Anthony Hackett was an 18-year-old who was shot to death on July 17, 1983, while sleeping in a car parked along Interstate 55 near Wilmington, Illinois. He and his girlfriend had been returning from Great America in Gurnee when the attack occurred. Hackett was shot four times; his girlfriend was raped, bound and gagged, then dumped on a road south of Joliet and later found by a passing motorist.

The assailant was identified as Milton Johnson, who carried out a series of violent attacks in the Joliet area during the summer of 1983. Johnson’s crimes included ambush-style killings, shootings and stabbings; his pattern of violence encompassed multiple victims, both civilians and law enforcement. He was arrested in March 1984 and later tried at the Will County Courthouse, where Hackett’s girlfriend testified. Johnson was convicted of multiple murders, including Hackett’s, and initially sentenced to death; that sentence was subsequently commuted to life in prison.

Are there any readers who recall that stretch of I-55 or saw a car matching this description on the night of July 17, 1983?