Law Offices of Kathleen T. Zellner, 1901 Butterfield Rd, Suite 650, Downers Grove, IL, 60515 (630) 955-1212 kathleen.zellner@gmail.com. On February 26, 2023, at approximately 8:34 a.m., a trooper was dispatched [] Ke 11 Share With the death of a child under these circumstances, the police look first to the family. The claim triggered an investigation from a representative of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. Glasgow would later say he was "shocked" at the results. As if in anticipation of unavoidable criticism, Tomczak had earlier stopped at the defense table where Kevin Fox's attorney, Kathleen Zellner, was seated. 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. The parents' doting nature meant that Riley and Tyler rarely strayed far from their sight. A steady drizzle fell, while inside, mourners wept to a slide-show collage set to the songs "My Girl" and Sarah McLachlan's "Angel." In hindsight, the couple believe that either the police "were just completely overwhelmed by the fact that there was a murder in Wilmington and they had no idea what to do," Melissa says, "-or they were watching to see how we would react." "In a way, though, it's hard," Kevin admits. The Fox family has also pushed for the passage of "Riley's Law," a measure that would expedite DNA testing after child murders. . Guilfoyle, meanwhile, began banging handcuffs on the table in front of Kevin. Almost immediately after his arrest, Kevin and Melissa brought this multi-count, multi-party lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. Glasgow was trim with a blow-dried pompadour of silver. A few hours later, at a reception at the Park Hyatt, Kevin drew on the moment as he stood to toast his brother, Chad, and Chad's new wife, Stacy. I said, What are you talking about?'" What's more, investigators would be able to place the car along the route that led to Forsythe Woods, where Riley's body had been found. On this night, however, leafing through a picture book, with Kevin holding Teagan, and Tyler peering over Melissa's shoulder, they can smile when they reach the photograph of the happy family they once were, when the biggest worries were a best man's toast and a little girl wanting to stand beside her daddy. Instead, going on a "gut feeling," he said, they "rolled bones" in the hope they could elicit a confession. That night, Kevin drove to Chicago, too, to attend a concert with a friend and one of Melissa's brothers. 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. That Saturday night, she stayed at a campsite with friends in Skokie. ABC Desperate to find out what happened to her daughter, Melissa said she reached out to the detectives every day and that they assured her they were investigating the case thoroughly. Three years later, in 2000, with Kevin having found work as a union painter and Melissa as a waitress, the two were married. Guilfoyle's report did not surface until May, seven months after Kevin had been arrested. "They made me sit in a room for 45 minutes," Melissa says, still furious at the memory. Wilmington, Illinois - June 6, 2004 On the weekend of June 6, 2004, Melissa Fox and a group of friends participated in the AVON Walk for Breast Cancer in Chicago, where she stayed for two nights. Maybe the boy thought Kevin had left when he stepped outside for a quick smoke. "It's all right to say you did it." Kevin again refused. I knew it wasn't true. Chad and Zellner viewed the change in office with a wary eye. 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. "He was crying," she recalls. Nonetheless, since Kevin's release, a fresh group of investigators has taken over the case, though nothing promising has turned up. In early October, Chad, a stockbroker, approached Zellner, who coincidentally worked across the hall from Chad in Naperville. Did he take Riley somewhere?" He quit school and the two moved in together. We found 59 records for Kevin Fox in Wilmington, IL. The questions quickly shift to what Kevin did or didn't do that night. As far as Glasgow knew, the little girl's rape kits had not contained sufficient genetic material to yield a usable profile. . They live in Naperville now, a place they feel has given them a fresh start. Kevin Fox was eventually released, and the case against him was dismissed. At a hearing on January 28, 2005, Will County prosecutors turned over several police reports to Zellner and her defense team. ", Kevin's account of the interrogation continues: Swearengen burst into the room, out of breath and saying he had just talked to Tomczak. 79/63F. Also, Tomczak alleged during Kevin's initial hearing that "the autopsy report indicated [Riley] was alive and struggling when placed in the water." he asks. More than 6,000 people attended the wake-nearly 1,000 more than the entire population of Wilmington. Will County sheriff's detectives had taken charge, assuming jurisdiction because the crime scene was in a forest preserve. But early Sunday morning, Tyler woke up Kevin to tell him that Riley was missing. I told him, Don't you talk like that about my husband and family.'" And the Fox family had indeed suggested a reward be offered, only to be told by police it was unnecessary. "Isn't that your niece?" The case has set in motion a series of events that bitterly divided what had been a neighborly town; cast a shadow of suspicion over a tight-knit, well-respected family; and raised questions about whether justice was forsaken for personal and political ambitions. After an hour, the boy draws into a fetal position. During his stay in jail he had lost more than 20 pounds. Again, this was the first he'd heard of it. 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. More than six months later, DCFS reported finding no evidence to support the allegation. "We really tried to stay the course," he told reporters. Date Posted: Sunday, February 26th, 2023. If charges were to be filed, he would be the one to bring them. As for the murder of Riley, "You did it," the lawsuit quotes Williams as saying. "We didn't want to turn it into another JonBenet Ramsey case. With his help, an investigative team began to re-enact each element of Kevin's statement to test it for plausibility. "He said, I can't find Riley.' "People would walk by my cell and sit in front and look at me," he says. With the possibility of a trial, Zellner began to reinvestigate the case. The sheriff's summary report portrays Melissa as expressing doubts about her husband's innocence. He then went home and slept," the prosecutor said. "See all that red?" Though the police denied using force, Kevins attorney had the DNA from the crime scene tested against Kevins own DNA. "Any charges of politics are baseless," Tomczak said in a statement the day after Fox's arrest. Melissa, describing her husband as a wonderful father, made it clear immediately that she believed he had been railroaded. Wilmington, IL Baskerville Funeral Home - Wilmington Friday, February 17, 2023 Add Photos Add a Memory MICHAEL R. JOHNSTONE Age 59 of Wilmington, formerly of West Chicago, Illinois, passed. The murder of his daughter remains unsolved. "I knew he was innocent, and I knew my family was in for the fight of its life," he says. ", Kevin says that Swearengen suggested the same "accident" scenario that he had proposed to Melissa nearly nine hours earlier. deaddeath.com Kevin Fox Wilmington IL Obituary - Death | Kevin Fox Has Died - Passed Away Kevin Fox Death - Obituary - Funeral - Passed Away : Deaddeath learnt on May 07, 2021, that in Kevin Fox was pronounced dead, leaving friends and family in total devastations. "That night she asked me to her homecoming," Kevin recalls with a laugh. 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. Around 2:15, he went to the bathroom and swung the door open quickly, striking Riley and knocking her down. "We'll see," the defense attorney shot back. He planned to drive the kids to Chicago in the morning to catch Melissa at the finish line. ", The couple held hands as they made their way across the parking lot to the Will County sheriff's office in Joliet at about 7:30 that night. "You're overcome by grief. Finally, Kevin claims in the suit, he was shown pictures of his dead daughter, her mouth still covered with duct tape, nude from the waist down, taken moments after she had been pulled from the creek. 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. Then they drove to the Will County courthouse, where Kevin had first been charged with murdering his daughter. Kevin had been up since 4:30 that morning and had spent much of his day working at a painting job. The authorities have not mentioned the videotape in court, though they did bring it up during the interrogation before Kevin confessed. "We'd ask, but they'd always say something like We can't really discuss it.'" "If I finish the sheet, you are being charged with first-degree murder with 30 years to life. Next. If you saw Kevin, you most likely saw Riley, on his shoulders or carrying their fishing poles down to the lake together. "I don't know," Tyler says. Pat Barry insists that Tomczak knew nothing of the meeting, and that, no matter how questionable the timing appears, politics had nothing to do with it. As to the question of who would confess to a crime so heinous if they didn't do it, Steven Drizin, a leading authority on false confessions, says that is the least mysterious part of the story. He answered all the questions and even volunteered to give DNA samples if it helped solved his girls murder. He grabbed the back of Kevin's shirt and pulled his face close. Kevin and Melissa have visited it many times, as they have Riley's grave in Wilmington's Oakwood Cemetery. MLS ID #11685368, PRO REAL ESTATE. He struggles to catch his breath between sobs. Finally they were brought out into a waiting room, where Curt, Dawn, Chad, and Stacy had already gathered. And they turn the page. And if it became clear that there was no new information they should leave immediately. The Las Vegas trip was to attend a friend's wedding and had been planned and paid for months before Riley's death. "I didn't do it, Melissa," he answered back, looking her in the eye. 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. Riley Fox Riley Fox (March 31, 2001 - June 6, 2004) was a 3-year-old girl from Wilmington, Illinois, who was murdered on June 6, 2004. He wore a red jump suit and was shackled at the legs and hands. There, the couple gave birth to another daughter, Teagan, in 2006. "They'd come back with their legs scratched up and bleeding," recalls Kevin. Are you kidding me?" Yet, despite the overwhelming implication of guilt produced by the hearing, a number of troubling questions lurked within the prosecutor's case. 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. . Buoyed over the finding, Zellner secured a court order to have the material tested by a private lab-Bode Technology Group in Virginia. Finally, after more than an hour of interrogation, Pluth reaches for a box of tissues and thrusts it at Tyler. Television satellite trucks roared into town, deploying their parabolic dishes and disgorging reporters. Beyond that, she says, the details left several obvious questions unanswered. When you see your daughter dead, with dirt and mud on her face . But because so many people had called with similar observations about the Foxes' spending habits, the station decided it couldn't ignore the rumors.). Find out where to go, what to eat, where to live, and more. The couple had gone gambling in Las Vegas. Despite the elimination of all charges against Kevin, some still wonder how a child could be abducted from under a father's nose. Chicago magazine newsletters have you covered. The judge ordered that the genetic material be sent right away. With a huge smile on her face, she headed straight to her daddy, who scooped her up into his arms. ", Shortly after the bond hearing, Tomczak, Will County Sheriff Paul Kaupas, and other authorities held a press conference outside the Wilmington police station. "I'm not saying he shouldn't have been . Before putting the girl in the water, he inserted his finger inside her to make it look like she had been sexually assaulted. "I swear to God I didn't do it." But if he felt out of place as the ceremony began, his discomfort melted at the sight of his two children now making their way down the aisle. This time there were no cameras or tape recorders. Just before he was booked and taken to jail, Kevin says, the last thing he heard was the sound of the detectives in the hallway, laughing and congratulating themselves. "We think you were involved." "We felt like we were finally going to find out what had happened," Kevin says. 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. A "source," his face hidden behind a black blob, his voice disguised, repeated the rumors in Jacobson's "exclusive" interview. "But Scott said not to worry, that they just needed to ask us a few questions before they told us whatever they wanted to tell us.". Meanwhile, the family launched a public-relations counteroffensive against the barrage of media coverage suggesting Kevin's guilt. He also holds a journalism master's and . Kevin says he was incredulous. WILMINGTONRoger J. Johnson, 62, of Wilmington, passed away Sunday, Feb. 26, 2023 at his home. For a long time, the family could not bear to look at photos of Chad's wedding, of Kevin in his tuxedo with the single red rose, of Riley and Tyler sleeping under the table. To the people who knew Kevin Fox, the hearing seemed unreal. "I was raised with the idea that authorities were good people and that they should be respected.". The timing was less than ideal for the couple. You're told there is overwhelming evidence against you, including a failed polygraph. Still, Pluth pursues her questioning. In early May, U.S. District Judge John W. Darrah rejected those arguments with one exception (a claim against Sheriff Kaupas). When Kevin returned to his home in Wilmington, Illinois, around 1am on June 6, 2004, after picking up his children from their grandmother's home, he was exhausted. How do they sleep at night? The FBI would be returning the DNA evidence within a week, he said. Police would reveal nothing. . It was now after six in the morning. She screamed when she realized what she had found. Hope they find some peace. Select the best result to find their address, phone number, relatives, and public records. The boy, who is extremely shy with strangers, answers reluctantly, with head shakes and nods. But Zellner, who has viewed a copy of the videotape, says it's too fuzzy to make out a license plate or even to positively identify any vehicle. The collection of friends, family, reporters, and onlookers watched as Kevin Fox, red-eyed and shell-shocked, shuffled into the courtroom. the cops, the judge, the seeming confidence of the state's attorney, and, most of all, the confession. "I don't think I've ever seen a more beautiful sight," he says. "There are some red flags that are making us look at Kevin," Melissa recalls the detective saying. Ruettiger straddled Kevin's legs, pressing his testicles into Kevin's knees. With bond set at $25 million, the family decided, on Zellner's advice, not to try to get Kevin out, but to put their money toward clearing his name. All. Why would a father with CPR training make no attempt to revive his daughter? The Kevin Fox they knew was a wonderful father, devoted to his wife and son and daughter. To those who didn't know Kevin Fox, the hearing seemed to offer a shocking solution to a terrible crime . Kankakee, IL (60901) Today. 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