Joliet Sued For Failing to Follow AG’s Decision to Release Nightmare on Hickory Street Interrogation Videos

JOLIET, IL — The City of Joliet has ignored a decision from the state Attorney General’s Office to release the Nightmare on Hickory Street interrogation videos and now faces a lawsuit in Will County court.

Patch requested the videos from the city back in January 2016. The city refused to turn them over, claiming that doing so would give away “unique or specialized investigative techniques,” specifically “interview techniques.”

The city also maintained that providing the videos would violate the privacy of convicted killers Josh Miner, Adam Landerman and Bethany McKee, and of Alisa Massaro, who was charged with murder but pleaded to robbery and concealing a homicide.

All four videos have already been played publicly in open court.

In March, the attorney general’s office requested that the Joliet provide the videos to Patch but the city has not done so. In fact, city attorney Marty Shanahan has failed to respond to the attorney general, Patch or the lawyer who brought the suit, John Schrock.

“It’s disappointing I didn’t even get a response from the chief legal counsel for the City of Joliet,” Schrock said.

“We had to file this as we received zero response to our letter from Marty Shanahan,” he said. “This is an important issue from a journalism standpoint and for a free press that keeps the citizens informed and is at the heart of our democracy.”

Miner, 28, Landerman, 23, McKee, 22, and Massaro, 23, all were charged with the January 2013 murders of 22-year-olds Terrance Rankins and Eric Glover.

McKee, Massaro, Miner and Landerman were broke and wanted to buy more cigarettes and alcohol, so they hatched a scheme to kill and rob Rankins, whom McKee believed would be carrying drugs and a lot of money.

Miner and Landerman actually killed Rankins and Glover, strangling them to death, but the women were also charged with the killings for their part in the plot and for later partaking in the drugs and money the four took off the bodies.

Miner, McKee and Landerman were sentenced to life in prison. Massaro got five years and will be out in February.

This isn’t the first time Shanahan attempted to withhold information from the public. Last year, Shanahan tried — and failed — to keep police reports on City Councilman Larry Hug getting slapped in a west side bar under wraps.

Clockwise from top left: Josh Miner, Adam Landerman, Bethany McKee and Alisa Massaro