Nightmare on Hickory St. Murder Snitch's Illegal Plea Deal Made Legal

The Joliet woman who snitched her way out of the Nightmare on Hickory case was brought up to Joliet from a Downstate prison Thursday so prosecutors could fix her illegal plea deal.

Alisa Massaro, 20, will still serve the same amount of time for the same crimes—robbery and concealing homicides—she pleaded guilty to in May. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison but with day-for-day credit will only have to do half of it. She is scheduled to be freed in a little more than three years, according to Illinois Department of Corrections records.

Massaro, along with Bethany McKee, 20, Joshua Miner, 26, and Adam Landerman, 21, all were arrested and charged with the January 2013 murders of 22-year-olds Terrance Rankins and Eric Glover.

The four killed Rankins and Glover after Massaro and McKee lured them to Massaro’s Hickory Street nightmare house, according to police reports obtained exclusively by Patch.

Not long after Rankins and Glover arrived, Miner and Landerman strangled the two men to death, the reports said. Miner and his friends hatched the plot to murder Rankins and Glover because they were broke and wanted to buy cigarettes and alcohol, prosecutor Tricia McKenna said during McKee’s murder trial in August.

After the killings, Miner and Massaro had sex atop the dead men’s bodies.

McKee and Miner have already been found guilty of murdering both Rankins and Glover. McKee was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday. Miner will be sentenced to life in prison next week.

Landerman, the son of Joliet police Sgt. Julie Larson, remains in the Will County jail while he awaits the start of his own trial.

The day before McKee was sentenced, her attorney, Chuck Bretz, pointed out her plea deal was illegal because of a sentencing technicality. The only way to rectify this, Bretz told Judge Gerald Kinney, was to either free McKee or give her a new trial. Judge Kinney did neither of those things.

On Wednesday, Bretz said he felt vindicated by Massaro having to make a trip up from Logan Correctional Center for another court date.

“In our mind, the state acknowledging that Alisa Massaro’s sentencing was improper and brining her back to correct it lends a great deal of weight to the issues that we raised in our motion for a new trial,” he said.

Massaro’s attorney, George Lenard, said it actually means nothing.

“It really doesn’t affect anything,” Lenard said, pointing out Massaro is still doing the same time for the same crimes.

Massaro got the plea in exchange for agreeing to testify against her three friends. She took the stand at McKee’s trial but prosecutors didn’t bother calling her for Miner’s.

Lenard said the legality of the original plea deal—and the changes made to it Thursday—have no bearing on Massaro’s credibility as a witness.

“It didn’t affect her testimony at all,” he said. “She was truthful when she testified. She’ll be truthful if she’s needed to testify at Landerman’s case.”

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