BARDSTOWN, Ky. (WDRB) -- Authorities are offering a $1,500 reward for information on who vandalized the memorial of Jason Ellis, the Bardstown Police officer murdered nine years ago.

The memorial sits at Exit 34 off the Bluegrass Parkway, but what's there now isn't recognizable as a memorial. The blue flag with his name is gone. Broken lights lay across a cliff and flags are on the ground.

Nelson County Sheriff Ramon Pineiroa said the vandalism had to have been "pretty meditated" given that the perpetrator had to climb up a rock wall to get to it and it was bolted down.

Former Bardstown Police Chief Rick McCubbin said when he found out out it made him "very, very mad." McCubbin said it only adds to the layers of grief over the unsolved murder that occurred while he was police chief.

"It's just disheartening, one, that anybody would do it," he said. "Then, of course, you go into why?"

Ellis was on his way home from a shift in May 2013 when he was ambushed, shot and killed. Strangers happened upon the scene and used Ellis' own radio to call it in.

The vandalization of the memorial took place just short of 10 years since it happened.

"Back then, I called it my darkest day in law enforcement and still holds true," McCubbin said.

The Nelson County Sheriff's Office said it first discovered the memorial had been taken down Thursday but could have been stolen as early as last Sunday.

McCubbin said he doesn't believe it was done in an act against Ellis.

"We were all kind of saying the same thing: Maybe it's just opportunity," he said. "The person is mad at police in general and decided that was a way to make a statement."

Regardless of intent, there's a $1,500 reward to catch the person who did it.

Pineiroa said authorities are looking into a tip about a white man driving a orange or red S-10 truck. He is asking anyone with information about someone who drives that kind of vehicle to contact him at the Nelson County Sheriff's Office at 502-348-1840.

McCubbin said he hopes Ellis' family doesn't fixate on the fact it was taken down but instead finds positivity in the quick response of people who want to help get it fixed.

"Whoever did this was trying to make a statement, obviously," McCubbin said. "But, in the end, we're going to have the final say."

As for Ellis' open case and finding his killer, McCubbin said he hasn't lost hope in justice.

"I still, in my heart, believe that someday, something's going to hit," he said. "That right piece of evidence is going to surface, and I hope they're nervous still. I hope that every time they hear a twig snap, they look behind them thinking it's us coming after them. And the day we do get that person dead or alive will be a very great day in my life, all police officers' lives, but more importantly, his boys and his family."

The Nelson County Sheriff's Office has put in an order for a new flag to honor Ellis and said the next memorial will be bigger and better.

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