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…
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Drew Peterson was on the move again Thursday and is in another prison.
Drew Peterson wasn't one to be tied down, managing to marry four times in 29 years. And even now that he's been packed off to prison, he's still a rambling man. Peterson, 59, was transferred to his third prison since he was sentenced to serve 38 years a mere seven days ago. Peterson was whisked from the Will County jail to the Northern Reception and Classification Center on the grounds of Stateville prison the day after he was sentenced by Judge Edward Burmila. Ordinary inmates wait for the weekly bus to Stateville, but Drew Peterson is apparently no ordinary inmate, as the Will County Sheriff's Department set up a special trip to get him out quickly. Then at Stateville, where it takes an average of three weeks to two months before a …
A Chicago man was trying to protect himself and his Plainfield girlfriend when he shot her former boyfriend twice in the back, his lawyers said.
When Ricardo Gutierrez shot Javier Barrios twice in the back in October 2007, he was trying to protect his girlfriend, her young daughter and himself, his lawyers said Thursday. "It's about domestic violence. It's about self-defense. It's about fear and how people react to fear," attorney Jeff Tomczak said of what led Gutierrez, 23, to shoot Barrios, who was 18 when he died. "It's not a case of murder," said Gutierrez's other lawyer, Paul Napolski. "It's about a set of circumstances wherein a young man is forced to protect the woman he loves and the 10-month-old child he adores from the threat of immediate harm." Regardless, both Gutierrez and the woman he loves, Gabriela Escutia, 24, are up on murder charges, and Gutierrez's trial started…
Ricardo Gutierrez allegedly shot a man twice after the woman he was with shot him once.
The trial of a Chicago man jailed since October 2007 in connection with a Plainfield murder is set to start Thursday morning. Jury selection for Ricardo Gutierrez's trial started and finished Wednesday. Gutierrez, 23, allegedly gunned down Javier Barrios, who was 18 when he was killed. Barrios, a Romeoville resident, was first shot by his ex-girlfriend, 24-year-old Gabriela Escutia, police said. Escutia allegedly set up a rendezvous with Barrios in a field on Route 59 near a Meijer service station. Gutierrez reportedly joined her for the meeting. Escutia has confessed to shooting Barrios as he sat in his car, according to a complaint for a search warrant. After firing once, the complaint said, the gun jammed. Escutia cleared the gun but …
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
The last of four charged with shooting a man and woman after tying them up in a robbery took a 90-year sentence.
Lauren Vasilakis stared at the man who shot her and remembered what he said before pulling the trigger. "You told me you'd walk out there and never think about me again, Vasilakis told 20-year-old Matthew Edwards. "I promise, you'll remember me the rest of your life," Vasilakis said. The rest of Edwards' life will be spent in prison, unless he manages to reach the age of 101. Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak sentenced the Joliet man to 90 years in the Department of Corrections for murder and attempted murder. Edwards was found guilty of the charges in December. Edwards shot both Vasilakis, 23 and Joshua Terdic in July 2009. He broke into Terdic's apartment and put a bullet in the Channahon man's head. Terdic, who was 21 at the time, died 10 days …
Saturday, February 23, 2013
The week was packed with Drew Peterson, but it looks like we're not going to be seeing so much of him anymore.
It was Drew Peterson all day every day in the week that just ended. It started out with a hearing to see if he needs to have a new murder trial, and that hearing went on for another two days. A college professor and a retired judge both got on the witness stand and told how former Peterson attorney Joel Brodsky not only failed to provide effective counsel at this summer's murder trial, but also committed an ethical violation by entering into a publicity contract with his client. Brodsky's former law partner got up as well and claimed Brodsky physically attacked her in the Chicago office they shared. Even Brodsky had to testify, and told all about the 11 cents he and Peterson made off a website set up to solicit donations for the disgraced …
Friday, February 22, 2013
Drew Peterson finally got out of jail, but only so he could go to prison.
The Will County Sheriff's Department didn't wait long to send Drew Peterson off to start his "life of hardship and abuse." Less than 24 hours after Peterson spoke those words in court and was sentenced to 38 years in prison, staff at the Will County jail had the disgraced ex-Bolingbrook cop packed up, out the door and on his way to Stateville Correctional Center. "Drew Peterson's paperwork for his transfer to Stateville was drawn up within a few hours of his return to (jail) after court yesterday," Deputy Chief Brian Fink of the Will County Adult Detention Facility said in a statement Friday. "The Will County Sheriff's Office transported Mr. Peterson to the (Illinois) Department of Corrections facility at 9:22 this morning without incident…
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Drew Peterson will find out Thursday if he's heading to prison or getting a new murder trial.
The lawyers for convicted wife-killer Drew Peterson argued for two days that he was deprived of a fair trial by an attorney more worried about becoming a media darling than representing his client. Now the arguing is over, and on Thursday Will County Judge Edward Burmila will decide if Peterson gets a do-over on his murder trial or will instead punch a one-way ticket to prison. Peterson attorney Steve Greenberg finished the two day hearing with an emotional argument blaming former co-counsel Joel Brodsky for single-handedly losing Peterson's murder trial. Greenberg said Brodsky disregarded advice from other attorneys on the defense team and insisted on calling the lawyer who represented Peterson's slain third wife, Kathleen Savio, during …
Saturday, February 9, 2013
The friends and families of two slain Joliet men saw their alleged killers in the flesh for the first time.
Terrance Rankins and Eric Glover were strangled to death nearly a month earlier, but just this week their friends and family finally got an in-person glimpse of the two young men and two young women charged with killing them. Adam Landerman, 19, Alisa Massaro, 18, Joshua Miner, 24, and Bethany McKee, 24, were brought to court together for their arraignments Tuesday morning. Each of the four faces six counts of first degree murder in connection with the slaying of Rankins and Glover, both 22. It was the second court appearance for Landerman, Massaro, Miner and McKee, but they were not in court for the prior date. They made that appearance via a closed circuit video hookup from the Will County jail. That was only one of the things going on …
Friday, February 8, 2013
Former Lincoln-Way teacher Ryan Gardner will be examined to see if he was legally insane when he allegedly made threats against district officials.
A former Lincoln-Way Central High School teacher charged with threatening school district officials may have been legally insane at the time of the incident, his lawyer suggested during an arraignment Friday morning in Will County court. Ryan Gardner, 40, most recently a resident of downstate Danville, has been jailed since Jan. 16 on a felony charge of making a telephone threat. Prior to his being processed at the Will County jail, Gardner was receiving psychiatric care at University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago. He had checked himself into the hospital voluntarily. Gardner was hit with the felony charge after he allegedly made a Dec. 6 telephone call to Lincoln-Way School District Deputy Superintendent Thomas Eddy. About a week after …
Tired of the B.S.
9:57 am on Tuesday, March 26, 2013
So, wouldn't the name "I hate white trash" be racist language? You could also include " Read the terms of use you white devils." as posted last night by Georgia O'Keef. more ›