Alleged Nightmare on Hickory St. Strangler Really Just a 'Scared Kid,' Says Lawyer

A Joliet man charged with the grisly Nightmare on Hickory Street stranglings was nothing more than a “scared kid” who had no intentions of killing or robbing anyone, his lawyer said.

“Adam was a 19-year-old scared kid” when he allegedly choked the life out of Eric Glover, 22, in January 2013. At the same time Landerman had a death grip on Glover’s neck, his alleged accomplice, 26-year-old Josh Miner, was strangling Glover’s best friend, Terrance Rankins, also 22, prosecutors said.

Landerman and Miner, along with 21-year-old Alisa Massaro and Bethany McKee, 20, had hatched a scheme to lure Rankins and Glover to Massaro’s Hickory Street home so they could rob them, Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow told the jury Wednesday, the first day of Landerman’s murder trial.

“These two young men were doing nothing but thinking they’re coming to a party,” Glasgow said. “They think they’re among friends. They’re sitting ducks.”

Landerman, Miner and the women plotted to rob Rankins and Glover because they were “running out of cigarettes and alcohol and none of them have any money,” Glasgow said.

But Simmons insisted to the jury that, “There was no plan” to rip off Rankins and Glover. Shortly after saying this, Simmons revised the theory and claimed there actually was a plan after all, but it was Miner’s alone. Simmons also pointed out that Miner and Landerman had met for only the second time shortly before the killings, and suggested Miner was the more dominant of the two young men.

“Joshua Miner is older, a bigger guy,” Simmons said. “And Adam Landerman at that time, he’s smaller, and he looks like a child.”

When they were both arrested in the wake of the murders two and a half years ago, Landerman was 6-foot-4, three inches taller than Miner, according to jail records.

Four police officers and a fingerprint analyst testified Wednesday. The trial was to continue Thursday.

If Landerman, the son of Joliet police Sgt. Julie Larson, is found guilty, he faces a mandatory life sentence.

McKee and Miner have already been convicted and are serving their own life sentences. Massaro wriggled her way out of the murder case last year by copping a plea to reduced charges of robbery and concealing homicides. She was sentenced to five years in prison but will be released within four years of striking her deal.

In an exclusive prison interview with Patch, Miner claimed the real reason he killed Rankins and Landerman strangled Glover was that the two men refused to leave Massaro’s home and a fight broke out. Miner said he ordered Rankins and Glover to go because he felt slighted.