‘Tarzan’ Actor Ron Ely’s Wife Stabbed To Death At Home; Suspect Is Their Son, Who Was Killed By Deputies – Update
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UPDATED, 3:47 PM: The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office confirms that the woman stabbed to death at Tarzan actor Ron Ely’s home was his wife, Valerie, and that the suspect later killed by deputies there was their son, Cameron Ely, 30. It’s not clear whether the son was living at the home.
PREVIOUSLY, 10:25 AM: The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office said its deputies shot and killed a man who was suspected of stabbing a woman to death at the home of Ron Ely, who played TV’s Tarzan in the 1960s.
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Deputies responded to a 911 call a little after 8 p.m. Tuesday after the caller reported a family disturbance at the actor’s home in Hope Ranch, west of Santa Barbara. When they arrived, deputies found an elderly woman dead of stab wounds, Lt. Erik Raney told reporters. He said that deputies locked down the neighborhood and found the suspect while searching the property. They fatally shot him when he “presented a threat.”
Raney said several deputies were involved in the shooting, but he didn’t have details about how many shots were fired. None of the deputies was hurt, he added.
“It’s an unfortunate, tragic incident out here,” he told local TV station KEYT, “and now starts the long process of investigating exactly what happened.”
No information was released about a motive or the identities of the victim or the suspect, and Raney said deputies haven’t confirmed the relationship between them.
Ely, who was not injured in the incident, played the title role in the 1966-68 NBC series Tarzan. He later appeared as a different character in a 1992 Tarzan TV movie. He also starred in the 1961 series The Aquanauts, guested on numerous TV series — including multiple episodes of Fantasy Island and The Love Boat — and toplined in the 1975 feature Doc Savage: Man of Bronze.
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