Hickory St. Double Murder Baby Daddy Longs For Little Girl

By Joseph Hosey

E.J. Westbrook remembers the moment he heard the mother of his child was jailed on murder charges in connection with a brutal double-slaying in Joliet.

“I just dropped the phone,” said Westbrook. “And then I cried.”

That was in January. His 18-month-old daughter’s mother, Bethany McKee, is still in jail facing murder charges along with three of her pals—Joshua Miner, 24, Adam Landerman, 19, and Alisa Massaro, 19. And Westbrook has only seen his child twice since her mother was locked up.

“When she went to jail, everything went down hill,” he said.

McKee, 18, was supposedly on her way to see Westbrook when she was arrested in Kankakee. She had their young daughter with her in the car when the Kankakee cops took her into custody. The police turned the girl over to McKee’s parents, Teresa and Bill McKee of Shorewood. Westbrook, 16, said he had no idea McKee was headed his way when she was arrested near his home. He also knew nothing of the murders from the night before.

Westbrook did know McKee wasn’t answering her phone, so he called one of her friends and found out what was going on in Joliet.

“She was like, ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, but Bethany’s in jail for murder,’” he recalled.

McKee was in Massaro’s Hickory Street home when Miner and Landerman strangled two men there, police said. McKee and Massaro lured the two men—Eric Glover and Terrance Rankins—to the house by leading them to believe they would have sex, according to police reports obtained exclusively by Patch. Once the guests arrived, police said, Landerman and Miner murdered them, the reports said.

After the killings, Massaro and Miner had sex atop the corpses, the reports said. Miner also planned to keep the dead men’s teeth as trophies after they dismembered the bodies to conceal the killings.

McKee allegedly had her little girl with her in the Hickory Street house at the time of the murders.

"My daughter was in the house when that went on," Westbrook said. "I don't know for sure, but that's what I've been seeing on the internet."

Westbrook still doesn’t believe McKee was involved in the grisly double-slaying.

“I don’t think she did it,” he said. “She didn’t have the heart to do something like that. She was too nice a person. She was nice to everyone.”

But Westbrook also said he hardly recognized McKee when he attended one of her court hearings, and was stunned when he saw her sitting among her three co-defendants in the jury box.

“I couldn’t believe she was hanging out with them,” Westbrook said of McKee's association with Miner, Massaro and Landerman, whom he says he never heard of before the killings.

“They looked like the crew you walk up on, you turn and walk the other way,” he said. “They looked like bad news.”

Westbrook said that after the hearing, he and his mother met with the McKees so he could visit his daughter. He hasn’t seen her since.

“I don’t understand it,” Westbrook said. “All I’m asking for is visitation.”

Bill McKee, acknowledged Westbrook’s complaints but said he is putting the child first.

“As responsible grandparents, we have (her) best interests at heart,” he said. “And at this time, (she) is as happy with the situation as she can be.”

Westbrook conceded that he never established his paternity and has no legal proof he is Cianna’s father, but did show that he had her name tattooed across his chest.

Westbrook said he was 14 and McKee 16 when they met. He and his family had just returned to Illinois after a brief stay in Florida, said his mother, Bernina Westbrook, and were living in Coal City. Westbrook said he and McKee were introduced by a mutual friend. They did not stay together as a couple but still maintained a good relationship throughout their daughter's young life, he said.

“We got along,” he said. “We didn’t argue at all. We always came to an agreement.”

Westbrook said he has not communicated with McKee since she was locked up. And he has lost touch with his daughter now that her grandparents are keeping her from him.

“She’s loved by both sides, she should be shared by both sides,” said Bernina Westbrook.

“She can still see her grandparents. I’m not going to take her away from her grandparents. But she needs to be with her father,” Westbrook said. “If she can’t be with her mother, she needs to be with her father.”

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