A knife and jacket with blood on them were found at the home of man police and prosecutors allege fatally stabbed a suburban software CEO last month in Chicago's River North neighborhood, officials said Friday.
Gino Bassett, of the 6100 block of South Ingleside Avenue on the city's South Side, was taken into custody Wednesday and charged with first degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault in the death of 55-year-old Miguel Beedle, Chicago police said.
In court Friday, Bassett was accused of following Beedle from a bar, shoving him in an alley and stabbing him to death. Prosecutors cited video surveillance from multiple locations in the city.
Bassett's attorney argued in court that the 56-year-old suspect suffers from schizophrenia.
A judge ordered Bassett held without bond, calling him a "real and present threat to the community."
In some of the most detailed accounts of what happened so far, prosecutors said witnesses reported seeing Beedle exiting a bar minutes before his death "clutching U.S. currency in his hand." He is seen on camera standing outside the bar for about 30 minutes, with Bassett at one point walking past him, according to officials.
Video surveillance allegedly showed Bassett, who was wearing "distinctive clothing and carrying a backpack bearing a distinctive design," following Beedle to an alley around 2:30 a.m. on March 23 in the 400 block of North State Street. The footage showed Bassett, armed with a knife with a 5-inch blade, shoving Beedle further into the alley where the 55-year-old was found stabbed in the neck.
Bassett is then seen exiting the alley before Beedle stumbles out, holding his neck and "bleeding profusely."
"He fell to the ground and died from the stab wound," prosecutors said, noting that no weapon was recovered from the scene and the money Beedle had been seen holding was nowhere to be found.
Beedle, who lived in northwest suburban Park Ridge, was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 2:42 a.m., according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. An autopsy determined he died of a stab wound and his death was ruled a homicide, the medical examiner’s office said.
Following the murder, prosecutors said Bassett was seen getting into a verbal altercation with two women at a CTA stop at State and Grand. There, he is seen pulling out a knife once more, still wearing the same clothing he had on in previous surveillance footage, officials said. Police said the women also reported the incident.
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While on a train, CTA video also showed Bassett counting money, prosecutors said.
"They said they identified him by his clothing. We’ll see. That’s why we have trials," Bassett's public defender Marijane Poacek said after court Friday.
A search of Bassett's home showed a jacket, appearing to be the one seen on the surveillance video, with blood on its sleeve, prosecutors said. Authorities also found a knife with blood on it.
Bassett shook his head as those details were read aloud in court.
"I think he was confirming the fact that he’s innocent," Placek said.
Prosecutors say during the course of their investigation they learned that Bassett fled to New York after the murder. But he was arrested early Wednesday at Union Station here in Chicago.
Beedle was the CEO and founder of Enterprise Scrum Inc., a software coaching and training company based in Bannockburn. He also coauthored the “Agile Manifesto” which is used across the world to help companies move faster.
Beedle's fiancee said they and their young children were trying leave "dangerous" Chicago before his death, saying in a statement that Beedle was her family's "whole world" and the "best father."
