Police Couldn’t Prevent Tragic End to Abuse

The murder-suicide of a local couple this weekend was the tragic final act of an abusive domestic relationship that authorities seemed powerless to prevent, neighbors and family members said Sunday.

“This was a downward spiral,” said Stanford Ellsworth, the former husband of the woman who was stabbed to death in her apartment Saturday afternoon. “I’m very saddened by her death. It was a tragedy . . . but this was an ugly situation.”

Lisa Ellsworth, 32, was killed about 1 p.m. by her estranged husband, Mark Sliger, 34, who then took his own life with a knife, according to officials. Her and Stanford Ellsworth’s two children and two neighborhood children were playing in an upstairs bedroom at the time and her son, Tristan, 7, discovered the bodies and called 911.

The slayings took place only hours after police had been called to the apartment because of a domestic fight and escorted Sliger to a local motel to cool off, authorities said.

That incident was one of the many times deputies had to be summoned to calm the fighting couple in the two months they had lived in the complex, said neighbors in the Wood Canyon Villa Apartments.

“Lisa was screaming and nobody got involved,” said Ronda Clay, a neighbor whose two children were in the apartment playing with the two Ellsworth children. “Nobody knew what to look for.”

A spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said deputies urged Lisa Ellsworth on the morning she was killed to get a temporary restraining order barring Sliger from her home, which is about as much as police can do. Deputies had gone to the home in the 28500 block of Wood Canyon Drive “between 2 and 3 that morning,” Lt. Jay Mendez said.

The deputies who pulled Sliger out of her home were “rather upset” when told of the killings, said Mendez.

“I believe they explained the temporary restraining order process to her,” Mendez said. “We can get one 24 hours a day. Usually, we can then book someone into jail, but it depends on the circumstance at the scene.”

For whatever reason, Lisa Ellsworth chose not to do so, Mendez said.

Lisa Ellsworth and Sliger were high school sweethearts in Oregon City, Ore., who had reunited while she and Stanford Ellsworth were still married and living in Pennsylvania, said Stanford Ellsworth on Sunday.

Stanford Ellsworth, 37, a former college football coach, said they were married for 12 years and divorced soon after she began seeing her old boyfriend.

The couple then moved to California and settled in a condominium in Aliso Viejo about three years ago, Stanford Ellsworth said. She and Sliger were in the process of separating, he added.

Sliger, who had been a barber in the Navy, had worked for a health club, done some auto detailing and was involved in sales in various capacities, Stanford Ellsworth said.

Stanford Ellsworth, who has remarried and now lives in Sandy, Utah, said he shudders to think of what his son and daughter had gone through Saturday afternoon.

“It’s a tragedy the children had to be a witness to this,” he said.

Tristan Ellsworth and his sister, Kirsten, 4, were taken to Orangewood Children’s Home until their father can pick them up, authorities said.