Billy: 'Mysterious Black Guy' Committed Body Shop Murders

JOLIET, IL - On Thursday, three Will County State's Attorneys began showing double murder defendant Billy Krasawski's more than three-hour-long videotaped interrogation inside the Joliet Police Station. The interview occurred on March 10, 2016. At the time of his detention, Joliet Police apprehended Krasawski, an admitted crack cocaine junkie, inside a cheap Chicago Heights motel. When officers escorted Krasawski into their interview room he was only wearing a pair of boxers and a black T-shirt.

The officers give him a bottle of water, and he remarked how he had not eaten or had anything to drink over the past two days. Officers left him in the interview room alone for roughly 30 minutes, maybe longer, before the interrogation with detective Aaron Bandy started. At one point, Krasawski screamed at the top of his lungs, "Officer!" and later pounded on the interview door complaining of being cold, the video showed.

Another officer arrived and gave him more bottled water, a small bag of potato chips and a large black blanket. After being handed the blanket, Krasawski was left in the room alone even longer.

The defendant got off the office chair and curled up on the carpet and threw the black blanket over his entire body including his head. And he remained on the floor silently for several minutes, the videotape played for the jury showed.

Finally, Bandy and a second detective entered and began their interview. They asked about Krasawski's knowledge concerning the two people found slain in the body shop at 809 E. Cass St. The homicide victims, Mike Oram, 48, and Jamie Wills, 43, were bludgeoned to death, a medical examiner testified. Their skulls were cracked, and they were struck with a heavy object numerous times.

A Joliet detective found the murder weapons inside a trunk at the body shop: a lead pipe wrench and a long steel hammer, according to this week's trial testimony.

In the videotaped interview, played for the Will County jury deciding Krasawki's guilt or innocence, the murder defendant spoke a mile a minute with the two detectives. He claimed he saw the murders happen and that he escaped from the body shop before harm was done to him. He told the detectives that Oram "was his buddy of 20 years." But he repeatedly referred to Wills as Oram's "crack whore."

"I'll tell you what happened," Krasawski told the detectives. "You do me right, I'll do you right. Can I get a shower? I desperately stink."

Krasawski told the detectives that he had known Mike Oram and hung around Joliet for more than 20 years. The defendant had a steady job in Ottawa and regularly drove to Joliet's Cass Street later in the afternoon to smoke crack cocaine with Oram and Oram's girlfriend, he said in the video interview.

On March 8, 2016, Krasawski got to the shop around 3 p.m. He brought over his stash of crack. Later that evening, he, Oram and Wills sat around and smoked their crack, he testified.

Then, suddenly, a black guy showed up at the garage, someone Krasawski had never met before, he told the detectives. "It was dark. It was definitely dark," Krasawski said of the time. "I'm really high. I'm tweaked out."

Krasawski claimed he overheard Oram say, "You remember the last time I threw you out?"

The prosecution and police have not presented any evidence indicating that the black man mentioned by Krasawski even existed. During opening statements, prosecutors told the jury how Krasawski told the police about "a mysterious black guy. It defies logic."

At any rate, Bandy and the other detective pressed Krasawski for specifics.

"He had to be about the same (age). I'm 41," the defendant told the pair.

Here are some of the key statements made by Krasawski during his March 10, 2016 interrogation at the Joliet Police Department, statements the jury heard on Thursday morning:

"The black guy" showed up out of nowhere, opened the door to the garage and declared, "It's me," Krasawski said.

Once inside the garage, the fictitious guy joined Krasawski, Wills and Oram to partake in the crack cocaine. "I gave him a hit of crack. He's freaking out ... I see him bend down and pick up a wrench," Krasawski told the Joliet detectives.

"I jumped up because it looked like he was coming for me ... I'm tripping, he's running. I jumped. He swung. I grab Jamie, and I think he hit her in the back."

Krasawski also told detectives he heard the sound of the wrench strike Oram's head.

"It made a nasty sound when it hit him," he told the police.

The defendant ran, he told police. He ran out the body shop, jumped in his red Ford Mustang parked out back and hit the gas. He drove aimlessly into Chicago to try to score for crack cocaine, the videotaped interrogation showed Krasawski telling police.

He told Bandy that he knew he needed to call the police about what happened inside Fleet Specialty Painting, but realized, "I'm not going to call them. I'm smoking crack. I was planning on calling, yeah, some (expletive) happened."

By March 9, 2016, Krasawski was hiding out inside a Chicago Heights motel. He went on another crack cocaine binge. He pawned his cell phone for $20 and his red Ford Mustang for $650, according to his interview with police.

"I didn't know Mike died until I seen it on the news," he told the detectives.

The Joliet detectives, in a calm polite manner, asked Krasawski to provide them more details, a description, about this unknown guy he claimed he saw club Oram and Wills to death with a big wrench.

But Krasawski couldn't do that, his interview reflected.

"Dude, this happened in 10 seconds!" he told the detectives. "I seen this dude coming. I'm a crackhead. I'm paranoid. I'm scared to death ... No, he never got me. I was scared to death. I'm high. I had just hit. It's fight or flight. I freaked out."

As far as Oram, "we never had any crossed words. I spent a lot of money on him. We get along," the detectives were told.

The videotaped interrogation presented in Courtroom 402 did confirm testimony offered Wednesday afternoon from Krasawski's mother. She told police her son showed up out of nowhere at her house in Bourbonnais and ordered her to find the title for his Mustang and to give him all the money she had. "Mom was drunk like she always was," he told the police.

Krasawski told the detectives he did tell her, "Mom, I'm implicated in all this (expletive). Trust me."

But as far as the identity of the body shop killer on Cass Street, Krasawski told the detectives, "This must be some new guy that Mikey had coming around."

The videotaped interrogation being played for the jury was expected to last the entire afternoon. The jury trial will resume Friday. The defendant is charged with two counts of first-degree murder. Handling the prosecution for the Will County State's Attorney Office are Mike Fitzgerald, Dan Egan and Jeff Tuminello.

Krasawski is represented by public defenders Alex Beck and Amy Christiansen.

WEDNESDAY: Billy's Mom, Sister Help Prosecution

TUESDAY: Cass Street Body Shop Murder Trial Gets Underway

Mugshot of Billy Krasawski via Will County Sheriff's Department