Nightmare on Hickory Street Killer Wants Judge to Reverse Guilty Verdict

A Joliet police officer’s son who was found guilty of the Nightmare on Hickory Street killings wants the judge to reverse the jury’s verdict.

The attorneys for Adam Landerman would also be willing to take their case to trial again, according to a motion filed in Will County court.

Landerman, 22, was the last of the Nightmare on Hickory Street killers to go on trial for murdering two Joliet men, Terrance Rankins and Eric Glover, in January 2013. A jury found Landerman guilty in June.

Landerman and three of his friends — Joshua Miner, 27, Bethany McKee, 21, and Alisa Massaro, also 21 — conspired to rob Rankins and Glover, both 22. Landerman and his pals 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 robbing 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.

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’

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.

The freaky four proceeded to abuse the dead men’s bodies, and Miner and his occasional girlfriend, Massaro, had sex atop the corpses of Glover and Rankins.

Landerman’s lawyers contend, among other things, that the only evidence against him was a video of his interrogation by detectives. The audio accompanying the video was of extremely poor quality, and jurors were provided with transcripts of what was supposedly said by Landerman and the detectives.

“The transcript was read by most of the jury without any regard to the video that was simultaneously being played,” Landerman’s lawyers said in their filing. “The actions taken with the words of Mr. Landerman can be interpreted differently. The court in its ruling did not allow for the opportunity for the jury to make their distinct interpretation.”

McKee and Miner have already been convicted and are serving life sentences in prison. Massaro 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.

If his conviction is not reversed and he is denied a new trial, Landerman will also be sentenced to life in prison.