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…
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 …
Thursday, March 28, 2013
A defense attorney in the Nightmare on Hickory Street double murder wanted a special prosecuctor appointed and a hearing convened to ferret out a leak, but for now he won't get either one of those things.
A series of stories about the Nightmare on Hickory Street double murder published exclusively by Patch revealed so many disturbing details that a defense attorney wants a special prosecutor appointed and a special hearing held to "determine who the culprit is here." But defense lawyer Chuck Bretz is getting neither of those things—at least for now. Will County Judge Gerald Kinney said Wednesday that he may revisit the issue of a special evidentiary hearing but that he isn't going to order one yet. Bretz and the other attorneys representing two young men and two young women charged with brutal murders of Terrance Rankins and Eric Glover, both 22, backed off on their request for a special prosecutor. The defense attorneys for Adam Landerman…
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…
Friday, March 1, 2013
Judge Gerald Kinney also wants prosecutors and attorneys representing the four murder defendants to investigate the supposed leak.
The judge presiding over the Hickory Street double murder case put a gag order on all the attorneys involved and instructed them to investigate an alleged leak of police reports that led to a series of stories published by Patch. "I don't think it's inappropriate to start the process of saying, 'Where did this come from?'" Judge Gerald Kinney said during a brief hearing Friday morning at the Will County Courthouse. "I do think we need steps to get to the bottom of it," Kinney said. "I don't know who did it but I think we need to make a good faith effort to find out, and where it goes it goes." Joliet lawyer Chuck Bretz, who represents one of the four charged with last month's murder of Terrance Rankins and Eric Glover, both 22, asked …
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Nightmare on Hickory Street, Part 1: After the savage strangling of two young men, two of the accused killers decided to have sex atop the corpses of the victims, police learned.
Joshua Miner remembered his teenage girlfriend confiding “years back that she wanted to have sex with a dead guy,” states a police report documenting last month’s double murder on Hickory Street. That's why Miner got the idea to ask girlfriend Alisa Massaro to have sex with him on the corpses of two men he's accused of helping to kill, police said. Massaro “made a smirk on her face” and said she didn’t want to, according to the reports, but when being questioned by police, she “later acknowledged she and Josh did have sexual intercourse on top of the bodies.” The reports obtained by Patch detail the differing versions of events described by the two young men and two young women—Miner, 24, Massaro, 18, Adam Landerman, 19, and Bethany McKee…
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 …
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 ›