Hickory St. Nightmare Murder Victim Called Out, 'Why Are You Doing This To Me?': Prosecutor

The first Nightmare on Hickory Street murder trial opened Monday with a prosecutor telling how a young Shorewood woman had been kicked out of her parents’ home and was too broke for the cigarettes and alcohol she so badly craved.

“In January 2013, Bethany McKee desperately needed money,” said Assistant State’s Attorney Tricia McKenna.

And McKee, now 20, plotted with three friends to get that money through means “legal or otherwise,” McKenna said.

Two of those three friends, Joshua Miner, 26, and Adam Landerman, 21, both of Joliet, remain in the Will County jail awaiting their own trials. McKee’s third pal, Alisa Massaro, 20, of Joliet, squirmed out of the murder case in May by copping a plea to reduced charges of robbery and concealing homicides. Prosecutors agreed to the plea deal to secure Massaro’s future testimony against her three alleged accomplices. She is scheduled to be released from prison in less than three and a half years.

Massaro did not testify in the morning session of the trial’s first day. Only one witness, McKee’s friend Jennifer Ortega, took the stand. Prosecutor John Connor walked Ortega through her Facebook conversations with McKee. In the conversations, McKee comes up with various ideas for raising money, such as selling off her cell phone and her baby daughter’s clothes. McKee also considered dealing drugs, Connor said.

McKee, Miner, Massaro and Landerman were charged with murdering Terrance Rankins and Eric Glover, both 22. The two young men were killed after Massaro and McKee lured them to Massaro’s home on Hickory Street, according to police reports obtained exclusively by Patch. Not long after Rankins and Glover arrived, Miner and Landerman throttled the two men to death, the reports said.

Once Rankins and Glover were dead, the reports said, Massaro and Miner had sex atop their bodies. Massaro, McKee, Miner and Landerman then concocted a plan to dismember the corpses of their victims and began procuring supplies, including a blowtorch, to carry out the plan, the reports said. Miner reportedly intended to keep the dead men’s teeth as trophies.

McKee was at Massaro’s home with her baby daughter but left the room before the killings, the reports said. McKee later took off from the house and met with her father, Bill McKee, in hopes he would help dispose of the bodies, police said. Bill McKee instead called the cops.

McKenna said McKee was socializing with Rankins two nights prior to the murders. Rankins bought the underage girl alcohol and she noticed he was carrying a “large amount of cash,” McKenna said.

McKee, Miner, Massaro and Landerman decided to rob Rankins since “between them they have no money and they need money for alcohol and cigarettes,” McKenna said.

“The plan was to get Terrane Rankins to the residence and jump him or rob him of the money,” McKenna said.

The four conspirators came up with a signal for the women to leave the room when the men were ready to kill Glover and Rankins, she said. As McKee was leaving with Massaro, she heard Rankins call out, “Why are you doing this to me?” McKenna said.
“All of this went down for $120,” McKenna said, “which is pretty much what Bethany expected him to have.”

McKee’s attorney, Chuck Bretz, countered that, “There will be no evidence that Bethany McKee did any physical act to cause anyone’s death.”

McKee appeared in court for her trial before Will County Judge Gerald Kinney in a light blue jail uniform. Her hair was unkempt and she was unshackled at the start of the proceedings.

Ortega’s testimony was to continue Monday afternoon.

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