Judge again rejects lower bond for Lockport double-murder defendant

For the second time, a judge rejected a lower bond for a Crestwood man charged with the first-degree murder of a woman and child in Lockport.

As a result, Anthony Maggio, 29, will remain locked up in the Will County jail on a $10 million bond while charged in the slaying of Ashtin Eaton, 32, and her baby, Hazel Bryant, on Oct. 2, 2020.

Prosecutors have alleged that Maggio, who was in a relationship with Eaton and is the father of Bryant, had killed both of them and staged Eaton’s death to look like a suicide.

In a court hearing Friday, Maggio’s attorney, Michael Clancy, criticized the evidence and investigation against his client in order to persuade Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak to lower the $10 million bond. She denied his request and set a new court hearing for Aug. 25.

Clancy said his DNA expert, Karl Reich, determined the evidence linking Maggio to the homicides was flawed, and there was DNA from other men found on Eaton’s fingernails and T-shirt that has not been identified.

“There is no reason that can’t be identified and tested,” Clancy said.

Clancy argued that Eaton’s ex-husband, whom he alleged had a history of domestic violence, should have been considered a suspect in the case. He said police saw the ex-husband had marks and cuts on his hands that he tried to explain was from moving furniture.

Clancy also said that unlike Maggio, the ex-husband and his girlfriend never brought their cellphones with them for examination when the two were interviewed by police.

Will County Assistant State’s Attorney Ashley Kwasneski objected to a lower bond for Maggio. Reich’s analysis of the DNA evidence was based on pure speculation and factual inaccuracies, she said, and that testing showed the majority of the DNA gathered from the crime scene belonged to Maggio.

Kwasneski said investigators with the Lockport Police Department were able to exclude Eaton’s ex-husband as a suspect, and there was no blood found from him at the scene.

“The evidence pointed directly to Anthony Maggio,” she said.

Kwasneski recommended against a lower bond for Maggio because Eaton has a second child, who is not Maggio’s child, who is “terrified” of him. She said that the child’s safety would be at risk if Maggio was released from jail.

Clancy argued that the child only ever expressed fear of Eaton’s ex-husband based on the police interviews he’s watched.

Clancy filed two motions that asserted Maggio is a licensed paramedic. However, Mike Claffey, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Public Health, said his paramedic license expired Dec. 31, 2021.

Maggio was employed by the Cicero Fire Department, but he was put on paid leave July 14, 2021, because he was “under investigation by an outside agency regarding a serious criminal matter,” according to a letter from former Cicero Fire Chief Michael Piekarski. The letter was obtained in a Freedom of information Act request.

In another letter sent two days later, Maggio was informed that he was terminated because he had “unsatisfactory character” based on answers he gave during a polygraph examination, and he “intentionally omitted required information.”