'Hickory Street Killer' faces new murder charges after man found dead in his prison cell

CHICAGO (WLS) -- There may be some accountability for the family of a man who was strangled in prison by an already convicted heinous murderer nearly five months ago.

The Brown County State's Attorney's office has filed a first-degree murder charge against Joshua Miner, 36, alleging he strangled his Western Illinois Correctional Center cellmate, 44-year-old Andrew Ortega.

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Ortega, serving time for a non-violent offense, was housed with Miner, who received a life-sentence after he was convicted of being the ringleader behind the 2013 "Nightmare on Hickory Street" killing of two men in Joliet.

The ABC 7 I-Team first reported on Ortega's death in December after his family raised concerns that months after Ortega's death, no one had been held accountable.

"I am determined to find out what happened to my son," Janet Ortega, Andrew's mother, told the I-Team.

Andrew Ortega was sent to Western Illinois Correctional Center in 2024 after failing a work-release program drug test.

Ortega was in that work-release program after pleading guilty in 2019 to charges stemming from him stealing a credit card from a parked car in Mclean County.

When Andrew arrived at Western Illinois Correctional Center, his mother Janet said he was housed with Joshua Miner.

Janet said, "They placed him in a cell with who they call the Hickory Street murderer from Joliet."

In a Joliet house on Hickory Street back in 2013, Miner lured two men -- 22-year-old friends Eric Glover and Terrance Rankins -- to their deaths.

The men were robbed, strangled, and investigators said Miner planned to dismember their corpses before he was caught by police.

Miner was given a life-sentence, ineligible for parole and was serving his time at the state prison about an hour east of the Missouri border, when Ortega was placed to live in his cell.

On the morning of August 26, Brown County coroner records obtained by the I-Team show guards found Ortega's lifeless body.

An autopsy found he was strangled with an "undershirt/tank top arm strap tightly around [his] neck as a ligature."

Now, nearly five months later, the Brown County State's Attorney has charged Miner with first degree murder. His first court appearance on the charge is set for Feb. 10.

Speaking from her home in Bloomington, Janet said she still can't comprehend what happened to her son.

"It boggles my mind how a human being can do these things," Janet said on Thursday.

The Ortega family first contacted the ABC7 I-Team after months went by with no accountability for Andrew's death, and prison officials shared very little about what happened.

Experts told the I-Team that the Western Illinois Correctional Center was notorious for safety concerns.

"Western has long been a facility that is deeply troubled," said Jennifer Vollen-Katz with the John Howard Association, an independent prison oversight agency that has been operating in Illinois for more than 100 years. "People who are incarcerated [there] routinely communicate to us that they fear for their safety."

The Illinois Department of Corrections, which oversees Western Illinois Correctional Center, told us it "conducted a thorough investigation" but as "this is a pending case, [it has] declined to comment any further."

Janet's pain and agony over the loss of her son is still on full display. If he was still alive today, Andrew's mother said he would be preparing for his release from prison.

"He'll never walk through that door again because somebody didn't do their job," Janet said. "My grandkids are a mess. My son's gone. There's no bringing him back. And there's no rhyme, no reason that it should have happened in the first place."