After speaking to Taylor on the phone, Morton agreed to meet him at the Field Shopping Center in Morton. The two talked in Taylor’s squad car.
“I’m involved with the investigation of six dead and four missing black women,” Taylor said, adding that he knew Morton was addicted to drugs.
“Yeah, I’m addicted to crack, and I used to get it on the south side of Peoria, but I’ve been clean for a couple weeks, and I’ve been going to church in Morton. But why are you talking to me?” Morton asked. “I’m not a killer.”
“Your name came up in our investigation as someone who frequented prostitutes and sometimes brought them home.”
“Sure, I traded drugs for sex, but I never brought a prostitute home. I partied with some girls at my house, but we didn’t have sex, and I don’t think they were prostitutes,” he said. “And I have a girlfriend now. It’s been a couple of years since I visited prostitutes. I only know them by Serena and Dannette. I don’t even know if those were their real names.”
Morton told Taylor he went to prison in January 2000 for driving on a revoked or suspended license and also for aggravated battery to a cabdriver. He was released in January 2001, but was hauled back to prison in November 2003 for violating his probation. He was released on parole in February 2004. Morton said the Department of Corrections (DOC) took his DNA, but he would provide it again, if necessary.
When Taylor asked Morton about the alleged hit-and-run accident in Wisconsin, he said he had never lived in that state. He said he had lived in San Antonio, Texas, for a short time, about four years earlier, and had lived in Illinois a year and a half to two years earlier when he was working for a siding company. For most of the past summer, he and his girlfriend had lived at the campgrounds at Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park in Goodfield, Illinois.
Taylor showed Morton pictures that had been published of the dead and missing black women, along with a recent newspaper article. When he came to Sabrina Payne’s photo, Morton asked Taylor if she was the woman who had been found about a mile from his house.
“Yes,” Taylor said.
“I don’t remember meeting any of these girls,” Morton said. “And I wouldn’t do anything in my own backyard.”
A couple months later, Taylor went to talk to Morton again, because he had received information that Morton and Larry Bright had been friends when they were younger.
“I heard you used to run around with Larry Bright. Do you know him?” Taylor asked after a brief greeting.
“Yeah, I do. We were close friends when we went to high school, until Larry went to prison. I saw his picture in the paper. Boy, it sure don’t look good,” Morton said, shaking his head.
“What do you mean?”
“For Larry, because of where some of the bodies were found,” Morton said. “Larry knows those places. I hope he didn’t do it, but it don’t look good.”
Morton agreed to take Taylor and Henderson, who had arrived a short time after Taylor, to some of the places where he and Larry used to hang out when they were teenagers. First he directed them to a pond on property belonging to Sal Nelson. The pond was east of Ritthaler Road, halfway between Allentown and Augustin Roads. The two boys used to take their girlfriends parking there. Sabrina Payne’s body was found not even a couple miles away.
When they got to the area, Morton pointed out Mud Creek. Morton and Bright used to camp and fish under Mud Creek Bridge, which was about one hundred yards from where Sabrina’s body was found.
Morton next took police across Augustin Road to a dirt lane, which he and Larry used to drive on when they were kids. The dirt lane ran north from Augustin Road to Allentown, just west of Mud Creek Bridge. Morton said he thought Nelson owned that property, too. He said Larry was also familiar with that area.
Morton then directed police to Broken Bridge, at the end of Herberger Road in Mackinaw. He said he and Larry used to jump from the bridge into the river. Just north of Broken Bridge was an old railroad right-of-way and an old gravel pit, where they used to ride four-wheelers.
At the end of Levee Road, a dead-end street, was another old bridge that had been a party spot when Morton and Bright were teenagers. Traffic to the bridge had been cut off for some time. Linda Neal’s body was found within a mile of the bridge.
Morton and Bright also used to party at a place near the old bridge called Pitzer’s Cabin. It was the place where he and Larry used to cross the Mackinaw River in their four-wheel–drive vehicles and party. Morton did his best to direct police to the area. After a couple wrong turns, Morton remembered where it was—near the levee on King Road, another dead end. Linda’s body was found on the north side of the levee on King Road.
Bright and Morton also partied at the east end of the levee on the north side of the Mackinaw River on Benson Road, as well as at the bridge over the river. The area was near Larry’s old house on Robin Hood Lane.
The next day Wilson brought Larry back to the detectives’ bureau to speak with him again about the investigation. Larry said he understood his Miranda rights as Wilson recited them, and he agreed to talk to him without an attorney. Captain Bobby Henderson, of the Tazewell County Sheriff’s Office, was also present throughout the interview.
Wilson told Larry he didn’t think he was telling the truth when he said he had never been with Vickie Bomar. His less-than-truthful denials, coupled with Vickie’s description of him, his truck, and his house, added credence to her story. And Wilson said he had a hard time believing that Larry had never been with a black female other than Ernestine.
“I think Ms. Bomar was at your house at some point,” Wilson said.
Finally Larry gave in.
“Sometime in the middle of July, I did pick up a black prostitute, and it could have been her,” he said.
It was about ten at night. He was driving around the south end of Peoria, an area known for prostitution, in his blue Dodge Dakota when the woman flagged him down. After determining that he wasn’t a cop, she got into the truck and asked if he wanted to get high. He gave her fifty bucks to buy some crack cocaine, and she directed him to a house where she could get it.
But when she returned, Larry thought she had ripped him off, because she only had crack worth about $30 on her. Nevertheless, Larry took the woman back to his house, where they smoked the crack.
Larry had the woman perform oral sex on him, and when she was done, she wanted him to pay her $20 more for the sex. Larry told the woman he had already paid her by buying her the crack cocaine and kicked her out of his house. But before she left, she told him to pay her or he’d regret it.
Larry denied having any physical contact with the woman after she performed oral sex on him. And he said he never threatened her or displayed any weapons. When the woman walked out of his house, he followed her and asked her if she needed a ride somewhere. She told him no. Larry watched as she walked over to talk to one of his neighbors.
He told the detectives that the woman didn’t leave any clothing at his house. And he said he never told her he was a police officer, and he didn’t own a badge of any kind.
“You guys are welcome to look around my house, if you want to,” he said.
Wilson asked Larry if he had ever had any problems with any other black prostitutes he had picked up. He said that sometime back in April he had picked up another black prostitute in the south end of Peoria. The girl flagged him down and she was acting crazy. She got into his truck, and as he was driving back to his place, she continued to act nuts. All she wanted to do was get more dope. Larry stopped the truck somewhere on West Starr Court and told her to get out. She was so angry that she kicked the side of his door, putting a small dent in it.
“Do you remember how many black prostitutes you’ve been with?” Wilson asked.
“Over