Lockport's Double Murder Of Mom, Baby: Jury Selected For Maggio

JOLIET — This week marks four years since the Lockport Police Department discovered the slayings of 32-year-old Ashtin Eaton and her 1-year-old daughter, Hazel Bryant. On Tuesday morning, in Courtroom 405, the jury trial will get underway for first-degree double murder defendant Anthony Maggio, now 30.

The jury was picked on Monday afternoon. Earlier in the morning, Will County prosecutor Christopher Koch suggested that the double murder trial may take up to three weeks. The case is being handled in front of Will County's longest serving judge, Amy Bertani-Tomczak.

She took over Courtroom 405 earlier this year after veteran judge Dave Carlson left the bench to return to private practice, which was more lucrative for him.

As for Maggio, the former Crestwood resident has lived inside the Will County Jail since Lockport police took him away in handcuffs in December 2022.

Maggio was the ex-boyfriend of Ashtin and he was Hazel's father. The murder charges against Maggio were not filed until December 2022, two years after the killings.

The criminal complaint states that Maggio, on Oct. 2, 2020, intended to kill or do great bodily harm to Ashtin Eaton, and strangled her to death.

Born in Joliet, Eaton worked for several years at the Joliet Amazon warehouse. In the death of little Hazel Bryant, who was their daughter, Maggio smothered her to death, also on Oct. 2, 2020, the complaint noted.

As for Maggio's criminal defense counsel, Michael Clancy does not normally practice criminal law in Will County.

His criminal defense practice primarily keeps him around Chicago and Cook County. The website for the Law Offices of Michael F. Clancy states he opened his law firm in 1998, "initially concentrating in defending murder, weapon, and narcotic cases all over the State of Illinois ... I am primarily a trial lawyer who would rather go to trial than negotiate a quick plea. However, I am mindful that negotiations sometimes bring the best results."