Joliet Township man, aka Spiderman, gets 78 years for torture, murder of his girlfriend

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February 13

JOLIET – Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow announced Wednesday (Feb. 13, 2008) that a man who brutally beat his girlfriend to death inside his Joliet Township apartment over an extended period in July 2005 has been sentenced to 78 years in prison.

John Hall, 33, of the Preston Heights area of Joliet Township, was convicted in September 2007 of first-degree murder, concealing a homicidal death and arson. Circuit Judge Carla Alessio Policandriotes handed down the sentence on Wednesday afternoon.

Hall, a local drug dealer and rap musician who went by the name of Spiderman, attempted to conceal the murder by burning his victim’s body on a wood pile in a rural area in Kankakee County. He also destroyed physical evidence of his crime by torching the apartment where he killed 20-year-old Rose Bailey.

Testimony during the week-long trial revealed that Hall beat Bailey, struck her in the head with a clothes iron, slammed her fingers in a door hinge and tied her up with speaker wire and put her in his bathtub. Hall was angry with Bailey because she took between $100 and $120 from him. The beating occurred at his apartment on Zarley Boulevard overnight on July 1, 2005.

“This was a horrific murder committed by a sadistic killer, who tortured a defenseless young woman and viciously beat her to death,” State’s Attorney Glasgow said. “The sentence John Hall received today ensures that this vile monster will remain behind bars for the rest of his life.”

One of Hall’s girlfriends testified during the trial that she was in the apartment on the night Bailey was killed and was present when he beat her for hours and struck her with the iron. Hall refused to allow her to help Bailey and rejected her plea to take the dying victim to the hospital. Hall also threatened to harm the witness and her family if she told anyone about the beating.

Another of Hall’s girlfriend’s testified that she had been beaten by Hall and burned on her back with a clothes iron. And yet another girlfriend testified that Hall beat her in a liquor store parking lot and broke her nose. 

Glasgow credited his assistant state’s attorneys – lead prosecutor Dede Osterberger, Jessica Colon-Sayre and Chris Messina – for their expert trial work that secured a conviction and a lengthy sentence that protects the public. Glasgow also praised the Will County Sheriff’s Department for a first-rate investigation that brought a killer to justice.