Brutal Baseball Bat Murder Trial Gets Underway

JOLIET, IL — It's been almost five full years since 55-year-old Richard Pollack was killed, the victim of a brutal baseball bat beating near his house in the 400 block of Romeoville's Tallman Avenue. Adam Ballard was 15 at the time. Now 19, murder defendant Adam Ballard wore a beige Will County Jail uniform on Monday with bold black letters that read POD WORKER.

The defendant also wore chains around his arms and legs as he was paraded into Courtroom 404 for the start of his bench trial.

Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak, not a jury, will have to decide whether the evidence presented by Will County State's Attorneys Mike Fitzgerald and Tom Slazyk proves the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

The defendant's father, Mark Ballard, also remains locked away from society, and his case hasn't gone to trial yet.

On Monday afternoon, Kyle Pollack, 22, was one of the prosecution's main witnesses who took the stand. He testified about the nightmarish events of Aug. 9-10, 2014. About two dozen family members also packed the first two pews in Courtroom 404.

That night, he along with his brother and a neighbor were in their backyard and "there was a fire going on."

A prosecutor asked if something happened between 11:30 p.m. and midnight.

"Yeah, there was two people walking up the driveway," he testified.

"Who were they?" the prosecutor asked.

"Mark and Adam Ballard," Kyle Pollack testified.

Prior to the violence that was about to unfold, Kyle Pollack testified, he knew that one of his family's cars "got broken into, yeah."

Patch has previously reported over the years that the Adam Ballard and his father allegedly attacked Richard Pollack after he suspected they had burglarized his car.

Mark Ballard began talking with Kyle Pollack's neighbor friend who was with them while "Adam (was) standing there looking at me. They were just getting closer and closer … angrier and angrier."

Next, "it just got heated," the murder victim's son testified in Courtroom 404.

Kyle Pollack said he took off his shirt and removed his glasses, and he and Adam Ballard fought for a while, tumbling around the ground at times. The other neighbor friend, Steve, put Mark Ballard "into a chokehold."

Eventually, the fist fighting came to an end. Kyle Pollack testified he gave the defendant back his hat, his cellphone and wallet. Father and son "started walking down the driveway in anger," he testified.

But this was not the last time Adam Ballard and his father would show up at the Pollack house in Romeoville that ominous night.

"Mark said, 'We'll be back! We'll be back!" Kyle Pollack testified.

Around 2 a.m., a few of the Pollacks were gathered in the living room, still wide awake.

"We see car lights pull in front of our house, stop in front of the front window," the witness told the courtroom Monday.

"We heard car doors. My father looked out the front window. (He) seen Mark, Adam and a couple other people."

According to testimony, the witness remembered there were at least three African-American males and one white male. "They were just standing in our front yard, walking up to our front yard," Kyle Pollack testified.

He, his brother Tyler and their father grabbed a few baseball bats from behind the door. "So us three go outside."

In the front yard, everyone formed a line. He lined up against Adam Ballard. His father lined up with Adam's father, Mark Ballard, brother Tyler lined up with "some Caucasian guy."

"It just started — a brawl," Kyle Pollack remembered.

"What were you focused on?" Slazyk asked his witness.

"Not trying to get super hurt."

The Ballards also brought their own baseball bats, according to testimony.

At one point, Kyle Pollack "blacked out," only to find himself on the other side of the street, over at the curb. "I had some other black guy on top of me," he testified. "He was beating me up."

"Fist?" the prosecutor inquired.

"Fist," the witness concurred.

After regaining his senses from blacking out, Kyle Pollack testified he remembered opening his eyes, "seeing my dad laying in the street."

The 55-year-old Richard Pollack was on the ground, laying near the sewer cap.

"Was he moving?" Slazyk asked.

"He was not,"' the witness answered.

"Adam, he had a bat. He hit (him) in the head two times. It was a lot of force."

The victim's son described the attack "as a golf swing. It was consecutive. One right after another."

As for the murder defendant, "we went to high school together. I didn't even know his name, just seen him around school," Kyle Pollack told the court.

After watching his father being clubbed twice with the bat, the witness began screaming, "Dad, dad, dad!"

The prosecutor asked if Richard Pollack had a baseball bat at that point.

"I didn't see no bat near him or anything."

The defendant's criminal defense attorney, Paul Napolski of Joliet, made little progress in undermining the testimony from the murder victim's son.

The bench trial is expected to continue through Thursday.

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