Hickory St. Nightmare Killer Landerman Tells Judge It's 'Wrong' to Give Him Life in Prison

The last of the Nightmare on Hickory Street killers remaining in the county jail stood before the judge and told her it was wrong to send him to prison for the rest of his life.

“It’s wrong,” Adam Landerman, 22, said to Will County Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak during his sentencing hearing Friday. The convicted double murderer did concede, “I’m not saying I shouldn’t be here.”

Judge Bertani-Tomczak informed Landerman she did not have a choice.

“That’s what the law is, that’s the sentence I have to give you,” the judge said. “You’re probably wondering why there is a sentencing hearing.”

Bertani-Tomczak told Landerman the hearing gave him — and the families of the two men he was convicted of killing — a chance to speak publicly about the case. When presented with that opportunity, Landerman embarked on a meandering, enigmatic statement about how he wished he had laid down his own life to save 22-year-olds Terrance Rankins and Eric Glover, the two men strangled to death in the Hickory Street Nightmare house in January 2013.

“I wish that I sacrificed myself to save them, but I didn’t,” Landerman said. “I was a coward.”

Landerman and three of his friends — Joshua Miner, 27, Bethany McKee, 21, and Alisa Massaro, also 21 — conspired to rob Rankins and Glover. Landerman and his friends had been partying at Massaro’s Hickory Street home but were broke and ran out of cigarettes and liquor.

McKee, who was in a sexual relationship with Rankins, suggested inviting him over and relieving him of his drugs and money. To the surprise of the young men and women who were plotting to kill him, Rankins arrived at the death house with his lifelong friend Glover.

Landerman, the son of Joliet police Sgt. Julie Larson, told detectives during his interrogation that he and Miner planned to start the robbery after the group finished off a bottle of tequila. When the bottle was empty, Miner strangled Rankins and Landerman throttled Glover.

After Glover and Rankins were killed, Miner and Massaro had sex atop the dead men’s bodies, according to police reports obtained exclusively by Patch.

Read all the stories and watch every video in the series, Josh Miner: The Nightmare Revealed:

• The Nightmare Revealed: Hickory Street Strangler Josh Miner Tells All
• Part I: Josh Miner Sawed Tongue in Half, Wanted to Transform Into Vampire Clown ‘Freak’
• Part II: Josh Miner Says He Was ‘Too Slow-Witted’ To Be Charles Manson Murder Mastermind
• Part III: Nightmare on Hickory Street Gals Got ‘Bogus’ Deal, Says Josh Miner, Even the Woman Doing Just 5 Years
• Part IV: Cop’s Kid Made Up Sex On Bodies Story To Trick Detectives Into Thinking He’s Crazy: Miner
• Part V: Hickory Street Killings Were Nothing But A Fight Gone Too Far: Miner
• Part VI: No Future: Josh Miner Says He’s ‘Not Living ... Just Existing’

In the wake of the slayings, Miner also spoke of flaying Glover and wearing his face like a mask, McKee told detectives during an interrogation at the Kankakee Police Department.

Landerman took part in abusing the bodies as well. When questioned by detectives, “Miner described Landerman’s actions as surfing on the bodies,” and told how “they released a gasp of air, and possibly feces as well, as he stated it smelled,” according to a report.

Landerman reportedly told police he helped Miner “hog tie” one of the dead men with dirty laundry — just in case the corpse came back to life — then “heard a gasp or ‘zombie noise’ from the victim and then didn’t hear anything else from the victim. He realized then the man had been killed.”

A jury found Landerman guilty of murdering both Rankins and Glover at the conclusion of his trial in June.

During the trial, one of Landerman’s attorneys, April Simmons, had tried to portray the 6-foot-4 Landerman as small, frightened and childlike, and under the sway of the older, more dominant Miner.

Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow countered that Landerman is actually “arrogant,” sophisticated, “cunning,” “selfish” and “demonic.”

Landerman now shares the same fate as McKee and Miner, who have already been convicted and are serving life sentences in prison.

Massaro was much more fortunate, as she wriggled her way out of the murder case last year by copping a plea to reduced charges of robbery and concealing homicides. She will be released from prison in less than two and a half years.

Massaro agreed to testify against her partners-in-crime but only took the stand at McKee’s trial.

Glover’s mother, Nicole Jones, called Landerman’s statement a “bunch of bull.” Rankins’ mother, Jamille Kent, said Landerman showed he was “selfish” and “inconsiderate.”

“He never did say he was sorry for what he did,” Kent said.

“He may as well as not said anything,” the bereft mother said, adding, “Everything was about himself.”