ELLSWORTH, Maine — The first three days of the trial of William Morse were full of testimony about how he allegedly stole the identity of another man, stole thousands of dollars of that man’s money by accessing his bank accounts and may have cultivated marijuana on the man’s property.
Based on what witnesses have told the jury so far, a spectator might forget that the charge Morse is facing is murder.
Morse, 45, has not been charged with forgery or theft or fraud or drug trafficking. The only charge he’s facing is murder in connection with the death of Richard Bellittieri, whose body was found July 28, 2013, buried under a pile of potting soil and felled trees off Goose Cove Road in Trenton.
When Bellittieri’s body was found on property he owned and where he had been building a duplex dwelling, the victim had not been seen alive for a year. Morse was arrested Aug. 1, 2013, four days after the body was found, and has been held without bail ever since.
Police started trying to locate Bellittieri on July 9, 2013, when they found identification and documents that belonged to Bellittieri in Morse’s possession when Morse was arrested in Bar Harbor for operating a motor vehicle under the influence of intoxicants.
Since the prosecution and defense attorneys made their opening statements Wednesday morning, the jurors — 13 men and 2 women, including two alternates — have heard testimony about how Morse possessed identifying information that belonged to Bellittieri; how he is alleged to have passed himself off as Bellittieri, either in person or on the phone; and how he gained access to Bellittieri’s financial accounts.
Several people who had direct business dealings with Morse, including a local bank officer whose ATMs Morse used and a forensic financial investigator with the Maine Revenue Services, were among those who testified Thursday afternoon and Friday morning.
Russell Veysey, the state revenue investigator who examined Bellittieri’s accounts for prosecutors, said that between July 2012, when Bellittieri vanished, and Aug. 1, 2013, when Morse was arrested on the murder charge, more than $180,000 was withdrawn from accounts that bore Bellittieri’s name.
The jury has been told that, after Bellittieri was last seen alive in July 2012, Morse allegedly started spending Bellittieri’s funds, sometimes while claiming to be the dead man. A used high-end Audi sedan he bought for $14,808, a used Egg Harbor power yacht he paid $9,200 for but never picked up and a hot tub he had installed in Bellittieri’s duplex are among the items Morse allegedly purchased with Bellittieri’s money.
But because Morse has not been charged with any type of fraudulent financial or identification crimes, his attorneys have cross-examined only a handful of the 24 witnesses to testify this week in the trial.
Most of their questions for witnesses have focused on the presence of marijuana on the Goose Cove Road property, which police discovered while searching for the missing man, and whether Bellittieri was known to use the drug.
Police found 261 plants growing on the property. One witness who knew both men testified that Morse, whose name he thought was “Bill Tool,” told him before Bellittieri’s disappearance in 2012 that marijuana was growing in the woods near the duplex.
Lt. Chris Thornton of the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department, who has served with the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency, was questioned on the witness stand by Jeffrey Toothaker, one of Morse’s defense attorneys, about the marijuana plants.
Thornton said each plant theoretically could generate between $500 and $1,000 worth of marijuana. But when Toothaker tried to get Thornton to characterize the kind of person who likely would cultivate that amount of the drug, Thornton declined, saying a wide variety of people are motivated by different reasons to cultivate the drug.
Thornton added that marijuana plants do not survive the winter in Maine, so all 261 plants found on the property would have to have been planted that spring.
Testimony in the trial is expected to resume Monday morning.
