Judge Orders Patch Editor to Reveal Confidential Source

A Will County judge ordered Patch editor Joe Hosey on Friday to reveal within three weeks who gave him confidential reports in a grisly double murder case.

Judge Gerald Kinney stripped Hosey, who has worked at Patch since 2010 and been a professional journalist for more than 10 years, of his reporter's privilege. Hosey will need to turn over any leaked documents and, possibly, testify about how he obtained police reports on the Nightmare on Hickory Street double murder in Joliet, according to the judge's decision on a motion filed by a defendant's attorney.

The judge gave Hosey 21 days from the date the decision was filed to comply.

The reports, obtained exclusively by Patch, reveal that Terrance Rankins and Eric Glover, both 22, were lured to the home of 19-year-old Alisa Massaro. It was there that Adam Landerman, 20, and Joshua Miner, 25, strangled them, the reports state.

Minor and Massoro then had sex on the dead bodies, according to the reports. The victims were found in the Joliet home on Jan. 10.

Landerman, Massaro, Miner and 19-year-old Bethany McKee of Shorewood, were charged with the murder of the two men.

Attorney Chuck Bertz, who is representing McKee, filed the motion to determine how Hosey obtained the reports. Kinney's decision on that motion, which came down Thursday, ruled that the court had exhausted all other available sources of information when signed affidavits were obtained from more than 500 people at law firms, police agencies, the Will County State's Attorney's Office and Will County Public Defender's Office stating they were not responsible for the leak.

The decision further states that obtaining the source is necessary for the public interest, because it could impact the murder trial or prove the person responsible violated grand jury secrecy or broke the law.

Hosey will be ordered to identify the source if the documents don't reveal who the leak is, the decision states.

"We respectfully disagree with the court's ruling," Patch's attorney, Ken Schmetterer, told reporters after the ruling was issued. "Shield laws should apply in this case."

Reporter's privilege ensures a journalist's right to protect a confidential source, but state law makes an exception if the petitioner can show that the information is relevant to the proceedings and that the public interest would be "adversely affected" if the information were not disclosed, the decision states.

A status hearing will be scheduled for Oct. 3 in Will County court, the decision states.

Hosey covered the murder trial of former Bolingbrook cop Drew Peterson and authored the book Fatal Vows.

Related Story: The Chicago Headline Club issued a statement in opposition to the judge's ruling.