Crestwood man gets life sentence for murder of Lockport woman, toddler

A Will County judge sentenced a Crestwood man to serve the rest of his natural life in prison after a jury convicted him of murdering a Lockport woman and their 14-month-old child in 2020.

On Friday, Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak handed down the life sentence for 30-year-old Anthony Maggio. During an October jury trial, Maggio was found guilty of strangling Ashtin Eaton, 32, and staging her death to look like a suicide.

Maggio also was found guilty of smothering their toddler daughter, Hazel Bryant, to death.

The murders were committed Oct. 2, 2020, in Eaton’s Lockport apartment on South Hamilton Street, prosecutors said.

During Friday’s sentencing hearing, Eaton’s mother, Shirley Onderisin, looked at Maggio with tears in her eyes and said that a “monster” came into the lives of her family Oct. 2, 2020.

“That monster was you,” Onderisin said.

She told Maggio that he didn’t have a heart and he took “two beautiful lives” from her. She said she wanted to know why.

“How do you kill your own flesh and blood? That makes you evil,” Onderisin said.

Onderisin said she knew in her heart that Maggio was responsible for the murder of her daughter and her grandchild because no one else would have wanted to kill them.

Onderisin and dozens of other family members wore camouflage T-shirts, which is what Eaton was wearing at the time of her death.

Will County prosecutors said Maggio, who was burdened with debt, was motivated to kill Eaton and Hazel to avoid paying child support for Hazel. During the trial, jurors learned that Maggio was already in a relationship with Marcelina Baliczek, 28, and had an affair with Eaton that resulted in Hazel’s birth.

When Bertani-Tomczak gave Maggio the chance to speak at his sentencing hearing, he called the deaths of Eaton and Hazel a “horrific tragedy.”

However, Maggio said, “I am an innocent man.”

Maggio said the person responsible for the killings “walks among you free.”

Maggio claimed his constitutional rights had been violated and that prosecutors lied in their case against him. He said he expects his innocence will be proven.

As Will County sheriff’s deputies escorted Maggio from the courtroom, he looked at his family sitting in the courtroom gallery, smiled and winked at them.

Bertani-Tomczak was told by Will County Assistant State’s Attorney Chris Koch that Maggio would have to face a natural life sentence in prison with no parole by law.

Maggio’s attorney, Michael Clancy, argued that the mandatory life sentence for his client is unconstitutional and “flies in the face” of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution regarding cruel and unusual punishment.

At the sentencing hearing, Eaton’s cousin, Lita Kasper, said Eaton fought not only for her life but for the life of Hazel and her other daughter, Jessica Eaton, now 15 years old, who was the first to discover the death of her mother.

Forensic experts testified at Maggio’s trial that evidence in the case showed Ashtin Eaton had struggled while she was strangled. Prosecutors said Maggio cut her wrist with a knife to make it seem as if she died by cutting herself instead of strangulation.

Kasper said she hopes that when Maggio closes his eyes, he sees Eaton “laying on the floor” where she was found dead. She said she hopes Hazel’s face “haunts your nightmares.”

Jenny Seaborg, Ashtin Eaton’s aunt, said Maggio knew Eaton was a “sweet person” and it was “sick what you did.”

“You’re a monster,” Seaborg said.

Seaborg said Jessica Eaton will be scarred for life after discovering her mother’s body. She said Maggio’s actions were “selfish and cruel.”

“I thought paramedics were supposed to save lives, not take them,” Seaborg said.

Maggio worked as a paramedic for an Amazon facility in Joliet, where he had met Ashtin Eaton, who was an employee at the facility.

He also was a probationary firefighter-paramedic for Cicero but was fired for “unsatisfactory character” and other issues, according to records from Cicero.

Dorothy Seaborg, the grandmother of Ashtin Eaton and great-grandmother of Hazel, said there has to be a “special place in hell” for someone who takes the life of a mother and her child.

In November, Clancy filed a motion that claimed constitutional violations should grant Maggio a new trial. A key point in the motion was that Bertani-Tomczak had denied a request from the defense team to introduce Ashtin Eaton’s ex-husband as an alternate suspect in the case.

Bertani-Tomczak denied Clancy’s motion for a new trial Friday.