JOLIET— The Will County State’s Attorney’s Office prosecution team led by Christopher Koch called former Joliet Amazon worker Donnie Crittle to testify on Wednesday about a smoke break conversation he had back in 2020 with Lockport double murder defendant Anthony Maggio.
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Back in 2020, Crittle, Maggio and victim Ashtin Eaton all worked together at the Joliet Amazon facility. Crittle testified that he considered Maggio, who was employed as a paramedic, to be his supervisor.
Approximately a month before Eaton was found slain on her kitchen floor in Lockport and her infant daughter Hazel smothered to death on her bed, Crittle had a conversation with Maggio that became the subject of Wednesday’s case presented by Koch.
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“I used to work with him at Amazon,” Crittle told the jury. “He was a supervisor at Amazon. We worked on the safety team together.”
When Crittle worked at Amazon, he drove a forklift and worked in the product receiving area.
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Crittle estimated that the conversation he had with Maggio happened about three to four weeks before the double murders, which happened on Oct. 2, 2020. About a half-dozen employees were gathered around, talking, during their cigarette break at an area of the warehouse known as the smoke shack, when Maggio called Crittle by his first name and asked about the idea of paying him $10,000 to make Ashtin Eaton disappear.
“We was outside in the smoke shack,” Crittle testified. “And we started laughing. I said, what, do I look like a criminal or something?”
According to Crittle, “there was about five or six of us. He looked at me and said it.”
Koch: ‘Do You Commonly Talk About People Disappearing For Money?’
During cross-examination from Maggio’s criminal defense lawyer Michael Clancy of Chicago, Crittle told the courtroom he considered Maggio’s question about making Ashtin Eaton disappear a joke.
Crittle testified he did not think Maggio was being serious at that time.
“You took it as a joke?” Clancy inquired.
“Yes,” Crittle agreed.
As for Crittle, his employment at the Joliet Amazon warehouse ended in late 2020, he told Maggio’s lawyer.
“I got fired. I was, they said, stealing time,” Crittle testified. “They said I was taking unnecessary breaks. Put it that way.”
However, Crittle acknowledged he was one of the “certain people” who knew that Maggio and Eaton “had a little fling going on” at the Amazon facility.
During further questioning from prosecutor Christopher Koch, Crittle was asked if most of the smoke break conversations at Amazon involved conversations about sports, weekend activities and the “women at Amazon.”
“Women at Amazon? Yes,” Crittle agreed.
Koch also asked Crittle if he ever had conversations with other coworkers about the idea of being paid money to make one of their coworkers disappear.
“You were aware that Ashtin Eaton was alive at the time the statement was made?” Koch inquired.
“Yes,” Crittle agreed.
“Do you commonly talk about people disappearing for money?”
Clancy objected to Koch’s question and Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak agreed, sustaining the objection, meaning Crittle did not answer the prosecution’s question.
“You knew Ashtin and Anthony had some sort of relationship?” Koch asked.
“Correct,” he agreed.
Before dismissing the witness, Maggio’s lawyer asked Crittle one last time for his interpretation of Maggio’s question about making Eaton disappear for $10,000.
“I said I took it as a joke and everyone was taking it as a joke, yes.”
New York Blood Stain Analyst Explains How Eaton Died
Paul Kish, one of the country’s most renowned blood-stain analyst experts, was called to the witness stand on Wednesday morning as the final witness for the Will County State’s Attorney’s Office case against Maggio, now 30.
Kish presented the jury with a PowerPoint presentation analyzing the blood stains, spatter and pools of blood found inside 936 Hamilton St. near downtown Lockport, inside Eaton’s apartment. Kush’s presentation showed Eaton’s body sprawled across her kitchen floor. Both of her hands were covered with her blood, and there was a large pool of blood near one of her feet.
According to Kush, all the blood came from the Husky box cutter knife found near her body. Her left wrist was cut wide open, and the wound was nearly 3 inches long.
Kush’s testimony marked the first time during the trial that the jury heard evidence that Eaton was still alive in the kitchen after suffering the knife wound to her wrist. Kush also suggested that Eaton and her assailant struggled on or near the floor of the kitchen; that was where most of the blood spatter was concentrated.
Maggio’s lawyer, Clancy, will begin presenting his case on Wednesday afternoon.
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