Baseball Bat Murder Defendant: 'We Really Did Believe He Had A Gun'

JOLIET, IL — Within 24 hours of the gruesome driveway killing of his next door neighbor, Blaique Morgan told Will County Sheriff's Office detectives he used a long brass pipe to hit 62-year-old Bob Bielec in the head — as a method of self-defense.

"I never wanted to have any confrontation with Bob," Morgan, now 26, told the sheriff's detectives, back on Jan. 8, 2016. "They're old white people. He created this situation."

During the first part of the interview, the detectives told Morgan, "we know this guy's been terrorizing your family. Am I right?"

"Yeah, we're basically tired of it," Morgan agreed.

"So what happened last night?" the detectives asked. "It's OK. We'll get through this together. You're not the bad person ... It was self-defense. This guy's nuts. Tell us what happened."

Thursday marked the second day of Morgan's first-degree murder bench trial before Will County Judge Vincent Cornelius.

In the afternoon, Will County prosecutors played the videotaped interview of Morgan with sheriff's detectives R.J. Austin and Jeff Grozik.

During subsequent trial testimony, prosecutors acknowledged that police detectives occasionally lie to a murder suspect, as was the case when the detectives told Morgan they knew Bielec's death from blunt force trauma had to be self-defense.

The Will County detectives repeatedly made disparaging remarks about the victim as part of their strategy to make Morgan feel at ease answering questions during the interview.

They told Morgan that Bielec was "crazy."

"We know this guy's been messing with your family," the detectives told Morgan. "We get that, man. We know your mom was scared that night and obviously his woman friend was at the house."

The detectives also told Morgan they had an eyewitness to Bielec's deadly beating, even though that was not the case.

"I seen him pull up because I let my sister in the house," Morgan told detectives. "I just went outside, and I seen Bob, and he acted like really crazy."

Morgan said he told his older neighbor, "you really need to stop what you're doing. I walked up to him. I know he had a gun, and he did push me. I blacked out."

"How many times did you hit him?" the detectives inquired.

"I honestly blacked out in that type of moment," Morgan answered.

About a week prior, someone fired at least two bullets into the front window area of the Morgan family's house on Houston Avenue. The Morgans suspected Bielec was the culprit.

"We can prove he shot your mom's house," the detectives told Morgan.

"You can't reason with that crazy guy," Morgan responded.

"We know you know what happened," the detectives explained. "You just need to be honest with us."

"He was hit," Morgan told them.

"Obviously," the detectives agreed. "What did you hit him with?"

"I don't even know. Brass or something," Morgan replied. "I know Bob got it coming. I've been shot at before, and I know Bob. He was hot."

Morgan eventually claimed he hit Bielec with a pipe.

The detectives told Morgan that Bielec "was a menace to society."

"He's always creeping around our house," Morgan remarked. "My sister's bedroom, he can see inside of there ... it was just like a long pipe. It didn't have anything sharp on it, almost like a baseball bat. It was solid.

"He's just weird," Morgan told the detectives. "Then I pushed him, and he started reaching for his gun. I told him you need to stop what you're doing. I didn't intend for any of that to happen."

During a short interview break, the detectives offered to get Morgan freshly brewed hot coffee.

"Yeah, a lot of cream and sugar," Morgan told them.

Later, the sheriff's interview took a more direct, adversarial tone. They knew Morgan's earlier interview statements were untrue, Austin and Grozik told him.

The detectives revealed:

• Morgan did not attack Bielec alone.
• A long pipe did not crush Bielec's skull.
• The 62-year-old Army veteran died in his driveway with a cigarette in his hand, as he gripped his car keys.
• His driver's car door was wide open.
• It looked like an ambush-style killing.

"Your story is filled with lies," the detectives declared.

Morgan revealed his younger brother, Amari, then 17, also confronted Bielec once their neighbor pulled into his driveway during the late night hours of Jan. 7, 2016.

"I didn't want it to happen," Blaique Morgan told detectives. "I don't want Amari getting in trouble because he's still in school. Mom already told us not to go over there."

Morgan was asked again about the weapon.

"It was actually a bat," he confessed. "It came from Bob's house. I don't know. We didn't have any other choice but to defend ourselves."

Morgan said he and his brother went to talk to their long-time neighbor, "Just to get him to leave our family alone. It looks so bad, but we just wanted to come to an agreement with him, but he was high. He was high on something. I don't know what it was."

Later, the detectives revealed that a search warrant at Morgan's house found Post-It notes in his bedroom. Several identical Post-It notes were found scattered in the nearby yards along Houston Avenue.

These outdoor Post-It notes all read: "Reap What You Sow."

"I had nothing to do with that," Blaique Morgan answered.

The detectives told the 20-year-old Preston Heights resident this was a brutal murder.

"It sounds bad, but the facts are not that," Morgan told them. "But a murder? Again, I did not do that."

Morgan said the "Reap What You Sow" Post-It notes were scattered outside before their driveway confrontation with Bielec.

He suggested his brother Amari could have made them.

"My brother, he's not been a subliminal person," Blaique told the detectives.

Amari Morgan, now 24, is also awaiting his own first-degree murder trial, which won't happen until 2023.

Meanwhile, as Blaique Morgan insisted he and his brother acted in self-defense, the detectives spoke up.

"There was no gun on him," Detective Austin revealed.

"Did we ever find a gun?" Detective Grozik wondered.

"There was no gun," Austin confirmed.

"Well, we really did believe he had a gun," Blaique Morgan claimed.

As far as Bielec supposedly being high on cocaine or crack cocaine as Blaique Morgan told the detectives, that was not true, either. The autopsy showed the only drug in Bielec's system was nicotine from cigarettes.

As far as the baseball bat used to smash in Bielec's skull, "I have no idea where the bat is," Morgan told Austin and Grozik.

Once his interview was over, Morgan was arrested that very same night. He has remained in the Will County Jail ever since Jan. 8, 2016, one of the longest serving inmates in recent memory.

His bench trial before Judge Cornelius resumes Friday afternoon because the judge said he has to attend a funeral service on Friday morning.