JOLIET – Two and a half years after Eric Glover Jr. and Terrance Rankins were found strangled to death in a house on Hickory Street in Joliet, the fourth and final suspect in their murders will receive his day in court.

Adam M. Landerman, 21, will be the first suspect to leave his fate in the hands of a jury and will do so before a different judge than his co-defendants.

Bethany McKee and Joshua Miner opted for separate bench trials last year before Judge Gerald Kinney; both were found guilty. Alisa Massaro cut a deal and pleaded guilty to lesser charges in exchange for testifying against the others.

Kinney has since retired and Landerman’s case will be tried before Amy Bertani-Tomczak, a circuit judge since 1994. Twelve jurors and four alternates are expected to be chosen Tuesday when the trial is scheduled to start.

On Jan. 9, 2013, Rankins and Glover were lured to Massaro’s house in the 1100 block of North Hickory Street, where they expected to “party” with Massaro and McKee, investigators have said.

Instead, Miner and Landerman were waiting with the young women after the four allegedly made plans to attack and rob them.

Miner strangled Rankins while Landerman allegedly strangled Glover; they got about $100, desecrated the bodies and made plans to dismember them before police interrupted them, according to testimony at previous trials.

“This is one of the most brutal, heinous and upsetting things I’ve ever seen,” then-Joliet Police Chief Mike Trafton told The Herald-News. “Not only the crime scene, but the disregard for common decency toward human beings.”

According to police interviews played at previous trials, Landerman was enthusiastic when Miner proposed robbing the victims unless they brought cigarettes. After they were killed, Landerman brought a hand-held propane torch, a pair of small garden shears, a utility knife, two hand knives, a pair of scissors, a hacksaw and a second blade from his house to help get rid of the bodies.

To show McKee and Massaro the victims were truly dead, Landerman jumped on their backs and "surfed" to show they wouldn't move, Massaro and Miner said during their interviews with authorities. After the bodies were covered with a sheet, Landerman, Massaro and Miner tried to have sex either next to or on top of them, McKee told investigators.

The next day, McKee asked her father for help disposing of the bodies and William McKee notified police. Joliet Police Officer Michael DeVito testified during McKee's trial that he searched the basement and saw Landerman's feet sticking out from behind some wooden paneling propped behind a doorway.

DeVito said Landerman ignored his commands to come out until another officer came to back him up.

“He turned toward me with a grin on his face,” DeVito said.

Like McKee and Miner, Landerman faces life in prison if he is convicted of Glover and Rankins' murders. Massaro is scheduled to be released on parole in January 2018 from her sentence for robbery and concealing a homicide.

She is not expected to be called to testify in Landerman’s trial.

Landerman is being held in the Will County jail on $10 million bond. He filed a complaint last year claiming current conditions for inmates violated state jail regulations. It was dismissed in March after Landerman did not respond to court filings.