Guilty: Nightmare on Hickory St. Killer Showed 'Stunning Lack of Respect For Human Life'

Nightmare on Hickory Street killer Bethany McKee will spend her life in prison now that a Will County judge found her guilty of killing two men for the money to buy cigarettes, gasoline and cocaine.

Before handing down his verdict, Judge Gerald Kinney said McKee showed a “stunning lack of respect for human life as well as a stunning lack of concern for the consequences of taking two human lives.”

The consequences for McKee will be spending the rest of her life in prison. Judge Kinney will sentence her Oct. 16.

McKee, 20, stood trial in August for the murders of Terrance Rankins and Eric Glover, both 22. During the trial, a video of the Shorewood woman’s interrogation by police was played. Before the video camera started recording,McKee asked what kind of prison time she would do if convicted of accessory to murder, a Joliet police detective testified.

During the interrogation, an apparently unconcerned McKee calmly blamed Glover and Rankins for instigating the attack by getting too grabby with her and Massaro. When confronted by detectives about fabricating that story, McKee admitted she was lying and tried shifting the responsibility onto one of her three friends who is also charged with the murders.

McKee also blamed her father, Bill McKee, and complained that he called the cops after she went to him for help with disposing of the bodies. In fact, the only time McKee became visibly upset during the interrogation was when she spoke of her father calling the police on her.

McKee at one point shockingly admitted to detectives that a need for smokes and a lack of money to buy them was really at the root of the killings.

“It was because we really needed cigarettes,” she said. “We didn’t have any cigarettes.”

While McKee didn’t lay her hands on either of the slain men, she was guilty of their murders because she lured them to Massaro’s house on Hickory Street in Joliet and took part in splitting up the $120 her friends removed from Rankins’ pockets after the killings, Kinney explained.

The men who allegedly did the strangling, Joshua Miner, 26, and Adam Landerman, 21, remain in custody at the Will County jail awaiting their own murder trials. The fourth alleged Nightmare killer, Alisa Massaro, copped a plea in May. She agreed to testify against her three pals in exchange for slipping the possible life sentence and getting out of prison in less than four years.

Massaro, 20, took the witness stand at McKee’s trial. McKee’s defense attorneys also had Massaro’s police interrogation video played. In the video, Massaro reluctantly admitted to police that she and Miner had sex atop the corpses of Rankins and Glover after the two men were throttled.

After the guilty verdict was announced, Rankins’ mother, Jamille Kent, said, “All I have to say is, to God, the Glory.”

Rankins father, Duval Rankins of Las Vegas, said, “Two down, two to go.”

Glover’s mother, Nicole Jones, admitted that she was concerned about the outcome of the trial and Rankins’ aunt Carla Kent spoke of how the court system served her nephew’s case well.

“Will County got it right,” Carla Kent said. “It’s justice for Terrance.”

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