Chad owned a gun shop in the Valley and a few hours after Flynn had arrived back in the country, Peter Caldwell confronted Ellis, beating the other man to such an extreme that Ellis died almost immediately before stringing his body up with some rope and leaving it to be found by a passer-by before fleeing the scene. In the meantime, NCIS Agents Dominic Vail and Kensi Blye descended on the shop and found Ellis's body, causing Kensi to remark, "Lucky escape for the cat. For Chad, not so much". It was later revealed that a medical examiner had determined that Chad had been beaten to death.