Lockport double murder of mother and child: Jury selected for Maggio

JOLIET – This week marks four years since Lockport police discovered the murders of 32-year-old Ashtin Eaton and her 1-year-old daughter Hazel Bryant. The jury trial of first-degree double murder defendant Anthony Maggio, now 30, begins in courtroom 405 on Tuesday morning.

The jury was selected on Monday afternoon. Earlier this morning, Will County Prosecutor Christopher Koch indicated the double murder trial could last up to three weeks. The case will be heard by Will County Senior Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak.

She took over Courtroom 405 earlier this year after veteran Judge Dave Carlson left the bench to return to a more lucrative private practice.

As for Maggio, the former Crestwood resident has been in the Will County Jail since Lockport police took him away in handcuffs in December 2022.

Maggio was Ashtin's ex-boyfriend and he was Hazel's father. The murder charges against Maggio were not filed until December 2022, two years after the murders.

The criminal complaint states that on October 2, 2020, Maggio intended to kill or cause great bodily harm to Ashtin Eaton and strangled her to death.

Eaton was born in Joliet and worked in the Joliet Amazon warehouse for several years. In the death of little Hazel Bryant, her daughter, Maggio also suffocated her on October 2, 2020, the complaint states.

As for Maggio's criminal defense attorney, Michael Clancy doesn't typically practice criminal law in Will County.

His criminal defense practice focuses primarily on Chicago and Cook County. The Law Office of Michael F. Clancy's website states that he opened his law practice in 1998 and “initially focused on defending murder, gun and drug cases throughout the state of Illinois…I am primarily a trial attorney who prefers… “ However, I realize that sometimes negotiations produce the best results.