Con Man Drowned Toddler Ashley for Insurance Money, Ex-Wife Says

By Anastacia Mott Austin

A Washington man who has been charged in the drowning death of his three-year-old stepdaughter is no stranger to peculiar incidents involving the children of his partners, according to police records.

Joel Zellmer, 37, was taken into police custody Thursday and charged with both first- and second-degree murder for the 2003 drowning death of his stepdaughter Ashley.

On December 3rd, 2003 firefighters were called to Zellmer’s home after he called 911 to report that his stepdaughter had fallen into his backyard pool. He told police that she had gone outside to find a piece of cake that had been left there, and then to the pool to wash her hands. Rescue workers were unable to revive her, and she died at a local hospital two days later.

Three months earlier, he had urged the girl’s mother, Stacy Ferguson, to take out a $200,000 insurance policy on Ashley.

It was not the first time Zellmer had persuaded his partners to take insurance policies out on their children, only to have "bizarre" injuries befall them.

In 1990, he brought his four-month-old stepson to the hospital to report a hit-and-run accident in which the boy had been injured, only weeks after taking out an uninsured motorist policy on his vehicle. Doctors were unable to find any injuries to the infant when x-rays were taken, yet three days later Zellmer returned with the baby and demanded that new x-rays be done. This time the boy had a fracture in one leg and a possible fracture in the other. Zellmer filed a $25,000 claim for the accident, but dropped the claim when his wife signed an affidavit saying there had been no car accident. She reported that she had witnessed Zellmer damaging the rear end of his own vehicle to make it look like it had been hit by another car.

In another unsettling incident, Zellmer was dating the mother of a 10-month-old baby who returned home to find the infant soaking wet and pale. Zellmer told her the baby had crawled into the hot tub when his back was turned. She became suspicious when noting that the baby could not have lifted the heavy cover on the tub. For some reason, she left her child alone with Zellmer again later that year, and returned to find the baby’s hands severely burned – and was told that he had touched a fireplace screen.

In 2002, Zellmer’s then-fiancee (a different woman), who had been convinced to buy insurance for her daughter, came home from work to be told by Zellmer that her daughter had fallen into the pool. When other signs of abuse later began emerging, she ended the relationship.

Another alleged girlfriend broke up with Zellmer after he urged her to take out an insurance policy on her toddler and she then found photographs of other women he’d dated, and they also had young children.

Andrew Schwarz, Zellmer’s attorney, told reporters at The Seattle Post-Intelligencer that all of these allegations are nothing more than idle rumors. "A number of witnesses have axes to grind with Joel and stand to gain financially if he’s convicted."

Zellmer’s family told the press that the charges are unwarranted. His sister, Marnie Harstad, stated that Zellmer’s ex-wives were just "trying to ruin him financially and mentally."

But the Washington Sheriff’s Department found the incident involving little Ashley’s drowning suspicious from the beginning. The firefighters working to save her life at the scene found Zellmer’s demeanor "oddly calm." Detective Sue Peters noted in court documents that Zellmer’s version of events that night was "highly suspect."

Another sheriff’s department spokesperson, John Urquhart, told reporters that Zellmer’s case represented "a pattern of abuse toward children and insurance fraud."

Stacey Ferguson, Ashley’s mother, has filed a wrongful-death suit against Zellmer. In court documents for their divorce, she stated, "I cannot help but feel that Joel was either fantastically irresponsible or that he carefully planned a way to lure her to her death in order to collect the insurance proceeds," adding to reporters that Ashley had told her that Zellmer once pushed her down the stairs.

Zellmer is currently being held at the King County jail in lieu of $5 million in bail. His arraignment is scheduled for next Wednesday. He has not been charged in any of the other cases involving injuries to the children of his previous partners.

But the women he has been involved with remain convinced that he is a "professional con artist" whose only aims were to profit from them and their children.

"As a single mother with a small child, many of us hope for a partner to go through life with and for a father figure that will help set a good example for our children," Stacey Ferguson said in a press release yesterday. "After Ashley’s death, to my shock and horror, I learned that Joel Zellmer has a prior history of deceiving and manipulating single mothers and their children."