also reached out to television shows that tell the stories of unsolved murders as well as organizations that work on cold cases, but nothing has come of any of it.
Dawn’s motto, “Never give up and never forget,” is what keeps her going.
“I promised my sister I’d never give up, and I won’t,” she said.
Wayne was born Aug. 6, 1980 in Philadelphia. Dawn describes him as “one of a kind”—fun to be around, always smiling and laughing.
When he was growing up, his family had summer block parties, and Dawn has fond memories of her and her nephew singing their special song, “Build Me Up Buttercup.”
Wayne was athletic and enjoyed basketball the most. His Irish heritage was something that had real meaning to him, and he was involved with the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Division 51-Fishtown, a fraternal organization that promotes Irish culture and charity.
“He was a goodhearted person and he made sure he did everything he could to help everyone,” Dawn said. “If you needed something, he gave it to you. If you need help with something, he’d do it for you.”
When Haley was born, she became the center of his world.
“They idolized each other,” Dawn said. “He was her everything and she was his everything for her first three years. They were inseparable. That was his baby.”
Growing up, Haley was filled with questions about her father: What kind of person was he? Was he really like what everyone talks about?
“There were eighteen hundred people at his funeral,” Dawn said. “Was he really that good of a person? Yes, he was. He was loved by everybody.”
In the months before his death, Wayne decided to change careers. He took the civil service exam with the goal of becoming a corrections officer, and shortly after he died, the family received word that he had passed the test.
Although many years have passed since Wayne’s murder, Dawn has hope that his killer will be brought to justice.
“I do have hope. I really do,” Dawn said. “It may be 20 years, it may be 30 years. I hope it’s before I die so I can see justice because his mom and his daughter can’t.”
The City of Philadelphia is offering a reward to anyone that comes forward with information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for the murder of Wayne Elliss Jr. Anonymous calls can be submitted by calling the Citizens Crime Commission at 215-546-TIPS.
