Tempers Flare at Nightmare on Hickory Street Murder Case Court Hearing

Tensions ran high at the most recent hearing in the Nightmare on Hickory Street murder case.

Family members of two young men strangled to death in January called out to a bailiff and deputies, claiming one of the alleged killers was talking and gesturing while waiting in the jury box for the judge to take the bench Friday morning.

A deputy warned the alleged murderer, 25-year-old Joshua Miner, to remain silent and not to look toward the gallery. Miner, chained hand and foot, briefly argued but then kept quiet.

Miner—along with three of his friends—Bethany McKee, 19, Adam Landerman, 20, and Alisa Massaro, 19—all face first-degree murder charges in connection with the strangulation deaths of Eric Glover and Terrance Rankins, both 22.

According to police reports obtained exclusively by Patch, Massaro and McKee lured Rankins and Glover to Massaro’s home on Hickory Street in Joliet, where Miner and Landerman choked the two men to death. After the killings, Massaro and Miner had sex atop the dead men’s bodies, the reports said.

The four 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.

Little was accomplished during Friday's hearing as the judge assigned to the case, Gerald Kinney, was absent.

"Judge Kinney unavoidably had a personal issue that came up today," said Judge Edward Burmila, who took the case in Kinney's stead.

Burmila set a Jan. 3 date for the case to return to court.

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