Indeed, he had promised to press ahead with the death penalty. Not fair! "That door was paper thin," Zellner says. When pressed, however, the boy seemed less sure. A picture of the children would make its way into Chad's wedding album, a cherished memento of a perfect day. According to court documents about the case, Kevin Fox's wife Melissa was in Chicago for a two-day breast cancer research walk and he had gone out on the evening of June 5, 2004, with his. Melissa begged her husband, "Please hold me, hold me.". Five months after the murder, the police claimed that Kevin had confessed to Rileys murder. The FBI would be returning the DNA evidence within a week, he said. "I knew he was innocent, and I knew my family was in for the fight of its life," he says. The state's attorney was quoted in the Chicago Tribune on October 29th as saying "the evidence shows us that [Riley] was sexually abused during life." The aftershocks of his arrest, however, reverberate in the form of a lawsuit he and his wife have brought against Will County authorities. But the sense of betrayal he felt at the hands of the detectives, especially when he learned that he would not, indeed, be "bonded out" to go home and straighten things out, was crushing. The family sued the state and won $15 million, which later was reduced to $8.5 million. Local 630-955-1212 | Toll . And, most telling, how could detectives ignore that Kevin had not provided a single piece of information that only the killer would have known, such as the whereabouts of Riley's capri pants? The lab had said the results would arrive around 6 p.m. Five months later, a gallery of stunned observers packed the hearing at the Will County Courthouse in Joliet. In addition, Corke serves as a recurring guest-anchor on FOX News @ Night (weeknights . "We think you know more than you're telling us," Kevin says the detective told him. Even though Kevin was freed of all charges, he claimed that the false imprisonment had a massive impact on his life. "We were not happy about [Fox's release]," says Pat Barry, spokesman for the Will County Sheriff's Office. To those who didn't know Kevin Fox, the hearing seemed to offer a shocking solution to a terrible crime . The original detectives on the murder have been reassigned, the former state's attorney is now in private practice, and the little town where it occurred has suffered a loss of innocence, as well as wounds to its pride that may take years to heal. The ruling elite is now past retardation for many centuries. "For a state's attorney not to know of such a meeting of his detectives in such a high-profile case would be unheard of," she claims. Maybe the boy thought Kevin had left when he stepped outside for a quick smoke. The couple announced the birth of their son via social media to their friends and followers. I wanted to see if I could find anything in those pictures that would help me figure out for myself what had happened, who had done this to my baby. By midnight that night, Kevin says, the detectives had dropped all pretense of friendliness. Now he was free. "We felt like we were finally going to find out what had happened," Kevin says. He was born October 8, 1968 in Silver Spring, Maryland, the son of Helen (Niles) Fox and the late Allen Wayne Fox.. Melissa says that Swearengen told her about the videotape of the car and about Tyler's statement and then laid out an "accident" scenario for the death of Riley. "That night she asked me to her homecoming," Kevin recalls with a laugh. "You look at a stone with your daughter's picture, knowing that her body is in the dirt rather than in your arms. A break in the case could well tip the scales. It is owned by American Spirit Media, which maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) with Gray Television, owner of NBC affiliate WECT (channel 6), for the provision of certain services. I knew it wasn't true. He turned to Lyons, incredulous that the detective hadn't told him earlier. Info: 773-581-9000. What about DNA testing? the friend asked. Why was no duct tape found? He had been moved to protective custody, but that didn't protect him from threats on his life and threats of being raped. ." Zellner says she also was struck by the unwavering belief in Kevin's innocence by the family, particularly Melissa. At a hearing on January 28, 2005, Will County prosecutors turned over several police reports to Zellner and her defense team. "They were putting words in his mouth," she claims. 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. Chief Mickler currently resides in Wilmington with his wife, Rebecca, and their two sons. "You don't have much time," Hayes warned. Meanwhile, the family launched a public-relations counteroffensive against the barrage of media coverage suggesting Kevin's guilt. He yelled, Your fucking husband killed your fucking daughter and he doesn't love you or her. Subscribe for free today! The Will County Sheriff's Office defends its detectives' handling of the case, including the 14 1/2-hour interrogation that led to Fox's confession. "We don't want to lose sight of one of the big tragedies-and major points-of this case," Zellner says, "the fact that, because the wrong man was pursued, a killer is still on the loose. More often than not, the detectives would instead question Kevin and Melissa. "I can make a deal for him. Kevin had been up since 4:30 that morning and had spent much of his day working at a painting job. We hope he finds some comfort soon and would like to wish him all the happiness for the coming days. Protocols should be revised and people in positions of authority need to be accoutable for their actions! They urged Kevin to hire an attorney. Hundreds more turned out the next day for the funeral, many wearing pink ribbons and ties and butterfly pins. Chicago magazine newsletters have you covered. For all his initial trepidation, Kevin took to fatherhood in a way that surprised even his closest family. The Fox family had called Wilmington home for generations. Kevin says he told the detectives that he didn't call 911 because he didn't want to panic prematurely. "This isn't political," he said. The girl's body lay in a small polished white casket with stainless steel handles. That morning in the Will County jail, Zellner watched the interaction between the two brothers closely. Kevin Fox, Rileys father, was affected a lot as he was still in mourning when he was seen as the prime suspect and even put in jail for the same. Spend a night with my wife and son," Kevin Fox said after being released. the cops, the judge, the seeming confidence of the state's attorney, and, most of all, the confession. Zellner also began looking into an element that seemed to have been forgotten: the DNA evidence taken from Riley. Christmas passed with Kevin still in jail, then New Year's, and Kevin's 28th birthday on January 4th. Eighteen of those children were stolen from the home. Nonetheless, since Kevin's release, a fresh group of investigators has taken over the case, though nothing promising has turned up. When Zellner told Chad, the older brother laid his head down on a table and wept. Ultimately the detectives went with a far less experienced examiner-Richard C. Williams, a Cook County detective who, according to the Fox lawsuit, had conducted only about 90 tests. (Hunter says today that even if he had been available, he would have refused to give the test on that occasion because Fox's interrogation had been so lengthy and confrontational.) 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. In the cold, shallow, murky water of Forked Creek, Riley's body floated, face-down. A tip came in claiming that video surveillance cameras at the town's Mobil station might have captured a car like that at four in the morning of Riley's disappearance. ", The people of Wilmington seemed to divide into two camps. Kevin even attached a cart to his bicycle, and Riley quickly adopted it as her favorite mode of travel. "See all that red?" They live in Naperville now, a place they feel has given them a fresh start. Pluth asks again. With the possibility of a trial, Zellner began to reinvestigate the case. She'd be a great big sister.". The Tribune reported last year that while the FBI had paid $10,000 to Trisha Kiefer, Eby's former girlfriend, for her help in solving one of the Chicago region's most notorious crimes, the Fox . Why would a father with CPR training make no attempt to revive his daughter? "The state's attorney's office at that point needs to get involved and say, Wait a minute. And if it became clear that there was no new information they should leave immediately. (Tomczak later accused Kevin of lying during his confession-concocting the story of the bathroom door to hide his guilt in molesting Riley.) Go home now on bond.". An Amber alert for Riley Fox had flashed on the scoreboard. May 7, 2021 3-year-old Riley Fox was found inside a creek a little distance away from her home in Wilmington, Illinois. At the time, it seemed like a happy though standard family portrait. That night, before turning in, Chad peeked into the guest bedroom, where Kevin, Melissa, and Tyler had already crashed. Tomczak, 44 at the time, had earned his law degree in Chicago, but settled in Will County with his wife, who today is a judge there. They love to see innocent children tortured and defiled for their indigent minds because it elevates an idiot. but we firmly believe, and the sheriff firmly believes, that [the detectives] did a good job . Kevin Fox and his family paid little attention to the politics of the race. It was one of the first times she had spent the night away from the kids, but for her, it was a worthy venture-a way to honor her late father. You're told there is overwhelming evidence against you, including a failed polygraph. There he saw three pairs of feet poking out of the bottom of the bedcovers. 31 Largemouth Ln, Wilmington, IL 60481. . A self-described small-town boy from Wilmington, Illinois, he was there to act as best man for his older brother, Chad. He had suffered threats and the ridicule of guards, according to his lawsuit. View Source Share Save to Suggest Edits Memorial Photos Flowers Memorials Region North America USA Illinois People wonder: who would do it? "We'd ask, but they'd always say something like We can't really discuss it.'" Only once, in fact, had the little girl wandered away from the small ranch house-that time, to play with a friend. 21244 W Highway 113 Rte #113, Wilmington, IL 60481. On April 5th, Zellner says, she learned why. "It's hard," Kevin says. "We think you were involved." . Kevin, after all, had been the last person known to have seen Riley alive. By the time the state's attorney had finished, Kevin's shoulders were shaking. Among the questions the two men fielded were queries about whether politics influenced the timing of the interrogation. There would have been some sign. She was three years old at the time of her death. Already, the shocking news had been splashed across the front of every local newspaper-Fox was being charged with an unspeakable crime, murdering his three-year-old daughter. For Tomczak it could also provide a diversion from a new headache that had suddenly surfaced. Glasgow would later say he was "shocked" at the results. A statement by Kevin himself saying he had been tricked into confessing was posted on a Web site three days after the interrogation. Months went by with no breaks in the case. But the court reduced the damages awarded to Kevin Fox and his wife, Melissa, to $8 million, down from about $12.2 million. The entire time, detective Edward Hayes, who would become the lead detective on the case, watches from the other side of a one-way mirror. The interrogation and arrest of Fox, the suit alleges, was part of a last-ditch effort by Tomczak to win re-election. The relationship evolved quickly and, just after Kevin started college at Illinois State University, Melissa, then 18, became pregnant with Tyler. The murder of his daughter remains unsolved. She had traded in the Ford Escape for a new car. At one point an assistant interrupted the presentation by bursting into the courtroom and thrusting a document into Tomczak's hand. Whats even sadder is that the detectives and all parties involved were not interested in finding the real monster who would take such a beautiful innocent child away from their family. Suddenly, she says, Ed Hayes "got right in my face. He spent eight months in prison before he was released and ultimately cleared through DNA evidence. "I guess we were going out on a limb, but it turned out she was the one.". On October 26th, Swearengen called Kevin Fox to say, by Kevin's account, that there was news about the case and that the Foxes should come to the police station that night. The lab had found a man's saliva-just enough to extract a full DNA profile. For Chad, the fight to clear his kid brother's name became a crusade. "Let the little children come to me," said the Rev. She quickly became known around town as the precocious little girl who loved Dora the Explorer, the kind of child who insisted on picking out her own flower girl dress-only after plis and curtsies in front of a mirror. Melissa, who was also told that Kevin had failed, demanded to see the results. Now, just a handful of minutes after giving his statement, he sat behind a Plexiglas window with a phone in his hand, shaking his head and crying as his older brother, Chad, and Kathleen Zellner watched helplessly and offered what comfort they could. But several days later, while reviewing the state crime lab's report, Zellner puzzled over the "inconclusive" finding for the presence of male saliva. "Say it was an accident. Zellner returned to her office facing the daunting prospect of going to trial with a client who had confessed. According to that report, Tyler became much more specific and descriptive. "In a way, though, it's hard," Kevin admits. But as the summer wore on, they came to believe that the investigation was dragging. Chicago, IL: (Mar-21-08) The family of 3-year-old Riley Fox brought a wrongful death lawsuit against the Will County Sheriff's Department, after the death of the girl in 2004. ", Today, in recalling this part of the interrogation, Kevin weeps. Melissa Fox is the mother of Riley fox and the then-wife of Kevin Fox. Until the night of Kevin's long interrogation several months later, authorities never told him and Melissa what Tyler allegedly had said. In fact, the case was already out of their hands. The order, it would later be revealed, had come from detective Ed Hayes. Yet, despite the overwhelming implication of guilt produced by the hearing, a number of troubling questions lurked within the prosecutor's case. 77/48F. "We didn't want to turn it into another JonBenet Ramsey case. Zellner is skeptical. ", Kevin's account of the interrogation continues: Swearengen burst into the room, out of breath and saying he had just talked to Tomczak. And they turn the page. . ", Kevin says that Swearengen suggested the same "accident" scenario that he had proposed to Melissa nearly nine hours earlier. Still, Pluth pursues her questioning. Who would admit to such horrible things if he hadn't really done them? "I tagged around when we were in high school. Rather than providing a running narrative, she says, Kevin often simply answered "yes" or "no" to the detectives' questions. "Something didn't feel right," Chad recalls. Kevins then-wife, Melissa, was away in Chicago during that weekend, and on June 5, Kevin decided to attend a concert in Chicago. . Kevin Corke is an American journalist and is presently a White House Correspondents' Association for Fox News in Washington D.C. Corke has covered four U.S. administrations (Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden). 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 the briefest of moments, "they were making me question myself. Heartwarming that Kevins wife, brother, family, and Ms. Zelner stood by his side. The story seemed preposterous. He drove to a bridge over Forsythe Creek and then carried the girl down a muddy bank, slipping on the way down. A federal jury awarded Fox and his wife, Melissa, $15.5 million for false arrest and. Buoyed over the finding, Zellner secured a court order to have the material tested by a private lab-Bode Technology Group in Virginia. Their lenses, the family later learned, were trained not on the ceremony, or the casket, but on the mourners, including Kevin Fox. Find out where to go, what to eat, where to live, and more. What more can they possibly want to know? "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. Kevin is a producer and writer, known for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999), The Negotiator (1998) and Lie to Me (2009). Chad Fox looked on the rumors as confirmation that Kevin-still not represented by a lawyer-was a suspect, perhaps the only suspect. "I hated leaving him there," Chad says. When the FBI began its investigation in 2009, it was two years after a jury awarded Fox and his then-wife, Melissa Fox, $15.5 million for the Will County Sheriff's Office investigators' false. "I felt like a zoo animal.". On Feb. 9, the Wilmington City Council held a special meeting at Wilmington High School. Three miles away, a Wilmington police cruiser returned to Kevin and Melissa's house. I pledged the same fraternity. To accommodate the expected crowds, Riley's viewing, five days after the murder, was held at the town's largest church, St. Rose Catholic. Disappearance [ edit] He joined the network in 2014. But because so many people had called with similar observations about the Foxes' spending habits, the station decided it couldn't ignore the rumors.). $271,900. No sign of her. A little before eight in the morning, however, Tyler came into Kevin's room. He says the police told him he was right not to panic, that "in a lot of cases a child wanders off, and they can't find them at first." 82/55F. A "source," his face hidden behind a black blob, his voice disguised, repeated the rumors in Jacobson's "exclusive" interview. Melissa knew by their faces that the news was grim. Some people still thought he was a murderer. His little girl had seemed to hold a special place in his heart. Panicking, he scooped her up and carried her to his car, retrieving some duct tape from the back. A search for the young girl began. Glasgow seemed like a fair man, but he had given no indication that he planned to drop charges against Kevin. . In one resolved in December 2001, she helped free three men who had falsely confessed to the 1986 murder and rape of a Rush University medical student named Lori Roscetti. ", In the sorrow-filled twilight of their little girl's death, in the aftermath of an ordeal that could have sent Kevin Fox to death row, Kevin and Melissa have searched for meaning in their anguish. The Nightmare: A Look at the Riley Fox Case, 2020 Chicago magazine / A Chicago Tribune Media Group website, Photograph: Courtesy of Chad and Stacy Fox. Pluth starts off with basic questions about where Tyler lives and what kind of sports he likes. He called Wilmington police, but not wanting to raise an alarm prematurely, he would later explain, he decided to call the nonemergency line-a choice that was later questioned. About a mile away as the crow flies, a Wilmington mother and daughter had decided to search Forsythe Woods, a sprawling forest preserve with dense growth cut by a tributary of the Kankakee River called Forked Creek. A few years later, Kevin and Melissa became proud parents of baby Riley, and the family seemed to be quite happy. To the people who knew Kevin Fox, the hearing seemed unreal. Zellner insists that there was exculpatory evidence-in the so-called rape kits with material taken from Riley. Melissa, meanwhile, was led into a conference room where, Swearengen told her, detective Guilfoyle would be along shortly to ask a few questions. Police would reveal nothing. Check Background Get Contact . "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. In addition, the family has upped its reward to $100,000 for information leading to the arrest of Riley's killer. Riley Fox was sexually assaulted, bound with duct tape, and drowned in a creek in Wilmington, Illinois. After three hours alone, Melissa grew furious. At the small brick and concrete station, just off Main Street, police put Kevin in one room and Melissa in another. The Kevin Fox they knew was a wonderful father, devoted to his wife and son and daughter. The ceremony's original choreography called for Riley to turn right at the front of the aisle and join her mother's pew. Pluth pursues. 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. "Hurry back. Back to Top. We've got to get this to the laboratory so that we can process it quickly.'" View the profiles of people named Kevin Fox. Again, this was the first he'd heard of it. Ruettiger straddled Kevin's legs, pressing his testicles into Kevin's knees. Her father, an avid fisherman, had learned he had cancer, and he wanted to spend what time he had left in a peaceful place along a river, she says. Dawn's current home is located at Wilmington, IL. A Wilmington crime scene investigator arrived within minutes. Many other people assumed he was guilty. Television satellite trucks roared into town, deploying their parabolic dishes and disgorging reporters. On February 26, 2023, at approximately 8:34 a.m., a trooper was dispatched [] "I don't know," Tyler says. In preparation for the possible interrogation, the detectives contacted several polygraph experts, including Fred Hunter, a Hinsdale-based examiner with more than 30,000 tests under his belt. In his 2007 budget, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich included a similar initiative that would add eight forensic scientists to the state's crime labs. (A spokesman said Glasgow wouldn't comment for this story because of the pending litigation.). IL NewsDrunken Driver On Wrong Side Of Jefferson Street: Joliet Police ; Joliet, IL News The estranged couple was in the middle of a . He locked the front door and retired to his room. Tomczak wrapped up the hearing by asking for a $25-million bond, a request that drew gasps from the gallery. The Rossi family had moved to Wilmington when Melissa was in the third grade. WILMINGTONRoger J. Johnson, 62, of Wilmington, passed away Sunday, Feb. 26, 2023 at his home. None was available. He looks away. He immediately noticed that the front door and screen were ajar. While Chad talked about leaving for the big city, Kevin couldn't imagine living anywhere else. By her account, Swearengen said that he suspected that Kevin had bumped Riley's head, perhaps while opening the bathroom door, and had panicked when it appeared she was dead. . She put her hand on Kevin's leg. "People would walk by my cell and sit in front and look at me," he says. Previously, he was a national news correspondent based in Washington, D.C. for NBC News from 2004-2008. I told him, Don't you talk like that about my husband and family.'" After returning home with his children at around 1 am, Kevin put his kids in the living room and went to bed at 2:30 am. Five months after three-year-old Riley Fox of Wilmington was brutally murdered, her father, Kevin, confessed following a long night with Will County detectives. Chad hugged Kevin as the room burst into applause. In the weeks that followed, Melissa and Kevin found the investigators to be supportive, even friendly. and we stand behind them.". Tyler shakes his head "no" several times. Three years later, in 2000, with Kevin having found work as a union painter and Melissa as a waitress, the two were married. She was wearing the same "princess dress" she had picked out and worn as a flower girl in Chad and Stacy's wedding. But he agreed with Zellner. Guilfoyle, meanwhile, began banging handcuffs on the table in front of Kevin. Kevin, on the other hand, claimed that the police coerced him into admitting guilt. Some questioned why a reward had never been offered. After being photographed and fingerprinted, Kevin arrived at the Will County Adult Detention Center less than a mile from the sheriff's office, spent and sick with anxiety. Subscribe to one or more of our free e-mail newsletters to get instant updates on local news, events, and opportunities in Chicago. There's a bowling alley and a post office and a small movie house. We wanted to know if they had found out what had happened. But the case that had shattered the Wilmington community was far from over. "That's failed. . The timing of the charges also seemed curious, coming just six days before a tight election for state's attorney between Tomczak, the incumbent, and a bitter rival, James Glasgow. Best of 2022 Top 250 Movies Most Popular Movies Top 250 TV Shows Most Popular TV Shows Most Popular Video Games Most Popular Music Videos Most Popular Podcasts. In fact, it would be the last photo of all of them together, taken as it was just two weeks before the little girl would be found floating face-down in a creek. He took his friend and Melissas brother along while leaving the children in the care of Melissas mother. After an hour, the boy draws into a fetal position. As for the murder of Riley, "You did it," the lawsuit quotes Williams as saying. He claws his sweatshirt hood over his head. Later, when speaking about his experience after getting out of jail, he said, I still had people coming up to me and saying I was a child killer, child molester and threatening to shoot me and my dog. Melissa added to this by saying that people ceased to trust them, and children werent allowed to have sleepovers at their house. Three-year-old Riley Fox of Wilmington, Illinois, was kidnapped from her home early in the morning on June 6, 2004, as her brother and father slept nearby. "Before people simply say, There's no way I would ever do that,' you have to put yourself in the position of someone like Kevin Fox," says Drizin, legal director of Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions. "I thought it was a little strange," Melissa says. Meanwhile, Tomczak and Glasgow were said to be running neck and neck in the state's attorney's race. 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. When the bag was thrown from the bridge, however, it twice floated to the spot where the body had been found. "He is an amazing dad, I tell you what," says his mother, Dawn. What's more, Tomczak's father, Donald, second-in-command at the City of Chicago's water department, had just been named in a federal indictment for corruption. WILMINGTON, IL The authorities at the Wilmington Police Department have obtained a bench warrant to arrest 45-year-old Wilmington resident Scott McCaughn on two felony . Thought it was a little distance away from the small brick and station... Picture of the pending litigation. ) released and ultimately cleared through DNA evidence taken from Riley..... 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Kevin and Melissa became proud parents of baby Riley, `` you did,... Kevin found the investigators to be supportive, even friendly possibility of a last-ditch effort by Tomczak to win.. Already crashed told there is overwhelming evidence against you, including a failed polygraph Tomczak to win re-election and quickly. Carried the girl 's body floated, face-down Street, police put Kevin in one room Melissa...