Prosecutor Calls Alleged Hickory St. Nightmare Murderer 'Absolutely Demonic' & Utterly Depraved

The murder trial for the alleged ringleader of the Nightmare on Hickory Street killers took only six days and finished with Will County’s top prosecutor painting the Joliet man as a fiendish demon responsible for the most depraved crime he has ever encountered.

“A level of depravity has never been reached like this before,” State’s Attorney James Glasgow said of the alleged exploits of 26-year-old Joshua Miner and the young man and two young women charged with joining him in a murderous plot.

Glasgow accused Miner of having no regard for human life and then focused on the shocking tale he told detectives about what went on after two Joliet men—22-year-olds Terrance Rankins and Eric Glover—were strangled to death.

Glasgow first recounted how Miner and his sometime-girlfriend, 20-year-old Alisa Massaro, and her friends Adam Landerman, 21, and Bethany McKee, 20, hatched the plan to rob Rankins and Glover because they were broke and wanted to buy cigarettes.

Then, after Miner choked the life out of Rankins and Landerman strangled Glover with his bare hands, the two men and the young women punched and kicked the corpses and struck them with liquor bottles, he said. Landerman then allegedly stomped on the dead men.

“You’re jumping on the body, ‘surfing’ while everybody laughed,” Glasgow said. “I’ve never heard anything so diabolical in my life.”

Miner told detectives he hogtied the lifeless men before he and Landerman went through their pockets. They allegedly used the money they stole to buy cocaine, cigarettes and gasoline, then returned to Massaro’s Hickory Street nightmare home to do drugs, drink and have sex to “celebrate.” In fact, Miner and Massaro allegedly decided to spice things up by having sex atop the corpses of Rankins and Glover.

Miner and his pals then allegedly came up with the idea to dismember the dead men, and went so far to procure tools, including a hacksaw and blowtorch. Miner told detectives he wanted to render Rankins and Glover into “little pieces and make them look like dog meat.”

Glasgow called this “absolutely demonic behavior” and said Miner has an “abandoned and malignant heart.”

One of Miner’s attorneys, Michael Renzi, pointed out that Miner is charged with murdering both Rankins and Glover, but was never accused of physically harming Glover. He also said prosecutors failed to corroborate the robbery theory they need to convict Miner of Glover’s murders.

Renzi insisted there was never a plan of any sort with regard to murder or robbery. Rankins and Glover simply stopped by Massaro’s home and were there about an hour before a fight broke out.

Miner “fought him, he strangled him and he killed Mr. Rankins,” Renzi said, calling the deaths a “tragedy.”

“An argument ensues, pushing and shoving starts,” Renzi said, adding, “That’s the only scenario that makes sense.”

And if Miner and his crew went to such “elaborate, meticulous” lengths to dismember and dispose of the bodies, Renzi said, they didn’t seem to put much thought into the supposed robbery plot. He said Miner never before met either Rankins or Glover and could have wound up face-to-face with “Mike Tyson’s stronger, younger brother for all (he knew).” Renzi also pointed out neither Miner nor Landerman went to the trouble or arming himself before the attack.

“There wasn’t a plan,” Renzi told Will County Judge Gerald Kinney. “This was a fight, judge.”

Glasgow countered that Miner actually was carrying an extremely deadly weapon—the knowledge of how to choke someone to death, which he acquired and honed during unsanctioned wrestling bouts held in the backyards of Joliet, and by watching mixed martial arts fights.

“This case has the ultimate weapon and it’s really frightening: the choke hold,” Glasgow said.

“Mr. Miner said he learned it from the UFC and watching those matches,” Glasgow said, quoting what the accused killer told detectives about what he knew of strangling a man to death.

“It’s like you choke them out and you choke them for just a little too long and they don’t wake up,” Miner had said.

Glasgow went on to tell Kinney, who said he will announce Miner’s guilt or innocence on Oct. 8, about the skull tattoos on Miner’s shoulders, one of which says, “Laugh now” while the other says, “Cry later.”

“He laughed then, judge, Glasgow said. “I’m asking you to make him cry now.”

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