Lockport Mom, Baby Hazel Killed Over Child Support: Prosecutors

JOLIET— In his mid to late 20s, Oak Lawn native Anthony Maggio was chasing his dream of becoming a firefighter-ambulance paramedic in the Chicago region, but those dreams ended after Lockport police arrested the Joliet Amazon warehouse worker for the Oct. 2, 2020, Lockport double murder of Maggio's ex-girlfriend, Ashtin Eaton, and their 1-year-old daughter, Hazel Bryant.

During Tuesday morning's opening statements in Will County Courtroom 405 of Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak, prosecutor James Zanayad told the jury that Maggio murdered Ashtin and baby Hazel because he did not want to become burdened with child support payments.

Ashtin died of strangulation and her body was found in her kitchen with a black knife nearby; baby Hazel was later discovered on Ashtin's bed.

"Baby Hazel was face down, butt up, also deceased," prosecutor Zanayad said during the opening statements for Maggio's double first-degree murder trial.

The 1-year-old baby died from smothering, the prosecutor noted.

He indicated that the death scene projected the impression that perhaps Baby Hazel died of an accident and that her mother used the knife to slit her wrists, to take her own life. But this was not the case at all. The autopsy revealed this was a brutal double murder, Zanayad said.

Lockport Police conducted several interviews and learned that Anthony Maggio was a coworker at Amazon and was also Hazel's father. In addition to his romantic relationship with Ashtin Eaton, Maggio also had a fiancée and two more small children of his own, the jury learned.

When Lockport police called Maggio and asked him about baby Hazel, he told them that she was technically his daughter. The police never told Maggio how she had died and Maggio did not once ask the police about Ashtin, Zanayad told the jury.

After the phone call ended, Maggio never told his dad that baby Hazel was dead. Instead, he sat back down and watched TV, according to the prosecutor.

Zanayad told the jury that Maggio left his DNA "at three key locations at the crime scene." The police also recovered hundreds of text messages from Maggio to Ashtin "days before Ashtin and this defendant got into an argument."

Maggio did not want to be obligated through the court system to make routine child support payments, the prosecutor told the jury. Maggio was already in a lot of debt and therefore, he wanted any child support payments for baby Hazel to be kept off the books; that way, it would not negatively impact his prospects of getting hired as a paramedic, the prosecutor outlined.

Once Maggio killed Ashtin and Hazel, that meant the end of his child support payments, the prosecutor remarked.

As for Maggio, his family has hired Michael Clancy, a Chicago criminal defense lawyer. Clancy argued during opening statements that his client did not murder Ashtin and baby Hazel.

"He's innocent," Clancy declared. "He's not guilty. He didn't kill his child. He didn't kill his coworker, the mother of his child."

Clancy said his client was an aspiring paramedic. At the time of the Lockport double murders, Maggio was 26. He grew up in Oak Lawn, where he graduated from high school. Maggio was well on his way to becoming a professional firefighter-paramedic, hoping to get hired with Cicero, "to help people, to save people," Clancy remarked. "That's Anthony Maggio."

Clancy insisted that the Lockport police investigation overlooked crucial evidence that showed someone else was responsible for the double murder.

Clancy told the jury that Maggio worked as an on-duty paramedic at the Amazon plant, where "him and Ashtin became very good friends at work. And mistakes were made, mistakes that don't make him a killer.

"They started a sexual relationship and had a child together," Clancy continued. "And, yes, Anthony made mistakes a lot of people make in this world. He had an affair with a co-worker whom he had a child."

Clancy reminded the jury that Will County's prosecutors needed to prove his client "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." As for the DNA, DNA does not have a time stamp, Clancy suggested. "He was in that apartment 10 days before. They had sex together," Clancy said Maggio acknowledged.

Clancy said that two different DNA samples were found underneath Ashtin's fingernails at the crime scene, and "that's the mystery of this."

The shirt that Ashtin wore at the time of her death had four different male DNA samples "on that shirt. No surprise, his DNA was on that shirt," Clancy said of his client. "What are the other three DNAs?"

The box cutter knife found near Ashtin's body had three different DNA samples on that, according to Clancy.

After being approached by Lockport police, Maggio consented to police interviews, he relinquished his phone, gave them access to his vehicle, his DNA, and always made himself available to help the police as part of their investigation, Clancy explained.

"Because he had no consciousness of guilt because he had nothing to hide," Clancy argued. "And in 2024, he remains innocent there today."

Twice, Bertani-Tomczak has denied a motion from Maggio's defense to allow them to introduce an alternate suspect during the trial.

She also denied his request to be released on electronic monitoring. He remains in custody at the Will County jail.

The first day of Maggio's trial was to continue Tuesday afternoon at the Will County Courthouse.

The trial is expected to last at least two weeks.