The longtime friend of a Joliet woman accused in the gruesome 2013 strangling deaths of two men in Joliet testified Thursday that she and her friends decided to rob the men because they needed the money.
"We ran out of cigarettes and had no more money for alcohol," Alisa Massaro testified. "Robbery was the last decision made."
Massaro has already pleaded guilty to taking part in the January 2013 strangling deaths of Eric Glover and Terrance Rankins, both 22. She took the stand at about 10 a.m. to begin offering testimony against McKee.
McKee, 20, is currently on trial in connection with the murders. Adam Landerman and Joshua Miner are also accused of luring Rankins and Glover to a house last year, robbing and strangling them and then playing video games until police arrived.
Massaro testified it was McKee's idea to invite Rankins for a visit because they needed money. She said it was known Rankins would have cash because he was a known drug dealer.
After Rankins arrived with his friend, Eric Glover, another man, Joshua Miner, signaled to the women to leave the room by moving his hand across his throat.
"That meant to get out of the way and let them do what they had to do," she said.
Massaro said she went downstairs with McKee and didn't see what happened after. When she went back up to see what happened, she says the door was locked, then briefly opened by someone and slammed in her face. Behind the door, she said she heard Miner saying "die, die."
On cross-examination, Massaro said she lied to police repeatedly after the crime because she was scared but would have told the truth eventually even without plea deal. Defense attorneys attacked her credibility, pointing to past mental health issues including bi-polar disorder.
Massaro's father, Phillip Massaro, was at home when the two men were killed. On the stand Wednesday, he recalled hearing "wrestling" but said he didn't know what was happening at the time.
The women told Phillip Massaro the noise he heard was a TV falling off a dresser.
In a police interview played Tuesday, McKee told disturbing tales of sex on corpses, liquor-bottle beatings, racial epithets and sick fantasies of wearing a victim’s face as a mask.
