Saturday, May 11, 2013
The former Chicago Ridge deputy fire chief charged with trying to rape and kill a neighbor is tired of the cops always showing up at his parents' place.
When they let former Chicago Ridge Deputy Fire Chief Gary Swiercz out of jail, he wasn't allowed to return to the Tinley Park condo where he allegedly tried to rape and kill a neighbor. Since the woman still lives in his building, Swiercz moved into his parents' home in Worth. But that hasn't worked out so well. The high-priority electronic monitoring the county put Swiercz on requires the cops to make an in-person visit to the house once during each eight hour shift, and the repeated visits are wearing on Swiercz's elderly parents, Barbara and Stan. Swiercz's parents were they went to court and asked a judge to cut out the house checks between midnight and 8 a.m. Cook County Judge John Joseph Hynes denied the request, pointing out that …
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Two men were found unfit to face criminal charges this week.
Not one, but two men were found unfit to face criminal charges this week. For the second time in a month, Mark Lewis, 53, was deemed unfit to stand trial for the murder of his sister, who was found beaten to death in her Naperville home in June 2011. Lewis wants to act as his own attorney if the murder case ever makes it to trial. Also wanting to act as his own attorney—and deemed unfit to face criminal charges—was 40-year-old Jason Chance of downstate Lewiston. Chance already did prison time for menacing Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow through Facebook. According to a criminal complaint, Chance threatened to rape and kill the county's top prosecutor. After his release, Chance allegedly made harassing telephone calls to a judge…
Sunday, April 14, 2013
One of the four charged in the Nightmare on Hickory Street double murder case is getting $5,000 from the county for an expert witness.
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Sunday, April 14
Saturday, April 13, 2013
One of the four charged in the Nightmare on Hickory Street double murder case is getting $5,000 from the county for an expert witness.
One of the four young people charged with the brutal Nightmare on Hickory Street double murder case has been represented by no less than three private attorneys since she was arrested, but is now getting $5,000 to hire an expert witness. One of the three lawyers working for 18-year-old Bethany McKee of Shorewood convinced Judge Gerald Kinney that the county should cover the cost of a doctor to observe DNA testing. Prosecutors argued that McKee is being represented by private attorneys, but one of her lawyers, Neil Patel, countered that no one has established that he or his colleagues are actually getting paid. Kinney capped the county's payout at $5,000, and if McKee's lawyers want more money, they will have to appear before him and make …
Saturday, March 30, 2013
There's not going to be a special prosecutor or a special hearing in the Hickory Street double murder case. At least not yet.
It was another week abbreviated by a court holiday. But even with just four days instead of five, there was plenty going on at the area's courthouses. In Joliet, we had one of the defense lawyers in the Nightmare on Hickory Street double murder case asking for a special hearing to find out how Patch obtained police reports no other news outlet seems able get their hands on. The Will County judge presiding over the case didn't go along with it, at least not for the moment. The judge did say he may revisit the issue of a special evidentiary hearing in the future. Attorneys representing the two young men and two young women charged with brutal murdering Terrance Rankins and Eric Glover, both 22, backed off on their request for a special …
Saturday, March 16, 2013
A young man charged with stabbing his mother and dumping her in a ditch was sent to jail on a $2 million bond—and more! On this week's Court Supervision.
You only have one mother, and no matter what, you shouldn't strangle her, stuff her in the back of your car, stab her and leave her in a ditch in Crete. But that's exactly what the police say a man did a couple weeks ago. Blake Springsteen, 22, was charged with attempted murder in connection with an alleged March 4 attack on his 46-year-old mother, Jennifer Springsteen, in their home outside Flossmoor. On Wednesday, Cook County Judge Brian Flaherty set Blake Springsteen's bond at $2 million. That was interesting, but far from the only thing going on in court last week. In Joliet, we had the judge in the Nightmare on Hickory Street double murder case continuing to keep the court file sealed not once, but twice. Over in Bridgeview, a Burr …
Saturday, March 2, 2013
The judge for the Hickory Street double murder case doesn't want anyone talking.
The Hickory Street double murder case took a surprising twist this week when one of the defense lawyers complained about stories in Patch and the judge ordered the attorneys involved not to talk to the media. Will County Judge Gerald Kinney also sealed the file for the case against accused killers Adam Landerman, 19, Joshua Miner, 24, Alisa Massaro, 18, and Bethany McKee, also 18. The four were charged with murdering Terrance Rankins and Eric Glover, both 22, in Massaro's house on Hickory Street in Joliet. Judge Kinney said he wants both defense attorneys and prosecutors to investigate who allegedly leaked police reports. The judge said he will revisit the issue on March 11. Here's what else was going on in the area's courthouses last week…
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Two people charged in a Joliet murder and awaiting trial in the Will County Jail confessed to investigators that they had sex on top of the bodies afterward, police reports reveal.
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Tuesday, February 26
Joshua Miner got the idea to ask Alisa Massaro to have sex with him on the corpses of two men he's accused of helping to kill because he remembered his girlfriend confiding “years back that she wanted to have sex with a dead guy,” states a police report obtained by Patch that documents a Joliet double murder. Under police questioning, Massaro “acknowledged she and Josh did have sexual intercourse on top of the bodies.” Joliet Police found the bodies of Terrance Rankins and Eric Glover, both 22, face down with plastic bags on their heads inside the house on the city's near west side on the afternoon of Thursday, Jan. 10. Patch editor Joseph Hosey's report is on Joliet Patch
Saturday, February 16, 2013
The cell phone supposedly used to report the murders of two Joliet men has not been located, a source said.
An extensive search along Interstate 80 for an alleged killer's cell phone in the wake of last month's double murder on Hickory Street came up empty, a source said. The missing phone is the same one 18-year-old Bethany McKee supposedly used to call her father, Bill McKee of Shorewood, to let him know two young men were dead in the home of her friend Alisa Massaro, also 18. Bill McKee passed that information along to officers with the Shorewood Police Department, who in turn alerted the Joliet police, sources said. Joliet police officers then headed to Massaro's home on North Hickory Street and found the bodies of Terrance Rankins and Eric Glover, both 22. Plastic bags covered the heads of Rankins and Glover, a source said, and the two …
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Families of slain victims see alleged murderers for the first time.
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Sunday, February 10
Ernie Knight
4:29 pm on Tuesday, May 14, 2013
You forget the years that the State failed to make its payments toward pensions, and spent the money on other things. You also forget the corrupt politicians allowing their cronies into public pensions through lllicit backdoors. more ›