Las Vegas Sun

March 18, 2024

The case of Bayzle Morgan, accused murderer and squatter

Bayzle Morgan

Bayzle Morgan

Bayzle Morgan, an accused squatter and murderer, has a face that even his lawyer says is “scary.”

As shown in a Metro Police mug shot, the now 24-year-old ex-con has tattoos on his neck; above his upper lip; where his eyebrows should be; on his cheekbones; and on his scalp just above his forehead. On the left side of his neck, it appears the word “Nazi” is tattooed into his skin.

Police say Morgan was squatting in a house in northwest Las Vegas when he allegedly murdered 75-year-old Jean Main inside her home a few miles away, after he went in to rob the place.

Incarcerated at High Desert State Prison on a gun-possession guilty plea, Morgan is slated to go to trial Aug. 29 for Main’s death. Prosecutors want him executed.

He has pleaded not guilty in the case.

In a presentation to support Assembly Bill 386 — an anti-squatter measure that took effect last fall — Metro included Morgan’s booking photo on the first page. The slideshow indicated that the house where he was staying, 7709 Wedlock Lane, had 15 calls for service in a six-month span and that three stolen vehicles were recovered in front of the house.

“Morgan was squatting at the property,” the presentation says.

His attorney Dayvid Figler, however, says it’s “really fishy and suspect” that Metro publicly labeled his client a squatter.

In a phone interview, Figler initially said it was “quite a stretch” that Morgan was squatting at the house, and that “a number of other people” were living there at the time.

When asked about the apparent Nazi tattoo, Figler said he was “not really sure what any of this has to do” with the murder case.

“They’re using his face because it’s scary and they want him executed,” Figler said.

The Sunday asked Metro Officer Jesse Roybal, a department spokesman, to speak with someone about Figler’s comments but did not hear back.

After speaking with The Sunday, Figler wrote a cease-and-desist letter to Metro saying that Morgan was “exploited” in police materials “as the ‘face’ of squatting in Clark County.”

Squatting “is an immense problem in our community,” he wrote, but Morgan was picked “from what must literally be hundreds” of squatters who, among other things, set fires, make methamphetamine, steal utility service and leave “the foul smells of human waste” in homes.

A few weeks later, following another request to interview Morgan about the house, Figler said in email that his client “knew people who were at that location and who represented that they paid rent at that home.”

Morgan “never permanently moved into that residence,” but “it was a place where if he was released from custody, he believed he could stay at for the rent represented to him,” he wrote.

He added: “It is our position that it would be libelous for any agency or person to suggest that Mr. Morgan had the requisite knowledge, or had spent the requisite time, at the subject property to be considered a ‘squatter,’ as would any attempt to make him any part of the larger conversation.”

Figler said he could not confirm whether the people who told Morgan about the house had a lease with its rightful owner or manager, or how those people ended up staying there in the first place.

“Neither I nor Mr. Morgan know the answer to those questions,” he said in an email. “That all well predates Mr. Morgan visiting friends at that home.”

So, who is Morgan?

According to Figler, his client, a Las Vegas native, was in and out of foster homes and the juvenile justice system “since he was 10 years old.” Asked what Morgan did for work, Figler said Morgan “has never been an adult in society without being incarcerated.”

“Maybe you should ask the state why he didn’t have a job,” he said.

He said Morgan’s father “was never in the picture” and that his mother was in and out of jail. He could not confirm whether Morgan graduated high school or earned a GED.

When he was 18, Morgan told Metro detectives that he had been arrested for auto burglary and, apparently, possession of a stolen vehicle as a juvenile and an adult; that he had committed such burglaries in “good” and “rough” parts of town; and that “as a juvy he would go with friends often to commit auto burglaries,” says a 2010 police report.

A records check showed that Morgan had pawned jewelry, GPS devices, MP3 players, DVDs, CDs, electric tools and a radar detector. Morgan told detectives that he has not worked and that he has used various street and prescription drugs.

The detectives’ conclusion: Morgan breaks into cars, takes property and “pawns the items to obtain money for narcotic use.”

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