'With Some Reluctance,' Judge Gives Nightmare on Hickory St. Killer McKee Life in Prison

The 20-year-old Shorewood woman found guilty of murdering two Joliet men she never laid a hand on didn’t deserve life in prison, a Will County judge said, but that’s exactly what he gave her.

“The way the law is written, I really have no authority,” Judge Gerald Kinney said of his lack of sentencing options for Bethany McKee, whom he found guilty in August of murdering 22-year-olds Terrance Rankins and Eric Glover.

The double murder conviction meant an automatic life sentence for McKee, Kinney said while telling how he’d prefer to give her 40 years, or something in the range of 20 to 60.

“Mandatory sentencing is just inappropriate,” Judge Kinney said.

Rankins’ mother, Jamille Kent, felt otherwise and said she did not appreciate Kinney’s musings on the more lenient sentence he would have liked to hand down.

“Oh, I didn’t care for that,” Kent said. “Because Terrance isn’t here. We can’t get him back. So why should her life be spared.”

Before Kinney sentenced McKee “with some reluctance,” defense attorney Neil Patel told of the young woman’s struggles with mental illness. Patel also said McKee was raped when she was 14 and shortly after abducted and forced into prostitution.

A 32-year-old Joliet man was charged with aggravated criminal sexual abuse in connection with the alleged January 2009 attack on McKee. The charges were dismissed six months later.

McKee’s father, Bill McKee, said prosecutors dropped the case after McKee’s friend—and former co-defendant in the murder case—Alisa Massaro, changed her story.

Massaro is listed in the sex case file as a witness. Assistant State’s Attorney Daniel Walsh said the case was actually dismissed “after it was determined McKee was not telling the truth. It had nothing to do with Massaro.”

“Bizarrely, at about the same time” the alleged rape was being investigated, Patel said, McKee was kidnapped forced into prostitution for two weeks

The FBI arrested the Bolingbrook man behind the sex trafficking ring, Patel said. A jury found this man, 42-yar-old McKenzie “Casino” Carson, guilty in December 2013. Carson’s sentencing was set for January.

McKee, who is bipolar, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, cuts herself, and is unsure who fathered her 3-year-old daughter, has been hospitalized for extensive periods of time due to her psychiatric problems, said her mother, Teresa McKee, who spoke on her behalf at Tuesday’s sentencing hearing.

Rankins’ father, Duval Rankins, said McKee’s troubled past should not have factored into her sentence.

“That has no bearing on what happened,” said Duval Rankins, adding he was aware why her lawyers brought it all out.

“Me, personally, I understand,” he said. “She’s got to have her day in court, so they’re going to do whatever they have to do.”

McKee and Massaro, 20, along with Joshua Miner, 26, and Adam Landerman, 21, all were arrested and charged with the January 2013 murders of Rankins and Glover.

Massaro and McKee lured Rankins and Glover to their deaths at 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.

Like McKee, Miner was found guilty of murdering both Rankins and Glover. He will also be sentenced to life in prison for the double murder.

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

Massaro made out a lot better than her friends. She squirmed out of the murder case in May by copping a plea to reduced charges of robbery and concealing homicides. She was sentenced to five years in prison but will be released within four years of striking her deal.

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 even bother to call her for Miner’s.
After his daughter was sentenced to life in prison, Bill McKee said he will continue to fight for her freedom.

“We’re not giving up,” Bill McKee said. “This is a situation that’s going to go on until it ends, and I believe the outcome will be a positive outcome.”

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