Hickory Street Double Murder Case Stays Sealed, Cops & Coroner Gagged

The Judge in the Hickory Street double murder case wouldn't budge on re-opening the court file and is now forbidding even more law enforcement agencies from commenting about the killings.

Judge Gerald Kinney did express a willingness to reconsider his decision to seal the case file and will address the matter again in two weeks.

Kinney closed the case file March 1 at the behest of defense attorney Chuck Bretz. Bretz, who represents 18-year-old Bethany McKee, one of the four accused killers, also asked the judge for a gag order in response to a series of stories posted by Patch earlier this month.

The stories were based on the horrific details included in police reports filed in the murder investigation. The reports—obtained exclusively by Patch—related how McKee and three frieneds—Alisa Massaro, 19, Joshua Miner, 24, and Adam Landerman, 19—allegedly lured Terrance Rankins and Eric Glover, both 22, to Massaro's Hickory Street house the night of Jan. 9.

Glover and Rankins were under the impression they were going to have sex with Massaro and McKee, the reports said. Instead, Miner and Landerman strangled the two men to death, robbed them, bound their dead bodies and tied plastic bags over their heads, the reports said.

Massaro and Miner then had sex on top of the dead men, the reports said. Massaro, Miner, McKee and Landerman proceeded to drink and do drugs after the killings, then plotted to dismember the corpses. Miner wanted to keep the dead men's teeth as trophies, the reports said.

Attorneys for the four claim the release of such information was detrimental to the defendants' chances of getting a fair trial. The defense lawyers also want a special prosecutor assigned to the case in hopes of figuring out how Patch obtained the police reports.

Seth Stern, an attorney for an area newspaper, has been working to get Kinney to re-open the case file. Instead of holding a hearing on whether to unseal the file, Stern said, one should have been convened to determine whether to close it in the first place.

Bretz told Kinney that Stern should not have been allowed to address the court Friday, but the judge allowed him to speak. Stern will continue his bid to unseal the file March 27.

During Friday's hearing, Kinney expanded the gag order he put in place earlier this month to also include all police agencies involved in the case as well as the Will County Coroner's Office.

Patch has also obtained coroner's reports on the deaths of Rankins and Glover.

Kinney acknowledged that he wasn't sure he was able to extend such a wide-ranging gag order, saying, "I'm not 100 percent comfortable in my authority to do it."

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