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AP, The Blast, TVWeek

TV’s ‘Tarzan,’ Ron Ely: Wife and Son Both Dead After Bloody Incident

Oct 17, 2019  •  Post A Comment

Grim details have emerged about a deadly incident at the home of Ron Ely, the actor who played the title role in the NBC series “Tarzan” from 1966-1968. The AP reports that Ely’s wife was stabbed to death by their 30-year-old son, Cameron Ely, who was then shot and killed by sheriff’s deputies.

The incident took place Tuesday night at the couple’s home in the Hope Ranch section of Santa Barbara.

“Deputies summoned to the home by a 911 call found Valerie Lundeen Ely, 62, dead with multiple stab wounds shortly after 8 p.m. Tuesday, a Santa Barbara County sheriff’s statement said,” the AP reports. “The deputies talked to Ron Ely and identified his son, 30-year-old Cameron Ely, as the suspect, and found him outside the home.”

The report adds: “Cameron Ely posed a threat to deputies, four of whom opened fire and killed him, the statement said. It did not say what he had done that was threatening.”

The AP notes that Ron Ely, 81, “was host of the Miss America pageant in 1980 and 1981 and later married Valerie Ely, a former Miss Florida. The couple had three children.

“There was no report of Ron Ely being injured. Authorities confirmed he was at the home during the stabbing and the shooting, and an earlier sheriff’s statement said an elderly man in the home was taken to a hospital for evaluation.”

The Blast, which obtained a copy of the 911 call (you can listen to a portion of the tape below), reports that Cameron Ely, who was a former quarterback for the Harvard University football team, tried to blame the attack on his father.

“According to officials, the original caller was a young male who claimed that his ‘father tried to attack the mother,'” The Blast reports. “The dispatcher noted that the reporting party quickly hung up and that when they called back sounded ‘out of breath, unintelligible and crying,’ which definitely set off alarms for law enforcement.”

Here’s audio of some of the 911 dispatch call …

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