McKee told police she held baby while watching victim killed

JOLIET – Bethany McKee told police she was holding her baby while she watched Terrence Rankins being killed.

Video of McKee's interview with Joliet Detectives Stephen Diehl and Tim Powers was played in court Tuesday during the second day of her trial for the murder of Rankins and his friend Eric Glover in January 2013.

McKee, 20, said she knew Rankins from Joliet West High School and he offered to sell her marijuana before "coming to party" with McKee and her friend, Alisa Massaro, at Massaro's house in the 1100 block of North Hickory Street on Jan. 9, 2013.

McKee said Massaro's on-off boyfriend Joshua Miner proposed robbing Rankins unless he brought cigarettes to Massaro's second-floor apartment.

"I thought they were kidding around ... I didn't think it would happen," McKee said during the interview.

Rankins arrived with his friend, Glover, whom none of the four had met before. Glover told McKee he thought her then 18-month-old daughter was cute and talked about his own 2-year-old daughter for a few minutes, she said in the interview.

After Landerman offered McKee and Massaro a drink of soda, the women prepared to go downstairs with McKee's daughter while Miner jumped Rankins. Landerman then began choking Glover from behind, she told police.

McKee went downstairs where Massaro's father was sleeping on a couch. He allegedly questioned her but did not investigate the racket upstairs, which she described as thumping that lasted for a few minutes.

McKee took her daughter to a friend's house and bought cigarettes and gas before the four suspects went to buy cocaine, she told police. They allegedly returned to the apartment where the bodies had been left and proceeded to kick, punch and bludgeon them.

McKee said Miner and Landerman used racial epithets while beating on the bodies.

On the video, McKee told detectives Miner proposed putting a mattress on top of the bodies so he and Landerman could have sex with Massaro there. McKee stated she passed out in the next room and did not witness any sexual contact among the other suspects, though Massaro told her the next day Miner choked her while unsuccessfully trying to have intercourse.

"This is really twisted," McKee told Diehl and Powers on the video recording.

McKee ran errands the next morning before she and Massaro smoked marijuana and ate a frozen pizza before everyone returned. Police believe Landerman brought tools to dismember the bodies.

Officer Nicholas Amelio testified earlier Tuesday that small garden shears, a utility knife, two hand knives, a pair of scissors, a hacksaw and a second blade were found near Rankins' body, along with a hand-held propane torch.

McKee spoke with her father to ask for help getting rid of the bodies, but William McKee notified police. Bethany McKee had picked up her daughter when she saw police surrounding the house and drove to Kankakee, where she was arrested.

Landerman and Miner are awaiting separate trials. Massaro pleaded guilty to lesser charges and agreed to testify against the others.

On the video recording, McKee told Diehl and Powers she felt threatened into going along with the plan to rob her friend.

"[If I tried to stop it] all three of us would've been dead. I know how Josh is. I know I would've been dead," she said.

Several of the victims' family members left the courtroom when the evidence technician began to testify.

Those who remained sat in a courtroom that was silent for 12 minutes and 22 seconds as prosecutor John Connor showed Amelio and Judge Gerald Kinney a video recording Amelio had made at the crime scene. The screen was turned away from the courtroom audience.