Nightmare On Hickory Street Murders: 10 Year Anniversary In Joliet

JOLIET, IL — Tuesday marks 10 years since Adam Landerman, 19, Bethany McKee, 18, Josh Miner, 24, and Alisa R. Massaro, 18, lured Eric Glover and Terrance O. Rankins, to Massaro's house in the 1100 block of North Hickory Street to murder the two 22-year-old men.

Joliet's police chief at the time, Mike Trafton, announced that robbery was the motive in the gruesome killings of the two young men, who were strangled on Jan. 10, 2013. Joliet Patch later reported that the four proceeded to abuse the dead men’s bodies, and Miner and his occasional girlfriend, Massaro, had sex atop the corpses of Glover and Rankins.

"I think you need to know this is one of the most brutal, heinous, really upsetting things that (I've seen) in 27 years of law enforcement," Trafton told Joliet Patch at the time. "It is the worst thing I've come across in my career.

"After the homicides were committed, they continued the party atmosphere, I guess I would say, without getting into it any further."

Joliet police learned about the Nightmare on Hickory Street homicides at about 4 p.m. on Jan. 10, 2013, when they received a tip that they would find two dead bodies at the Hickory Street address. When officers arrived, they found the victims and then heard noise indicating there were other people in the house, Joliet Police Commander Brian Benton said at the time.

Landerman, Massaro and Miner were arrested there; McKee was arrested at a home in Kankakee, Trafton said.

Patch reported that Landerman, the son of Joliet police Sgt. Julie Larson, told detectives during his interrogation that he and Miner planned to start the robbery after the group finished off a bottle of tequila. When the bottle was empty, Miner strangled Rankins and Landerman throttled Glover.

“He was going to take a picture later on with his face pulled off like Leatherface,” McKee told Joliet police detectives, telling them how Miner was inspired by the horror film Texas Chainsaw Massacre, in which "Leatherface" goes on a murderous rampage and wears a dead man’s face like a mask.

"I think it’s because of the dreads" Glover wore, McKee explained to Joliet detectives. She said Miner wanted to “scalp his head and wear it like a hat.”

Joliet police found the bodies of Terrance Rankins and Eric Glover, both 22, face down inside the North Hickory Street house of Massaro's father on Joliet’s near west side.

Plastic bags were tied around the dead men’s heads, according to police reports. One of the men was bound, the other looked as if his hands had been tied at one time.

“McKee related that during the night that Josh wanted to put the bodies together, which they did, side by side, and they put something over the bodies, which was beige in color, and they were going to have sex on top of the bodies,” one Joliet police report said. “McKee relates that she did not stick around for that ...

“McKee relates that Alisa agreed with having sex on the bodies because she just wanted to go along with Josh and that they had been together a long time,” the report stated. “McKee related during the whole interview that Josh was the one responsible for most of these actions and Adam had just followed along and had only known Josh for this past week but was more of the (follower) in this and Josh was more of the leader.”

After the four arrests, Chief Trafton declined to discuss whether drugs or alcohol played a role in murders, telling reporters he didn't consider it a mitigating factor even if it did.

"I refuse to use any of that as an excuse whatsoever," Trafton said. "They did what they did, and they're to blame. As far as I'm concerned, they're going to jail today, and they should stay there forever."

In February 2018, one of the masterminds of the Nightmare on Hickory killings, Alisa Massaro, was turned loose by the Illinois Department of Corrections.

She was paroled around the time of her 24th birthday.

In May 2014, Massaro drew a 10-year prison term that gave her good time credit and meant she would be out of prison in another three years and eight months.

Massaro was the only one who received a lenient sentence as part of her plea bargain with prosecutors. 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.

Massaro's co-defendants were eventually convicted, and they received life prison terms for their crimes. Prior to being released from the Illinois Department of Corrections in February 2018, Massaro had been serving her short prison term in Logan at the Logan Correctional Center.

She had been looking at a possible life sentence.

During a June 2015 interview, Will County State's Attorney Jim Glasgow said the Nightmare on Hickory Street killers ran out of time to dismember the corpses of the two young men from Joliet, and they might have gone through with the ghastly act if they had only acted faster.

“They certainly were calculating what to do, but they didn’t have any experience,” Glasgow said right after he sent a third member of the depraved “family” to prison for the rest of his life. “They set forth with getting the various materials, the saw the blowtorch, the garbage bags, the bleach, and given enough time they very well may have carried out the dismemberment they had planned.”

More Nightmare On Hickory Street Double Murder Coverage:

• Nightmare On Hickory: Joliet Wins FOIA Lawsuit Against Hosey
• Alisa Massaro 'Embarrassed' She Had Sex On Corpses
• Hickory St. Nightmare Killers Ran Out of Time to Dismember Victims: State's Attorney
• Alisa Massaro Wrote Pal: 'I'm Not Dumb Enough To Be In Jail For The Rest Of My Life'
• Nightmare on Hickory Street: An Inside View to a Horrific Double Murder