November 15, 2024
State | Northwest Herald
State

Joshua Miner sentenced to life in Joliet Hickory Street murders

By BRIAN STANLEY

FILE - This undated booking photo provided by the Will County Sheriff's Office in Joliet, Ill., shows Joshua Miner. Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday, Sept. 22, 2014, in Joliet for Miner in a grisly double murder in Joliet, weeks after a judge found a co-defendant guilty. Miner, 26, was one of four people arrested after the bodies of Eric Glover and Terrence Rankins were found strangled with plastic bags over their heads in a Joliet home in January 2013. (AP Photo/Will County Sheriff's Office, File) (AP)

JOLIET - It was already determined Joshua Miner would receive a life sentence for the murders of Eric Glover Jr. and Terrance Rankins.

But Judge Gerald Kinney told Miner "there was a time (he'd) be facing the death penalty," while pronouncing sentence Wednesday.

Kinney said he found it impossible to comprehend two people were murdered for "a gain so minimal."

"To take two lives for pocket change, cigarettes and drugs ... the only word I have for it is senseless," Kinney said.

Miner chose not to speak during Wednesday's sentencing. Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow, however, said Glover and Rankins' deaths resulted from "the convergence of four people with no conscience, no empathy, no remorse."

"It created a black hole on Hickory Street," Glasgow said.

Glasgow told Kinney that when Miner was a child, he choked his sister unconscious when she changed the channel while they were watching television.

"His mother called him her 'little Jekyll and Hyde,'" Glasgow said. "How prophetic."

On Jan. 9, 2013, Rankins and Glover were lured to an apartment in the 1100 block of North Hickory Street by Alisa Massaro and Bethany McKee. The victims were strangled by Miner and Adam Landerman, authorities said.

All four suspects were charged with murder. Massaro pleaded guilty to lesser charges in exchange for agreeing to testify against the others.

McKee was found guilty in a separate trial and sentenced to life in prison. Landerman is awaiting trial.