The day Scott Hyatt took a fatal bullet on Oct. 19, 2014, his friend and housemate, Jeremy Morelli, turned 35. Morelli and his wife Angelica celebrated the night before at Lou’s Blues on A1A, not far from the home the couple resided at in unincorporated Brevard County just north of Indialantic.
The Morellis asked another sometimes housemate and friend, Joseph Milman, to watch their 4-year-old daughter while they enjoyed Lou’s Blues.
A nice, feel-good story until you realize that police accused Milman of firing the bullet into Hyatt and three more into Robert Mell little more than 12 hours after the babysitting gig.
Mell survived and will be one of the witnesses expected to testify at Milman’s trial, which opened this week. Milman, wearing a mask, allegedly shot the two men while stealing a bottle of Dilaudid pills at 370 East Riviera Blvd., not far from the residence at 260 Avenida De La Vista where the Morellis and Hyatt rented a room from the house’s owner, Elvira Hull.
Based on Mell’s voice recognition and a photo lineup, sheriff’s deputies arrested Milman on Oct. 22. A grand jury indicted him on first-degree felony murder. The state also charged Milman with attempted first-degree felony murder, robbery with a firearm and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
As detectives pieced together what they think happened by interviewing this eccentric cast of characters, witness statement and evidence paint an odd, yet neighborly portrait – at least before the shooting.
Hull, known as Grandma to one and all, let Milman crash at her house on occasion. She described Milman as a “good boy” who did chores around the house. But she referred to Hyatt as someone with diminished capabilities who could get too moody.
The tale of good boy gone bad apparently turned on drugs.
After the birthday bash at Lou’s Blues, records say Morelli and Milman strolled over to Mell’s place in the wee hours of Oct. 19 to score some weed. Mell was in Malabar picking up Hyatt at the time. The two men waited. But when Mell and Hyatt arrived, the two men ended up getting stoned inside the soon-to-be crime scene house. Interview reports show Morelli told police that when he went inside he saw Hyatt and Mell shooting up crushed pills. “I’m scared to death of needles and that’s what they were doing. They were both in Bobby’s bedroom shooting up.”
Morelli said he and Milman returned home without marijuana.
Brevard County sheriff’s agent Nicholas Walker said in his report that Jeremy Morelli initially lied to police about this failed jaunt because he did not want to be associated with “the craziness going on” with the investigation into Hyatt’s death. According to authorities, Morelli and Milman waited for the “dope man to bring the hard,” slang for crack cocaine. Morelli denied that part.
Returning to Avenida De La Vista, Morelli went to sleep at 4 a.m.; Milman slept on the couch. Morelli awoke at 8 a.m. and said he went to a nearby gas station for cigarettes at the request of Justin Howard, another defendant in the case. Howard faces first-degree felony murder, attempted felony murder and robbery with a firearm, for supplying Milman with the weapon. He will be tried in November. Morelli admitted that Howard’s mother, Denise, owned an arsenal of several guns.
At one point on the morning of Oct. 19, Milman told Morelli, Howard and a friend that he wanted to rob Hyatt, taking his pills. But Morelli denied knowing the robbery would be at gunpoint and end in a fatal shooting.
Morelli ended up back in bed, sleeping until around 11, when he woke up to the sound of Milman vacuuming the rugs for Grandma Hull. Milman left the house close to 1 p.m. Jeremy and Angelica Morelli, along with Grandma, were in the back yard.
Not too long after Milman’s departure, all hell broke loose on East Riviera Boulevard.
