Special report: The many masks of Bronson Ellery
FOUR days after finding his close mate dead on the floor of a Southport unit beside a lifeless Shelsea Schilling, Nick Blandthorn opens up on the Bronson Ellery “I knew”.
Crime and Court
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LIZARD Man. Monster. One-time Bandidos bikie club member. Bikie wannabe. Bikie enforcer. Amphetamines abuser. Jailbird. Failed heavy metal musician. One “colossal s---bag”, according to a person posting online.
They’re all descriptions to have emerged this week of Bronson Ellery who turned up dead, aged just 24, on the floor of his Southport unit last Friday.
Lying lifeless beside him, with her arm draped over his stomach according to person who found them, was his on-again, off-again girlfriend Shelsea Schilling.
Miss Schilling, 20, was later revealed to have taken out a domestic violence order against Mr Ellery who was jailed for three months late last year for breaching it.
Nick Blandthorn, who had popped around to Mr Ellery’s unit to catch up with his close mate just like he would any Friday after work, discovered their bodies.
Four days after one of the most harrowing experiences anyone could have, Mr Blandthorn sat down with the Bulletin.
“It’s been a hell of a week,” he said, on arrival to chat at a Southport cafe.
He knew Mr Ellery better but knew Miss Schilling by association as someone who was “really cool".
Mr Blandthorn said she’d once told him he was one of the only friends of Mr Ellery she liked.
As mystery continued to swirl around the exact circumstances of their deaths earlier this week, Mr Blandthorn shared his version of Mr Ellery who he’ll remember as close pal, very funny, obsessive compulsive about cleanliness and into quirky things.
Mr Ellery, who lived at Chevron Island prior to Southport, used to feed pigeons on his balcony before breakfast every morning, would joke about them being a gay couple when out in public, and believed in aliens, he said.
“There would be a storm and lightening and he’d be saying ‘See that, that’s aliens’ and I’d be going ‘I don’t think so’.
“He would say ‘Do you think we make a good looking gay couple? There is no point hiding it’.
“I’m seeing all these pictures of him with guns … I just think it’s funny because I’d get to his place at times in the morning and the first thing he’d do — before he’d feed himself — he’d feed the pigeons.
“Always fed the pigeons, there were seven of them. He loved his pigeons. He had names for them, Pablo, Godfrey …
“This is how tough he is — we’d do spelling bees at his house. He’d go ‘Spell parallelogram’. I can’t even say the thing. We’d sit there and deadset do spelling bees.
“He’d text me during the week and say when I was not at work I was going to come around for a spelling bee. He was a crack up. That’s the person I knew.”
Like anyone, Mr Ellery’s distinctive full face tattoo intrigued him.
“I always asked him ‘Do you just wish you had a day where you were not looking like that?…’and he’d go ‘Nah’. He’d always go ‘Nah’.
“He just go obsessed with it. He got his skull fully done on my birthday, we were going for breakfast. I said ‘It looks awesome ... still looks a bit scary but it looks good’.”
They were close enough that when Mr Ellery added a big ‘23’ tattoo of his favourite number across his face, Mr Blandthorn didn’t pull his punches.
“I said ‘God you look like a raccoon now’. I said ‘Why did you go that far?’.”
They originally met six years ago but Mr Blandthorn can’t remember exactly how other than they crossed paths on the Coast.
Mr Ellery designed a koi fish tattoo for him and later inked it on Mr Blandthorn’s right arm.
Mr Blandthorn once tried unsuccessfully to return the favour, attempting to finish off a dragon on Mr Ellery’s back.
“He let me tattoo him at one point … some of the dragon on his back because he wanted it finished. I was shocking, after 10 minutes he wanted me to stop, said ‘You are pressing in too hard’.
“It was my first day,” Mr Blandthorn said.
He plans getting a tribute tattoo for his mate, something with Mr Ellery’s favourite number 23 and a quotation.
During Mr Ellery’s prison stint from the end of last year to the middle of this year, the pair wrote each other long letters every week.
At times they spoke on the phone.
“This is how bang on I am with him — when he was in jail he called me and goes ‘Hey bro’ and I said ‘What’s wrong with you?’. He goes ‘Nothing’ and I said ‘Don’t lie to me’.
“He had a bit of an incident in jail. I picked up on that. It was just something, an incident, I won’t go into it but it changed his mood.
“When I spoke to him on Wednesday, I didn’t pick up on anything,” he said, in reference to the last time they would ever talk.
Mr Blandthorn revealed whilst the pair usually caught up several times a week, he hadn’t seen Mr Ellery for about two months in the lead-up to the deaths because he’d started a new job and was working awkward hours.
When Mr Blandthorn called him on the Wednesday to arranged a Friday catchup, there didn’t appear to be anything wrong or concerning — no indicator of what was to come and the fatal scene Mr Blandthorn would be the first to walk into just under 48 hours later.
Mr Blandthorn revealed after initially knocking on Mr Ellery’s door and receiving no answer, he left.
He was about to drive off in his car when he received a text from Mr Ellery’s mother asking if he could go inside the unit and check on her son.
He’s not sure why she asked.
“Mother’s instinct, I’m not sure,” he said.
“I haven’t asked her why she did ask me that yet but mother’s instinct is always on point.”
And there he was, lying dead on the floor beside Miss Schilling, a scene Mr Blandthorn said he kept seeing in his mind but was struggling to process.
“I’ve seen Bronson asleep a thousand times and honestly he just looked asleep. I know that is what someone is going to look like but there was nothing awkward.
“They did love each other. When I was with them they were fine. They weren’t like couples you see who argue back and forth over pointless stuff.
“They were almost like an old married couple. They’d call each other honey all the time. Never babe, bub, always honey.”
The shocking but serene scene — finding the pair of them appearing to be sleeping but dead as doornails — will stay with him a long time.
After finding them and letting Mr Ellery’s mum know, emergency services arrived soon after and Mr Blandthorn was put in a full forensic suit as police made inquiries.
“They put me in a forensic suit straightaway, took my shoes and phone off me. It was so hot.
“I’m sitting out the front at the cafe in this forensic suit, I’m sweating man, it’s hot, people are driving past staring.
“I had anger and sadness at the same time, I don’t know what I had really. I got up to take the suit off and this detective grabbed my arm and I told him to let go of me.
“I started to have a bit of a cry, I said ‘I’ve just found my best mate dead, get off me’. He said ‘You’re detained’.
“I did apologise but I just said ‘Look mate I’ve found my best mate dead and I did know her well as well, I’ve just found them both dead, don’t grab me again’.
“I said I was sorry if I sounded rude but ‘You have to understand what I’ve just come across’.”
Overall, Mr Blandthorn said the police and forensic squad had been awesome to him.
He was hoping for answers like everyone.
“I don’t know how to take what I’ve seen. It was just peaceful. I still keep picturing it.”
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