“You know, I’m going to give you a break tonight,” he said. “I’m off duty and I don’t feel like going to the office and doing paperwork.”
Vickie headed for the door, but the guy pulled a knife on her.
“I won’t hurt you, if you do what I tell you,” he said. “Take off your clothes.”
“But you’re a police officer,” Vickie said, trying to understand what was happening. Scared out of her mind, and afraid she was going to die, Vickie took off her clothes.
“Now get into the bed. I’m going to fuck you.”
Vickie did as she was told. The man started kissing her and sucking on her. He attempted to rape her. He thought he was penetrating her, but he wasn’t. After about twenty minutes, the man told her to turn over, because he wanted to screw her in her ass. Vickie knew her life was on the line, but there was no way she was going to let this guy rape her. She had a plan.
“I have to use the bathroom really bad,” she said. “Please just let me go. I have to go bad. Please.”
Finally, after seven or eight minutes of pleading, he let her go.
Once inside, Vickie locked the door. The bathroom looked like it was being remodeled. She sat down on the floor, with her back against the door, and her feet against the sink. She picked up a board from the floor and put it behind her head, just in case he tried to force his way in.
The guy was getting impatient.
“Come out of there now,” he screamed.
“No, I’m not coming out.”
The man started kicking the door, trying to get it open. After a few minutes, he gave up.
“Come out, and I’ll take you home,” he said.
Knowing she had no choice but to believe him, Vickie got up and slowly opened the door. She walked out of the bathroom, holding the board for protection. She was shocked to find that the guy was already dressed. She was even more shocked when he let her put her clothes back on. She was in such a hurry to get the hell out of there that she forgot to put her bra on. While Vickie was getting dressed, the guy was going through her purse, probably looking for drugs or money.
Finally the guy led her out to his truck. When he opened the driver’s-side door to get in, Vickie took off. He yelled at her to stop, but she kept running. Just then, one of the guy’s neighbors, Joyce, pulled into her driveway and got out of her car. The guy jumped in his car and raced away.
Vickie ran over to the woman. She said she had been raped and needed help. Joyce offered to call the police, but Vickie, who had an outstanding warrant for her arrest, said no. She told Joyce the guy was a cop, so what good would it do to call them, anyway? Joyce told her he wasn’t a cop, then offered to drive Vickie home.
After giving her statement to Cook, Vickie told him she wanted to get into some kind of drug rehabilitation program. So he made some calls and brought her to Chestnut Health Systems in Bloomington.
The next day Cook and Captain Bobby Henderson went back to the facility to show Vickie a photo lineup of six men, one of whom was Larry Bright.
“That’s him. That’s him. That’s him right there!” Vickie screamed, pointing to Larry’s picture.
The police decided they needed to record Vickie’s statement, so they brought her to the Bloomington police station, reinterviewed her, then took her back to the health-care facility.
On November 11, police arrested Larry Bright for unlawfully restraining Vickie Bomar and brought him back to the Peoria County Sheriff’s Office for questioning.
Deputy Dave Wilson spoke with Larry Bright in the detectives’ bureau about the incident. After Wilson read Larry his Miranda warnings, Larry said he understood his rights and agreed to talk to Wilson and PCSO detective Cy Taylor, who was also in the room. The interview covered a wide range of subjects, including Larry’s dating habits, his drug and alcohol use, and even the kind of cigarettes he smoked.
During the interview Larry told police that he had lived at his current address for a little over a year, and he had lived on West McClure Avenue before that. Larry had also live in Canton and Yates City at different times in his life. He had been born in California and had moved to Morton, Illinois, when he was a young boy. He lived in Morton until he finished eighth grade. Then his family moved to Tremont, where he attended high school, although he dropped out during his senior year. His brother, Jerry, still lived in Morton, and his mother lived in the house in front of his house on West Starr Court in Peoria.
Wilson asked if he had ever lived in Racine. Larry admitted he had, but he said he had almost forgotten about it. Larry told police he had lived in Racine for about four months. While there, he stayed with his half sister, Monica, and worked for a company named Holton Brothers.
When asked if he had ever been with a black prostitute, Larry said he had not. In fact, he said, the first time he had been with a prostitute was three months earlier, when he had picked up a white girl named Latisha and took her to his house, where they had sex. Larry said he picked up Latisha at Woody’s Bar in his blue Dodge Dakota truck. Larry told police his mother owned a Dodge Durango, but he never drove it. She used to own a gray Chevy Blazer, but she sold it a couple weeks earlier. Larry insisted he had never picked up a black prostitute, and he had never had any problems with prostitutes.
Wilson asked Larry if he knew any of the black girls who had been murdered or had gone missing recently. Larry looked at the police photographs of the girls and said the only one who looked familiar was Tamara Walls. He added that he might have seen her before, but he had never dated her. Larry said the only black girl that he ever dated was a girl named Ernestine. He had met her at a bar about nine or ten months earlier and had partied with her. Although he had sex with her, he never brought her to his house, because his mother wouldn’t have approved of him having any kind of a relationship with a black woman.
Larry also talked about his drug use. He said he occasionally used marijuana and had last used crack cocaine about a year earlier. About four or five years earlier, he had gone through a rehab program for an addiction to crack.
Wilson and Taylor also learned that Larry liked to fish, and that he had caught a forty-five-pound flathead catfish in the Mackinaw River, near a broken bridge. He liked to fish for bass so much that he used to be a member of a local fishing club.
Wilson asked Larry if he would be willing to provide DNA to help them with the investigation, and if he’d allow them to search his house. Larry said he’d have to talk with his attorney first.
After Larry was taken to his cell, Taylor stayed in the interview room while lab officers collected the cigarette butts from Larry’s cigarettes, as well as the new plastic cup that Larry had used, so they could be submitted for DNA testing.
The same day thirty-eight-year-old Peter Morton called the Tazewell County Sheriff’s Office and spoke to Detective Cy Taylor. Police had been trying to track Morton down for about a week. They had received a tip on the Crime Stoppers line from a woman who believed Morton was responsible for the murdered and missing women in Tazewell and Peoria Counties.
The caller said Morton lived with his mother. She also said Morton often traveled to Peoria to pick up drugs, as well as prostitutes, and then he brought them back to his house. The caller said he once told her that he hit a black man in Wisconsin with his car, then left the scene.
“His family has real issues,” she said. “I think Pete could be doing these things to these women.”
Sometime after getting the call, Taylor went out to Morton’s home and spoke with his mother. She said Peter wasn’t living with her at that time, but she’d give him the message.
As the saying goes, Peter Morton’s rap sheet was as long as his arm. A look at his criminal history painted a picture of a man who had been in and out of prison for much