ELLSWORTH, Maine — As the murder trial of William Morse got underway Wednesday in Hancock County Unified Criminal Court, a prosecutor boiled down Morse’s motive to one word: greed.
In his opening statement to the jury, Assistant Attorney General Donald Macomber referred to the Pink Floyd song “Money” and quoted fictional character Gordon Gekko from the film “Wall Street” in explaining the prosecution’s theory about why Morse allegedly killed Richard Bellittieri in the summer of 2012, a year before Morse was arrested for the crime. Morse, whom Bellittieri had hired through Craigslist to do carpentry work on a duplex he was building on Goose Cove Road in Trenton, wanted Bellittieri’s money, Macomber said.
“That proved to be a fatal mistake,” the prosecutor said about Bellittieri’s decision to hire Morse. “William Morse has 175,000 reasons to kill Rick Bellittieri.”
Prosecutors say Morse took and spent $175,000 from Bellittieri’s financial accounts after he allegedly shot and killed Bellittieri in July 2012. According to Macomber, Morse dragged Bellittieri’s body into the woods behind the Goose Cove Road dwelling, buried him under a pile of potting soil, then felled a tree on top of the pile.
Jeffrey Toothaker, one of two attorneys representing Morse in the trial, told the jury the prosecutors’ theory represents their best guess of how and why Bellittieri was killed, but that theory is full of circumstantial evidence that leaves a lot of important questions unanswered, he added.
“Circumstantial cases ask you to guess about key elements of a crime,” Toothaker told the jury.
Among the key details prosecutors are unsure of, Toothaker added, is where Bellittieri was when he was shot and killed and who was present when it happened.
“Knowing that someone is dead does not mean that you killed him,” Toothaker said.
The trial got under way Wednesday morning after the lawyers and the presiding judge in the trial, William Anderson, spent two days questioning potential jurors about whether they might have certain biases or conflicts in being able to consider evidence in the case and then render a verdict. Late Tuesday afternoon, they were able to seat a jury of 13 men and two women, including three alternates, for the trial.
The trial is expected to last at least two weeks, possibly three.
The victim’s estranged brother, Edward Bellittieri of Long Island, New York, was the first witness called to the stand. He testified he knew of no reason why Rick Bellittieri would have returned to New York in 2012 or 2013. In July 2013, Morse told police Rick Bellittieri had gone back to New York because of a death in the family.
Edward Bellittieri said he had a “falling out” with his brother in 2009 and did not speak to him after that, but he did not say what had caused the rift.
Among witnesses who testified Wednesday afternoon were two bar owners in Bar Harbor who, before Bellittieri’s death being discovered, had contacted local police when Morse appeared to be intoxicated and was driving. It was when Bar Harbor police detained Morse on July 9, 2013, on suspicion of drunken driving and were trying to establish who he was that they discovered he had Rick Bellittieri’s credit cards, driver’s license and Social Security card in his pockets.
During Wednesday’s testimony, prosecutors played two voicemail messages Bar Harbor police received after Morse’s July 9, 2013, OUI arrest. One was from Morse and another was from a man who identified himself as Bellittieri but whom police believe also was Morse.
Ed Bellittieri, sitting in the courtroom gallery, shook his head in disbelief when he heard the message supposedly left by his brother, who police say by then had been dead for at least several months. The voice on each message appeared to be very similar to the other as each recording was played one after the other in the courtroom.
After Morse’s OUI arrest, subsequent efforts by investigators from the Bar Harbor police and Maine State Police to track down Bellittieri culminated in Bellittieri’s body being found on the Goose Cove Road property on July 27, 2013. Between July 2012, when police believe Bellittieri was killed, and Aug. 1, 2013, when Morse was arrested on murder charges, Morse is alleged to have frequently identified himself as the man he is accused of killing, police have said.
Other witnesses who testified Wednesday include officials from various law enforcement agencies, including departments in Bar Harbor and Southwest Harbor, the Maine State Police and the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office. They testified about their roles in the case or about various interactions they had with Morse or Bellittieri during the past several years.
