Special prosecutor removes herself from Ellingson drowning

The woman who has the power to charge a state Trooper after the drowning of a teenager last summer has stepped down.

Special prosecutor, Amanda Grellner, is no longer looking into the death of Brandon Ellingson.

Ellingson was the 20-year-old who drowned while in Highway Patrol custody at the Lake of the Ozarks last summer.

In September, Grellner announced she would not be filing charges against trooper Anthony Piercy.

It was just a couple of months ago Grellner told ABC17 News she was re-opening the case.

She said was going back to interview eyewitnesses again.

Now she said she is handing the case over to a new prosecutor, and the reason being, a conflict of interest.

For the past year ABC 17 News has reported numerous times on the mistakes and even allegations of negligence by Trooper Piercy which led to Ellingson’s drowning.

Some of those include putting the wrong lifevest on Ellingson, driving the boat at an excessive speed, and Piercy changing his account of what happened that day.

Amanda Grellner, the Osage County prosecutor, was chosen to look at this case because of the Morgan County prosecutor’s conflict of interest.

But now, almost a year after Ellingon’s death, Grellner is coming forward with her own conflict of interest.

She said she did not have time for an on-camera interview, but said, “what I can tell you is that a conflict arose with some of the new information I was seeking and reviewing which required that I remove myself from the case.”

She would not elaborate on the exact conflict. She did say she was close to making a decision.

What decision that was going to be she would not say.

Matt Boles, the lawyer for Ellingson’s family, told ABC 17 News on Thursday that he nor Craig (Brandon’s father) would be making a comment on this.

In the meantime, Grellner said the judge will be appointing a new prosecutor.

So soon fresh eyes will look over hundreds of pages, and house of interviews and video to determine if Piercy should be charged for the death of Brandon Ellingson.