Riley Fox

Daddy Dearest – A miscarriage of Justice

Riley Ann Fox was born on the 31st march 2001

She was a sweet bright bubbly little 3-year-old when her life came
A tragic end.
Today we discuss how a father was jailed for an unimaginable crime
Against his own daughter and how that came to be
This is the story of Riley Fox

Riley’s parents Kevin and Melissa Fox

met while both were in high-school, the two would cross paths during a
volleyball game in the small town of Wilmington Illinois
the two hit it off and they started dating
Their relationship would evolve quickly, with the two spending every
possible moment together, even vowing to make their relationship work
with Kevin headed off to college at Illinois State University in Chicago
However just after Kevin left for university Melissa, then 18, would find out
she was pregnant
upon hearing the news, Kevin decided to return home and the couple would
eventually wed
They both knew they wanted to raise their children in Wilmington
Kevin Fox 20 had grown up in the small town all of his life
It had also been his family’s home for generations before him

Wilmington is 60 miles south west of Chicago

It’s a nice quaint little city Nestled along historic Route 66
It’s known for its picturesque parks and the beautiful Kankakee River
The city has the charm of a small town but, with all of the big city amenity
The couple thought it would be the perfect place to raise their children –
there was hardly any crime and most people still slept with their doors
unlocked -that’s how safe they felt

In 1997 Melissa would give birth to their first child a son named Tyler
followed a few years later with Riley
The couple settled into married life and by all accounts they loved being
parents to their two children
Kevin worked as a union painter while Melissa was a stay at home with the kids.
Life was good for the young couple they lived in a lovely three-bedroom house on
South Outer Drive. A nice up and coming area

June 5th 2004

The weekend of June 5 and 6, Melissa Fox had left Wilmington to participate
in an Avon breast cancer walk in Chicago. That Saturday night, she stayed at
a campsite with friends in Skokie. It was one of the first times she had spent
the night away from the kids, but for her, it was a worthy venture

That Saturday night, Kevin would also go out, He attended a street festival in
Chicago with a friend and one of Melissa’s brother Tony

He left Tyler and Riley with Melissa’s mother, Sandy Rossi.

After the festival the Trio headed to a nearby restaurant where they stayed till about

10.30 pm

Kevin had only had a few drinks during the festival and at the restaurant, and by the
time he was ready to drive home to Wilmington he said he

was sober.
Kevin arrived back at his mother in laws home at approx. 12:50 a.m. to pick up the
kids, he wanted to take them home -so he could get them up early the next morning.,
as he wanted to drive to Chicago to watch Melissa cross the finish line at the cancer
event.

Arriving back home Kevin

Remembered Melissa had washed bed sheets that day and they were still in the
dryer

So, he just decided to just let the kids sleep in the living room

Partly because it was late and he was too tired to make the beds up

Kevin laid Tyler on the single seat couch and Riley was put on the main lounge

He laid a blanket on each child

And then went outside to smoke a cigarette on the front porch,

After finishing his cigarette, he came back inside, and locked the front door behind
him

Kevin then went to his room turned on the TV and fell into a deep sleep.

He awoke the next morning at around 7:50am to Tyler nudging him

Saying Riley was gone.

Still half asleep and not overly concerned at the time… (As the kids often played
hide-and-seek,) Kevin got up and went into the living room, where he saw the
blanket, he had put on Riley the night before was still on the couch
But he did notice the front door was open (assuming Tyler may have opened it
looking for Riley?). He began walking around the house calling out Riley's name, he
checked in all the rooms and went to the back door which was open

This didn’t bother Kevin too much because the back door lock was broken at the
time and had been for a few months, so to keep it closed the family usually placed a
washing basket in front of it, the washing basket was pushed aside but it was close
to the door -he looked out they back, but found no sign of Riley.

. To make matters worse, an officer said he overheard Melissa (Riley's mother)

scolding Kevin, saying "you better tell me if you did something stupid!"

The kids sometimes went next door to play Kevin thought to himself!! So, he decided
to go and have a look… he preceded to the front door of the house, but he didn’t
hear any movement coming from inside.

Thinking it might be too early to knock on the door? he decided to go home and just
call them on the phone instead, after a quick call it was confirmed they hadn’t seen
Riley either

By this stage 40 minutes had pasted, so with growing worry Kevin decided to called
411 Instead of 911 - Thinking 911 was only for extreme emergencies.

Kevin was still in the mindset that Riley must’ve just wandered off? she
couldn’t have gone far? Thinking, besides nothing bad happens Wilmington?

The dispatcher who received Kevin's 411 call was a local police officer

And He knew the family – note - remember Wilmington is only a small community –
the police force is made up of about a dozen officers including a detective

Kevin explained the situation – how he couldn’t find Riley, and he was worried she
may have wondered off?
So, the officer told him, he would come right over

The officer drove over to the Fox’s residence, were Kevin and the officer would
initiate a search of the area

By this time the news had starting to spread around town that a little girl was
missing… also, by this point some of Kevin’s family members, had arrived to help
search too

In a separate call, kelvins Neighbour from across the street would also call the police
to report a suspected break in into their home, yet nothing could be found missing.

A general description was given out to searches

With what Riley was last seen wearing

a white T-shirt with a pink flamingo on it and pink capri pants.

Soon neighbours, police, and volunteers were swarming the area in search of Riley

While out searching Kevin would receive a call from Melissa – this is when he told
her about Riley being missing!!

Panicked Melissa and a friend headed straight back to Wilmington

Upon arriving home Melissa noticed

People were everywhere

Scared and confused – she found Kevin to get the latest update on Riley

It was during this first encounter with one another that a police officer overheard

Melissa say to Kevin, quote “you better have not done anything stupid”

By now more 500 people were out scouring the area, some were on horseback,
others out on bicycles and all-terrain vehicles.

By 2.30 pm that day – After searching all morning and still No sign of the little girl
The police decided to activate an “Amber Alert”, for Riley

Sadly, though before the amber alert could go out

The terrible news would come in that everyone had been dreading!!

At 3 pm A Wilmington mother and her daughter were out helping with the
search when they decided to widen their search a little further, they
ventured into the Forsythe Woods, a sprawling forest reserve.

As the women approached the banks of the river, she noticed something that
looked like a plastic bag

It wasn’t until she got closer that she realized what she had found.

It was the body of a small child lying face down in the water

Wilmington crime scene investigator would arrive on scene within minutes

After the call

The little body of Riley had been found, she was lying face down in the cold,
murky water

Her once white flamingo T-shirt, was now brown soaked with mud and dirt

There she lay cold, stiff and naked from the waist down

Her mouth had been covered with duct tape, and her hands were bound
together

From that first moment the police had arrived on the scene,
Would begin what can only be described as a huge miscarriage of justice

For everyone involved

key pieces of evidence were overlooked not just at the crime scene, but
throughout the whole investigation

While I won’t go into too much details now, we will discuss crucial parts of

Riley’s investigation as we get into the case

A search of the area was conducted

Where the police did collect a few items

Including a pair of sneakers found ½ mile from riley body

They appeared to have not been in the water long

Wilmington police Would ask the Foxes to come down to the station

Unaware that their daughter had been found at the time

They did so… officers would separate the couple and questioned them individually

They questioned Melissa mostly about Kevin.

After about an hour, Kevin and Melissa were reunited.

It was at this point, that officers informed the couple that their daughter ‘s body had
been found Dead in the nearby nature reserve

Melissa went into shock and Kevin just collapsed, screaming hitting the walls

Completely losing it!

The police didn’t elaborate about how Riley had been found
At that time the Foxes couldn’t process much anyway, the shock of finding out the
news that their daughter was dead – was too much for them to process

They were told to go home and be with their family!!

The next day the Foxes would return to the police station, where the police would
ask to collect their fingerprints, DNA and the clothing Kevin was wearing from the
night before.

This is when the couple were introduced to Will County sheriff’s detectives
Scott Swearengin who was taking over the case

And when the couple would finally learn the true fate of their daughter

They were told that their daughter had been sexually assaulted and it
appeared she been thrown from the bridge overlooking the forked river.

She had died from homicidal drowning, because both her hands had been bound with duct tape along with her

mouth, making it unable to swim or save herself

The family couldn’t believe it?

Wilmington is so safe – they had so many questions swirling around in their

head, nothing made sense. They could hardly process that their sweet
daughter was no longer with them, let alone, that she had been taken by a

And murdered by a monster

How could someone come into their home and take their child?

They were told the medical examiner had collected “samples of DNA from
Riley’s body- that were going to be sent off to Illinois State Police crime lab
for analysis.
The investigation

Although the Foxes didn't know it at the time, but from the onset Detective Scott
suspected Riley’s death had been an accident covered up by Kevin

in the following weeks, he played the supportive good cop

Melissa and Kevin understood that family had to be looked into first, and
they wanted to help police in any way possible

they just wanted the police to hurry up and clear them so they could find out
who was responsible for hurting their baby?

On June 22, 2004, 16 days after Riley's body was discovered, detective Scott asked the
Foxes if Tyler would like to go to a facility? That offered free counselling.

Instead they were met with a lady named Mary Jane Pluth, who was a forensic interviewer
hired by wills county

who introduced herself as a counsellor she sought the Foxes' permission to ask Tyler a few
questions including if he woke up at all on the night of Riley's disappeared?

They gave their permission and Kevin signed a consent form, which he did not read at the
time. If he had he would’ve realised the true intent of the meeting

It was a for a VSI interview organised by wills county detective

The goal of a VSI is to extract helpful information from a vulnerable witness to assist in a
criminal investigation, while detectives watched from behind a glass window
It started off relaxed and friendly by her asking his dislikes and hobbies and
things of that nature – like if he had seen or heard anything that night?

However, the questions quickly shifted to what Kevin did or didn’t do that
night. And they continued along that line of questioning, the boy was asked
approximately 176 times about his father’s behaviour that night – by the end
of the interview the little boy was left crying. Not wanting to answer any
more of their questions.

Why the couple were concerned, that Tyler was visibly upset, they put it
down to Tyler being traumatised about losing his sister

Kevin and Melissa were still not aware that police were only focusing on
Kevin at this stage.

Little happened in the investigation during the next few months

Except unbeknownst to the Kevin and Melissa the police where watching the couple very
closely

They attended Riley’s funeral armed with video cameras

Secretly watching Kevin’s demeanour

They also noted the couple did not appear to be acting like a normal grieving couple

As the police would have expected anyway? Note -As we all know – NO two people will
grieve in the same way.

The couple had purchased a new car, Melissa had got a new haircut and the couple took a
family vacation to Las Vegas
With the new car and the holidays Rumours started to spread around the small town that
the family were spending money donated to help find Riley’s killer. Accusations were even
printed in the local newspaper

Of course, None of the rumours turned out to be true.

The two trips were taken to attend weddings that had been planned and paid for long
before Riley had been murdered

And the family openly admitted why they traded in their Ford Escape- because it reminded
them to much of Riley

The community that had once, supported the family were slowly starting to turn on the

grieving couple, and believe that they could be involved in their daughter’s murder

The police had no other suspects in their sights – and lack of evidence it only intensified the
polices theory, that Kevin was involved

But by the time the truth was reported, it was too late: the damage had been done.

in September Melissa learned from a friend that a child had been abducted from her home in
LaPorte, Indiana, on September 12 which is roughly an hour and half distance between the
two places

she went to Detective Scott who was handling the case

where she reported the matter and asked him to look into it?

She was taken aback when she found out he wasn’t aware of the child abduction but was
more concerned with the lack of interest he showed to whether there could be a potential
connection.?

Next, a friend told Melissa that she had seen the police driving the Foxes old car
Only learning Later, that the detectives had identified a sport utility vehicle (SUV)
similar to the one they owned on a nearby Mobil station's surveillance video

They night riley was taken, so police were driving it past the same petrol station to
see if it matched

Suspected Kevin

5 months had pasted since Riley was found murdered and still no leads insight

The public were demanding Answers, it also didn’t help that there was a

a huge election campaign going on in Will County at the time for the position of a new State's
Attorney's

the current state attorney Jeff Tomczak was up for re-election and going head to
head against his opponent Jim Glasgow – whom he had bad blood with

but, definitely didn’t help his campaign having an unsolved murder of a child in his
Jurisdiction. it’s been speculated, what happened next – was motivated to try and secure re
election

five months after Riley’s murder

At 7 p.m. on October 26, 2004, Detective Scott called Kevin and Melissa asking them to come
down to the station, he wanted to talk to them about a break in the case

Excited, but tired, Kevin had been up since 4.30 am that day with his job…so the couple

drove to the police station Hoping, they were going there to find out once for all who had

murdered their child

They quickly came to the realisation, this was not the case

The couple were met with a somewhat friendly demeanour

Then, they were separated

Kevin was taken into an interrogation room.

This is Where Kevin would spend the next 14 hours straight enduring endless hours of

Threats, Intimidation and mentally abused

Out of those 14 hours only 20 minutes were ever taped.

It started off with police accusing Kevin of Killing Riley?

outraged; he started crying, jumping from his seat, he tried to get up and leave

when he was abruptly told to “sit your ass down.”

Many times, he would ask for a lawyer, which was ignored

They insisted they video footage of his vehicle at a gas station at 4.30 am the morning
Riley went missing

Kevin denied it; he knew it want true.

All while Melissa sat in the waiting room

After hours had passed without seeing her husband

She began kicking on the locked door and yelling for someone to come and talk to her.

When They did finally come, they told her that they believed Kevin had killed Riley.

Melissa told them they were crazy, Kevin would never do that, she didn’t believe them
for even a minute – she demanded to see Kevin

At about midnight, the officers reunited the two Kevin was pale, and looked mentally
drained

She wrapped her arms around him asking if he was ok?

The police interrupted them saying Kevin couldn’t leave until he agreed to a polygraph
test – which Kevin welcomed to help clear his name
at1:30 a.m., Kevin took the polygraph test, with the examiner telling him he had failed
straight after completion. (At trial, an expert witness testified that the polygraph results
were fabricated.)

Kevin could not believe it. it must be a mistake? He insisted.

At this point Kevin was falling apart because he could not believe he failed the
polygraph

Detective Scott told Kevin that if he did not admit to killing Riley, he would fill out the
arrest form for first-degree murder.

Meanwhile the supervising officer Hayes was there threatening him that he knew
people in prison and would make sure that other inmates raped Kevin every day.

While Kevin sat there trying to process all of this officer would come and go out of the
room

Making threats of rape or Kevin being bashed in jail

Telling him he had no choice but to cooperated with the police

The finally tipping point for Kevin was when Scott Swearengen returned. With a stack of
photos in a file, they were picture of Riley’s dead body in full rigor mortis.

Police told him they are offering him a one-time deal, admit it was an accident

Or we are charging you with first degree murder

Breaking down

Kevin said at that point he felt he had no choice but to go along with an accident story.
He thought if he did, he could go home the next day and clear his name

Tired, emotional, all while still grieving for the loss of his daughter

He said when I saw the pictures . . . I don’t even know how to describe it.
seeing you baby daughter dead, with dirt and mud on her face

It just breaks you, in a way I can’t even describe. He was done

In every sense of the word, he couldn’t sit there any longer

He had no fight left in him. He just told them what they wanted to hear

This is when Kevin Confessed to the murder of his own daughter

He told officers he accidentally hit Riley with the bathroom door, and she fell back and
hit her head on the bathtub
Since officers had not found Riley's underwear, they asked Kevin where he had put
them? He replied that it was in the creek, but the officers told him he couldn't say that
(they had searched the creek unsuccessfully).

So, he made up a story of driving home and throwing them in

store dumpster…. knowing that the detail would not check out.

He Finished his story with he went home and left the front and back doors open and
went to sleep to cover up the accident

Later that morning, Kevin was taken to the Will County jail where he met with a lawyer.
He immediately renounced his “confession.” He told her what happened during the
interrogation, but it was too late

Kevin would be subsequently arrested for the murder of his daughter!!

The next day, as soon as Kevin was allowed to see a lawyer or family

He protested his innocence and attempted to recant his confession

However, it was too late Jeff tom the Distract attorneys who was up for re election

Had fronted the media that morning telling the public of Kevin’s area and confession

He Stating he intended to seek the death penalty against the Murdered girl’s father

Melissa and Kevin’s family would quickly jump into action

Knowing full well, Kevin would never hurt Riley and he was completely innocent

They Hired attorney Kathleen Zellner who had made a name for herself by
winning a few wrongful conviction cases. (she’s now infamous) within the
law community. she was in the documentary making a murderer (the
Steven Avery case)
They family felt betrayed; they had trusted the Wills county sheriff’s officers

All this time, they hadn’t even been looking for Riley’s Killer

And his bond would be set at $25 million

Shortly after Kevin was jailed, Ed Hayes wills County Sheriff Supervisor would also call
the FBI and put a stop on the DNA testing of Riley’s samples that were sent off

Eight months later, the defence team finally got the DNA evidence to a private lab, which
tested it within days. The results showed with 100 percent certainty that Kevin was not
the donor of the DNA found on a vaginal swab and on the duct tape on Riley's mouth. On
June 17, 2005, the day after the DNA test results were released, the prosecutor dropped
the charges and Kevin was released from custody. He had spent 243 days in jail.

Now this seems to be somewhat different from the original story that hit the press back
when Kevin was released that said the prosecutor actually called the FBI to stop the
test. Either way, the only reason to stop this test is to guarantee that no contradictory
evidence will be available to prove the confession was false. As it turns outAny ethical
criminal justice official would have just allowed the FBI to conduct the test and confirm
the confessions. This was not done until after an election of a new prosecutor months
down the road. Why? Good question.

Zellner got to work she began to reinvestigate the case. She initially hired
Ernie Rizzo, the big, blustery, and controversial private eye. With his help, an
investigative team began to re-enact each element of Kevin’s statement to
test it for plausibility.

Finally, on June 16, 2005, after eight months in jail, Kevin learned the results
of the DNA test.

Zellner remembers that phone call from Virginia: "I pick up the phone and she
said, I've got the profile done. There was enough DNA, I've excluded your
client. I said, 'well, you just saved somebody's life.'"
She raced to the Will County jail to tell Kevin. The accused father was stunned.

"It hit me that, that I was going home and, and my name would finally be
cleared," he said.

That DNA had been sent to the FBI, which is often the case when DNA samples
need further testing that state crime labs aren't equipped for. But in this case,
FBI records showed that "all additional DNA analyses were discontinued"
once Kevin offered that confession. The FBI stated that a Will County
investigator told them to stop, despite the "inconclusive" finding.

Because Riley's body was in the water for hours, it was much harder to
retrieve a DNA profile. Zellner feared that she'd been robbed of the silver
bullet which had worked for her so often in the past.

"I thought it would take miracle for us to find DNA," she said. And she was
right. The tests came back negative for blood and semen.

With the case against Kevin collapsing, the new Will County State's Attorney
Jim Glasgow held an immediate court hearing. Kevin Fox, who could have
faced the death penalty, was released with all charges dropped.

They first tested where Kevin said he had left the body-according to his
confession, he had placed it in the water at the base of the Kahler Bridge,
slipping once as he made his way down the muddy embankment. But when
one of Zellner’s assistants tried to do so with a 40-pound bag-the
approximate weight of Riley at the time of the murder-the bag was blocked
by debris. When the bag was thrown from the bridge, however, it twice
floated to the spot where the body had been found.
Zellner also re-examined the bathroom door that had supposedly hit Riley.
“That door was paper thin,” Zellner says. “And you’d have to have hit her on
the head with a hammer to get the effect” Kevin described in the
interrogation. (Tomczak later accused Kevin of lying during his confession-
concocting the story of the bathroom door to hide his guilt in molesting
Riley.) Zellner also began looking into an element that seemed to have been
forgotten: the DNA evidence taken from Riley.

Meanwhile, the family launched a public-relations counteroffensive against

the barrage of media coverage suggesting Kevin’s guilt. As they had wanted
to do all along, the family began to offer a reward, for $20,000. Chad Fox took
the lead, assuming the role of family spokesman and coordinating other
family interviews, including an unequivocal expression of support by
Melissa. For Chad, the fight to clear his kid brother’s name became a crusade.
“I knew he was innocent, and I knew my family was in for the fight of its life,”
he says.

Trisha Kiefer, eby gf

Christmas passed with Kevin still in jail, then New Year’s, and Kevin’s 28th
birthday on January 4th. He had been moved to protective custody, but that
didn’t protect him from threats on his life and threats of being raped. “People
would walk by my cell and sit in front and look at me,” he says. “I felt like a
zoo animal.”

On the outside, the stress of trying to free Kevin weighed heavily on the Fox
family, especially Chad. He began having nightmares in which he would see
Kevin strapped to a gurney, about to receive a lethal injection. “I felt as if I
had aged five years since Kevin’s arrest,” he says.

At a hearing on January 28, 2005, Will County prosecutors turned over

several police reports to Zellner and her defense team. As for the long-
awaited DNA evidence originally taken from Riley, the news was not good for
Kevin. As far as Glasgow knew, the little girl’s rape kits had not contained
sufficient genetic material to yield a usable profile. The FBI would be
returning the DNA evidence within a week, he said.

What neither Zellner nor Glasgow apparently realized was that the FBI had
not tested Riley’s DNA. In fact, a day after the election, an order had come
from the Will County Sheriff’s Office halting any testing of DNA evidence in
the Riley Fox murder. The order, it would later be revealed, had come from
detective Ed Hayes.

Zellner returned to her office facing the daunting prospect of going to trial
with a client who had confessed. “The only way to guarantee that Kevin Fox
would not be executed was to find DNA that excluded him with 100-percent
certainty,” she says. And that she did not have.

But several days later, while reviewing the state crime lab’s report, Zellner
puzzled over the “inconclusive” finding for the presence of male saliva. She
phoned a forensic scientist, who explained what that meant: the state crime
lab simply didn’t have the sophisticated capabilities that would be needed to
test properly for the substance.

Buoyed over the finding, Zellner secured a court order to have the material
tested by a private lab-Bode Technology Group in Virginia. The judge
ordered that the genetic material be sent right away. After three weeks,
however, the lab still had not received Riley’s DNA. On April 5th, Zellner
says, she learned why. The DNA had been sent to the state crime lab, not
Virginia, and then returned to Joliet. The person behind the mixup, the
lawsuit alleges, was Ed Hayes.

The delay enraged the family. Worse, when Bode finally got the DNA, the
family was told testing would take two months, and that the chances of
finding male saliva in Riley’s DNA were slim because there was so little
genetic material to test.

The weeks dragged by. Then, on June 7th, came the answer. The lab had
found a man’s saliva-just enough to extract a full DNA profile. The next day,
Kevin Fox’s DNA was compared with the sample. He was not a match, Bode
reported. Not even close. When Zellner told Chad, the older brother laid his
head down on a table and wept.

The Fox family wanted Kevin’s immediate release. But Bode, insisting on
following protocol, said they’d have to wait for the final report. At last, eight
days later, Zellner stood near a fax machine in Glasgow’s office. The lab had
said the results would arrive around 6 p.m. The machine clicked on at a
couple of minutes before the hour. Glasgow would later say he was
“shocked” at the results. But he agreed with Zellner. Kevin would have to be
freed.

Nine days later, Chad and Stacy packed more than 100 T-shirts bearing the
words “Test Before Arrest” and “376 Days of a Killer on the Loose” in bold
black lettering into a van that Zellner had rented for the occasion. Then they
drove to the Will County courthouse, where Kevin had first been charged
with murdering his daughter. On this day, however, the mood was festive.
Outside the courtroom, more than 100 friends and family greeted them. Once
the hearing was under way, Glasgow came right to the point: the DNA
resulted in an “absolute exclusion of Kevin Fox as a donor,” the prosecutor
told the judge. “The people lack the probable cause to continue to hold him
on these charges and would be unable to meet our burden of proof beyond a
reasonable doubt.” (The DNA was subsequently retested at a different
laboratory, and the results again excluded Kevin.)

As Glasgow spoke, Kevin began to weep. By the time the state’s attorney had
finished, Kevin’s shoulders were shaking. During his stay in jail he had lost
more than 20 pounds. He had suffered threats and the ridicule of guards,
according to his lawsuit. Now he was free. When Judge Dan Rozak dismissed
the case, the courtroom exploded into applause and cheering. After a brief
reunion with Melissa and Tyler, Kevin emerged from the jail with his arms
raised in triumph and stood before a mob scene of cameras and well-
wishers. What did he want to do on his first night out, he was asked. “Spend
it with my wife and son,” he said, something he had dreamed about “every
day, every single day” since the ordeal had begun.

At a press conference, Glasgow stopped short of directly criticizing Tomczak,

but the implication was clear: he thought the case had been mishandled,
particularly when it came to the long delay in DNA testing. “So when you
send something to the lab, you monitor it,” the Tribune quoted Glasgow as
saying. “The state’s attorney’s office at that point needs to get involved and
say, ‘Wait a minute. We’ve got to get this to the laboratory so that we can
process it quickly.’” (A spokesman said Glasgow wouldn’t comment for this
story because of the pending litigation.)
After Champagne and pizza at Zellner’s office, Kevin, Melissa, and Tyler spent
the evening at Chad and Stacy’s apartment in Chicago, safely away from the
media. That night, before turning in, Chad peeked into the guest bedroom,
where Kevin, Melissa, and Tyler had already crashed. There he saw three
pairs of feet poking out of the bottom of the bedcovers. “I don’t think I’ve
ever seen a more beautiful sight,” he says.

Later, however, he would reflect on the bittersweet nature of the day. “My
niece was kidnapped and murdered from her own home,” he said, “-no
answers from the cops for months, a deliberate railroading of my brother,
my family nearly falls apart because of the sadness and stress, the terrible
perception by the public of us defending Kevin. . .. Life will never be the same
for any of us.”
Pat Barry continues to defend the work of the Will County detectives.
Nonetheless, since Kevin’s release, a fresh group of investigators has taken
over the case, though nothing promising has turned up.

Zellner filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Foxes in November 2004, in U.S.
District Court in Chicago, claiming a violation of due process, malicious
prosecution, false imprisonment, and defamation. The original defendants
included Will County detectives Hayes, Swearengen, Guilfoyle, Ruettiger, and
two others. Tomczak, now in private practice in Joliet, was added in July
2005. Also added were the polygraph examiner, Richard C. Williams, Pluth,
Kaupas, and a jail guard. The defendants have sought to have the claim
dismissed, arguing among other things that prosecutors are immune from
such claims. In early May, U.S. District Judge John W. Darrah rejected those
arguments with one exception (a claim against Sheriff Kaupas).

The Fox family has also pushed for the passage of “Riley’s Law,” a measure
that would expedite DNA testing after child murders.

The town of Wilmington, struggling to heal, tends a small garden that honors
Riley’s memory. Set just off a playground around the corner from the house
where she disappeared, the garden includes a statue of a young girl with
butterflies alighting on her raised hands. Kevin and Melissa have visited it
many times, as they have Riley’s grave in Wilmington’s Oakwood Cemetery.
“It’s hard,” Kevin says. “You look at a stone with your daughter’s picture,
knowing that her body is in the dirt rather than in your arms. . . . But we feel
closer to her when we go there.”

The couple, however, have moved out of Wilmington. They live in Naperville
now, a place they feel has given them a fresh start. “I used to love it,” Kevin
says of his hometown. “But I lost so much there. The only reason I go back
now is to visit Riley’s stone.”
Despite the elimination of all charges against Kevin, some still wonder how a
child could be abducted from under a father’s nose. One study suggests that,
though rare, it happens. From 1997 to 1999, more than 50,000 children in
the United States were abducted by persons other than family members,
according to a 2002 study funded by the U.S. Department of Justice. Eighteen
of those children were stolen from the home.

Meanwhile, the mystery of what happened to Riley Fox remains. The few
clues that might have pointed to other suspects were either discounted or
ignored. Police have tested the DNA found in Riley against every male in the
Fox family, as well as numerous people in the neighborhood, including
several previously convicted sex offenders, with no luck.

“You’re overcome by grief. You’re put into a cramped room and subjected to
an unusually long interrogation. You’re told there is overwhelming evidence
against you, including a failed polygraph. You’re offered a less serious
offense and the chance to go home to your family and clear things up later in
court. They simply broke him down psychologically to a point where he
believed that the only way he was going to get this nightmare to stop was to
confess. People wonder: who would do it? The answer is: far too many
people.”
He stopped at a nearby park and carried her into a restroom, he sexually
assualted her and threw her underwear and PJ bottoms into the trash can
located right outside the door. He carried her to a creek right next to the
restroom and drowned her, his shoes got stuck and he left them. He tried to
commit suicide that night but failed, he tried several times throughout the
following years as the guilt ate at him. He tried again after writing the note but
once again… failed. He plead guilty and at his sentencing told Kevin Fox that
Riley's last audiable words before he placed the duct tape on her mouth were "I
want my daddy."

He was found after his ex-girlfriend called the FBI when the case started airing on
TV after Kevin was fully exonerated, even though many in the community still felt he
was guilty... especially after the *same private lab used the exact same type of
test on the same type of DNA to exonerate the Ramsey's in JonBenet's murder
in 2006

During that search authorities found a pair of sneakers located ½ a mile from

Where Riley’s body was found, they had 3 faded letters (EBY) on the tongue
of the shoe, it was determined the sneakers hadn’t been in the water very
long, so officers bagged them just in case
Meanwhile The morning Riley went missing, Wilmington police responded to a call from a

mother to perform a "wellness check," on her adult son

This man Scott Eby was acting agitated he was threatening self-harm and throwing up

Going by reports this individual was also questioning police about the little girl that was

missing – he asked

'Has that little girl been found yet?'

From June 6th to October 26th, 2004, no arrests were made based upon any
forensic or other evidence developed by investigators. The investigation was at a
standstill without any viable leads, in large measure because the initial investigation
was botched. The bridge at Forked Creek was not secured. The public was allowed
to climb all over the bridge, destroying potentially vital evidence. The creek was
drained, without proper mapping of the creek bed. The hooks used to search the
creek bed distorted the crime scene. Instead of questioning everyone presents in
the crime scene, area authorities evacuated the area, allowing potential suspects to
escape. The only real “suspect” in the case was Kevin Fox, who became the focus
of the investigation because the detectives “had a feeling” he did it. It is noteworthy
that not one viable piece of evidence was developed against Kevin Fox from June
The Confession
Shortly after finding Riley Fox's body in a creek at Forsythe Woods, authorities found a pair of
muddy shoes in the water. Written on the inside tongue of each shoe was the name "EBY" -- the
last name of the man just charged -- six years later -- with the 3-year-old's murder.
On the insistence of one of the searchers, policed placed the shoes in evidence but never connected it
with other clues the Foxes say could have led them to Scott Eby in the days following her abduction,
sexual assault and murder.
The shoes are believed to be prison shoes from Eby's prior stint in jail. He was on parole at the time
of Riley's murder.

The Fox family maintained that Kevin Fox was coerced into confessing and
that investigators were out to convict him from the beginning. In a civil rights
case against Will County, a jury awarded Kevin Fox and his wife Melissa a
multi-million-dollar settlement.

At today's press conference, Glasgow said that the Fox case must become an
example for law enforcement.

"What I'm hoping to do is get Kevin Fox to cooperate with law enforcement
and study that: What is-was about his personality that let him make the
statements he made?" Glasgow said. "We need to make sure that this is part of
a case study where everyone across the country learns from this."

Kathleen Zellner, who took on Kevin Fox's case and is now an attorney for the
Foxes, said the family is thankful a suspect has been charged.
"Kevin and Melissa Fox are grateful for the tremendous work that was done
by the FBI Special Agents Lori Warner, Jeremy Resar, Will County State's
Attorney James Glasgow and his investigators that has resulted in the
apprehensions of the true killer of their daughter Riley," Zellner said in a
statement. "Finally, there can be justice for Riley."

State's Attorney Michael Fitzgerald told the judge how Eby, in a five-page letter, admitted
that on June 6, 2004, he had been drinking and using cocaine -- a combination that gave
him the urge to break into Riley's Wilmington house and molest her. Eby said he put a
bandanna over his face before entering the house, put his hand over Riley's mouth and put
her in the trunk of his car. He described then driving to a nearby forest preserve, duct-taping
her wrists and mouth and sexually assaulting her on the floor of a men's room. "Eby wrote
that it was stifling hot that day, that he must have pulled down his bandanna because he
looked down and stated that Riley Fox was staring at his face," Fitzgerald said. Eby told
authorities he knew the girl could identify him and panicked, taking her to a nearby creek and
holding her "under the water by the shoulders until he couldn't feel her struggle anymore."
Many in the courtroom openly wept. Melissa Fox spoke of the joys of watching her daughter
and how she liked to sing, dance, tell jokes and catch butterflies. But, as her voice cracked,
she also told Eby what he took when he held her daughter's head under water. Tears welled
in Eby's eyes as the girl's mother spoke. "She would never have the opportunity to play with
her friends, have sleepovers, get her driver's license, go to homecoming or prom, go to
college, get married or have a family of her own," Fox said. "I didn't get a chance to say
goodbye or give her a last kiss or hug. Instead, I visit a headstone that I decorate for
holidays and her birthday." Eby spoke briefly, saying he didn't know why he killed the little
girl. "I wish I could explain," he said reading from a piece of lined notebook paper his
attorney said he wrote himself. After the hearing, Eby's attorney, Michael Renzi, said his
client planned on pleading guilty from the time he was charged in May. He said Eby didn't
want to put the family through a trial. Prosecutors said Riley's parents agreed to the plea
deal. "I'm opposed to you getting the death penalty and dying a quick, painless death,"
Melissa Fox told him. Kevin Fox had harsher words after the trial. "I hope he rots in hell," he
told reporters. The plea comes nearly five months after Will County State's Attorney James
Glasgow announced he'd charged Eby with first-degree murder and predatory criminal
sexual assault of a child. Authorities were led to Eby from DNA evidence collected from the
crime scene along with other clues, including a pair of Eby's shoes pulled from the water that
had his name written in them. Glasgow, who was not the prosecutor when Kevin Fox was
arrested, cleared him after taking office. Fox and his wife were awarded $12.2 million in
damages after they accused Will County investigators of fabricating evidence. A federal
appeals court in April reduced the award to $8.6 million. Eby was an inmate at the medium
security Lawrence Correctional Center in Sumner, serving time for a Dec. 2005 sexual
assault conviction filed in an attack on a relative. According to the Illinois Department of
Corrections, he will be eligible for parole on that conviction in mid-2017.

Five days after FBI agents asked Scott Wayne Eby for a DNA sample in May 2010, he made plans to take what
he called "the coward's way out."

He wrote a 10-page letter confessing to the murder of 3-year-old Riley Fox in 2004, a nightmarish crime that
seemed to stun even him.

"I don't know how the wires got crossed in me," he wrote, saying he deserved to be tortured and killed. Then
Eby tied a bedsheet around his neck and tried to hang himself in his cell at Lawrence Correctional Center in
Sumner.
"I know I am the lowest of the lowest kind of slime there is on earth," Eby wrote, blaming his "demented" actions
on drug and alcohol abuse as well as insecurities about his body.

Eby's suicide attempt failed, as had at least two others since he abducted Riley, sleeping in flamingo pajamas
with a Dora the Explorer blanket, from her Wilmington home in 2004, then sexually assaulted and drowned her
in a creek.

Riley's family confronted Eby, a 39-year-old with white pride tattoos, in court when he pleaded guilty in
November. Among the relatives was Kevin Fox, Riley's father, who once had been charged with her murder. In
his confession letter, Eby said some of Riley's last words were, "I want my daddy."

A Tribune review of the criminal case files, obtained last week under a public records request, show how the
murder was solved within days after FBI agents, following up on a vague tip, interviewed Eby in prison on May
18.

Eby denied any involvement, but then called his mother, Sharon, about an hour later, telling her "he'd done a
terrible thing and wanted to see her right away," FBI agent Jeremy Resar testified before a grand jury in June.
When Eby's mother visited the next day, Eby said he killed Riley and added that it might be the last time he
would talk to her.

A "distraught" Sharon Eby then called Eby's brother, a correctional officer in Kane County, Resar testified. Her
information was passed to Will County authorities and the FBI. Eby wrote his letter a day later, along with a
farewell note to his mom, then tried to kill himself.

The files also show in greater detail how odd it was that investigators, including those from the FBI, didn't take
a closer look at a pair of shoes found near Riley's body with Eby's name written on the tongue. The shoes are
mentioned prominently in a memo by Will County sheriff's police shortly after the slaying. They are also the
second item on a list of evidence items submitted to the FBI for testing, right after a rape kit, records show.

A report commissioned by police after the investigation found that if information about the shoes had been
shared, a Wilmington police detective familiar with Eby's criminal background would have known the name.

DNA testing also linked Eby to the murder, though it was not an overwhelming match. The partial DNA sample
taken from duct tape used to bind Riley matched Eby and occurs in about 1 in 50 unrelated males, Resar testified.

Eby, who was in prison for raping a relative, wrote in the letter that he was tired of keeping his horrific crime to
himself: "Keeping a secret like that inside of you eats at the very core of your being day in and day out."

Shortly after drowning Riley, he called a woman and left a voice mail saying "he would be dead by the time she
got this message," according to a Wilmington police report.

Responding officers, one of whom had been to the Foxes' home, reported Eby threw up in front of them and
asked, "Did they find that little girl yet?"

A few weeks later, officers responded to the home again after Eby climbed on the roof with a rope around his
neck, according to a police report.

"I had a reasonably normal childhood with two parents that took good care of me and never fought," Eby wrote
in his letter. "I was taught at a very young age about respect and common curtisy."

"My parents didn't raise a monster, I became one over the years and it's no one's fault but my own!!"