RILEY FOX - 3 yo (2004) - Wilmington (S of Joilet) IL

A man already behind bars for sexually assaulting a relative has
allegedly confessed to kidnapping, sexually assaulting and killing
3-year-old Riley Fox — but he told investigators he initially intended
only to burglarize her family’s home in Will County, sources said
Thursday.
Scott Eby, 38, was charged with first-degree murder and predatory
criminal sexual assault of a child, bringing to a conclusion one of the
area’s highest-profile unsolved killings, authorities said.
“Finally there can be justice for Riley,” her parents said in a
statement.



In June 2004, Riley was drowned in a creek near far southwest
suburban Wilmington and found naked hours later after a massive search.
Her father, Kevin Fox, spent eight months in jail on charges of killing
Riley after he gave a video confession that he later said was coerced by
investigators.
DNA evidence from Riley’s sexual assault and from duct tape
covering her mouth didn’t match Kevin Fox’s, and he was freed in 2005.
He and his wife, Melissa, were awarded $8 million in a wrongful-arrest
lawsuit filed in federal court against Will County officials. A federal
appeals court said the evidence against Kevin Fox was weak and ripped
Will County investigators for hastily narrowing their probe to him.
A tipster pointed the FBI to Eby, who was not originally a
suspect, officials said. Eby, who has given a videotaped confession, was
linked to Riley’s killing through DNA, said Fox family attorney
Kathleen Zellner, who was briefed about the case by the FBI and Will
County authorities. Eby did not have a connection to the Fox family,
Zellner said.
Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow said evidence ties Eby
to the murder, but would not confirm that a DNA match was made. He did,
however, add: “We’re not going to be in the situation we were in before
with the DNA.”
Kevin Fox was charged with murder by prior Will County State’s
Attorney Jeff Tomczak. But after Glasgow defeated Tomczak in a 2004
election, Glasgow dropped the charges against Fox when tests showed his
DNA was not a match.
Although Eby has been in prison since 2005, Glasgow said matching
DNA samples wasn’t as simple as punching the evidence into a database
and looking for a connection.
“You can’t just plug it in like ‘CSI’ and watch the flashing
lights on the hologram,” he said. “That’s not how it works. It’s a
five-hour drive with a Q-tip to get the swab [from Eby in prison] and
take it to the local crime lab that’s got the sample and do a one-on-one
comparison.”
Sources said Eby had tried to break into the home of a neighbor
of the Foxes in Wilmington and that Riley’s abduction also began as a
burglary of the unlocked Fox home. Eby was living with his mother less
than a mile from the Fox home at the time of Riley’s death.
“We have no evidence to show he knew Kevin,” Glasgow said.
In July 2005, about a year after Riley’s slaying, Eby was sent to
state prison for the sexual assault of a female relative who is now 27,
court records show. Eby was not scheduled to be paroled in that case
until 2017.
Eby — who has many tattoos with the words “poison,” “pride” and
“mom” as well as a skull — has previously served prison time on three
burglary convictions and a forgery conviction. He was on parole for a
DuPage County burglary when Riley was killed, officials said.
Thursday’s charges vindicate Kevin Fox and prove he was
“victimized” by Will County detectives, Zellner said. The Foxes released
a statement Thursday thanking the FBI and Glasgow for the work that led
to the “apprehension of the true killer.”
Last June, Glasgow had asked the FBI to help with the Will County
investigation. At one point, about 30 FBI agents were involved, he
said.
“Today, the FBI and my office feel comfortable in announcing
Kevin Fox is innocent,” Glasgow said, adding that he believes the
charges against Eby show “the system works.”
“When everybody does their jobs, innocent people will not be
convicted,” Glasgow said.
The case has “torn at the very fabric of Will County since 2004,”
he said. “It has torn at the hearts of everyone in law enforcement.”

This jerk confessed to killing this sweet child, he should've been put to death within 24 hours of his confession. Instead, tax payers will pay for him to live in prison, feeding him 3 meals a day, clothing him, educating him (if he wants), visits from family, phone & computer access. Now the big question is, what does Riley get? This just burns me to no end and we wonder what's wrong with the world and why are our children being killed and abused, it's our wonderful system.
I'm very happy her parents won the lawsuit but, those GIJoe officers should have been let go--they were very negligent in their duties. Seems they just wanted to make an arrest & conviction in a hurry and screwed up big time.

RIP Riley, your safe now sweetie-in the arms of God.

This is huge news! thanks for posting this. I followed her case for a long long time. I'm glad the family with have some sort of closure, what a fricken nightmare they have been through.

The road to justice for the family of Riley Fox has been long and
difficult, but perhaps the family can begin to find closure, as police
have now charged a convicted sex offender with Riley's rape and murder.



The charges allege that Scott Eby, a sex offender with a long rap
sheet, abducted Riley Fox from her home on June 6, 2004, sexually
assaulted her, bound her in duct tape, and then drowned her in a creek.
At first, prosecutors suspected the little girl's father, Kevin Fox,
who first reported Riley missing from their home in Wilmington. Five
months later Kevin Fox was charged and convicted after prosecutors
claimed he confessed to the drowning death of his daughter in a lengthy interrogation.


Kevin Fox spent eight months in jail before the
FBI discovered that the DNA found on Riley's body did not match her
father, but rather linked 38-year-old Eby to the crime. He was recently
awarded $8.9 million in a civil suit for wrongful imprisonment and
malicious prosecution.
"This case is a case that has torn at the very fabric of Will
County," State Attorney James Glasgow said.
Eby, who was on parole when this crime was committed, is currently
serving a 14-year prison sentence for raping his sister in 2005.
Over six years ago, Riley was reported missing from
the Fox's Illinois home. Volunteers scoured the area hoping that the
little girl had just wandered off. Unfortunately, that was not the case.
Hikers found Riley's body in a creek four miles away.

An amazing new development indicates police missed a crucial early link
to suspect Scott Wayne Eby in the 2004 murder of 3-year-old Riley Fox.
The Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday morning that
within an hour of finding Riley's body in a creek in far south suburban
Wilmington, investigators found shoes in the water with Eby's name
written inside.
Another clue that could have led detectives to Riley's killer: a cut
window screen dismisssed as torn during a storm.
The Fox family attorney commented, regarding the
revelation of the evidence that was there all along.
"I felt for a long time the case was botched but this completely
affirms," said attorney Kathleen Zellner.
Zellner is talking about key pieces of evidence that Will County
Sheriff's detectives never pieced together in the Riley Fox murder
investigation. Among them, shoes pulled from Wilmington Creek, where
3-year-old Riley was found.
Looking closely at the sneakers, you can see the last name "Eby" written
in them. Parolee Scott Wayne Eby is the man now charged with Riley's
death. DNA evidence linked Eby to the horrific crime. The child had been
raped and drowned.
"What the inmates do is they write their name on the inside of the
tongue of each shoe, so when Will County looked at these shoes and
looked at the tongue, they should have thought, boy, these are probably
prison shoes," Zellner said.
There was also a burglary across the street from the Fox home the day
Riley was reported missing. A window screen Eby admitted cutting had
been entered into evidence as being torn during a storm. At that time,
Eby had already been convicted of three burglaries.
"They never even did a criminal background check. You would have seen
that he had burglary convictions. You would have seen he was on parole.
You would have made a connection with the shoes," Zellner said.
Last month, Eby, 38, was charged with five counts of first-degree murder
and one count of predatory sexual assault in Riley's murder.
The charges allege Eby abducted Riley on June 6, 2004
from her home, sexually assaulted her, bound her in duct tape, and then
drowned her in the creek.
But when they found the shoes, police apparently didn't think anything
of it, and instead focused on Riley's father, Kevin Fox.
Five months after the murder, Fox was arrested by Will County Sheriff's
police on murder charges following a lengthy interrogation.
Authorities said at the time that Fox told investigators he decided to
make his daughter's death look like an abduction after he thought he
accidentally killed her by hitting her in the head with a door.
But Fox claimed detectives coerced him into saying he had hit Riley's
head, accidentally causing her death.
Fox was charged with her rape and murder, and spent eight months in jail
before DNA testing -- obtained by his own defense team -- proved he did
not sexually assault Riley.
He was released on June 17, 2005, and the case went unsolved for nearly
five years.
"They're just astounded," Zellner said, "He's extremely angry. She just
can't believe what happened to him. For him, to realize he could have
died on death row and this is what they were doing with the evidence,
it's pretty hard to wrap your mind around it."
Will County state's attorney's office spokesman Chuck Pelkie declined to
comment on the evidence, since the case is eligible for death penalty
and is still a pending murder investigation.
Will County Sheriff's office spokesman Pat Barry agreed that hindsight is
20/20.
"It always is. Did we mess up? Yes. There's no question, but how this
all happened, we don't know," said Barry.
On whether they should have put two and two together, he said, "It's an
easy statement to make after you have all the information."
Zellner thinks she knows why evidence didn't get proper attention.
"I think they deliberately did it 'cause they didn't want anything to
interfere with the theory Kevin was guilty. They had him in the
crosshairs," she said.
To that, Barry said, "I absolutely don't believe that at all. The
individuals who worked on this case are devastated by what happened. I
disagree wholeheartedly with her."
Barry said Zellner's team didn't make the shoe connection either.
Zellner says they didn't know about the shoes during the criminal trial,
and when the photos surfaced years later, there was nothing telling
them what they were.
Zellner originally had a nearly $16 million verdict for Riley's parents.
It was later reduced to $8.1 million. In light of this new information,
Zellner says she'll be asking the court to reconsider the award, if
it's determined there was fraudulent concealment of evidence.
Eby is currently serving a 14-year prison sentence at Lawrence
Correctional Center for raping his sister in July 2005, Glasgow said.
He has also served previous prison sentences for burglary, residential
burglary and forgery, according to the Illinois Department of
Corrections.
An outside consulting firm is being hired next week to review the
policies and procedures of the crime scene investigators and detective
bureau, so a mistake like this doesn't happen again.

Scott Eby pleaded not guilty Thursday in a Will County Circuit Court in
Joliet to the 2004 rape and murder of 3-year-old Riley Fox.

Eby, a 38-year-old convicted sex offender, was charged with first-degree
murder and predatory criminal sexual assault of a child in the
Wilmington girl's death. He appeared in court Thursday.

Riley Fox vanished from her Wilmington home before 7 a.m. July 7, 2004.
Her body, bound with duct tape, was found at about 3:30 p.m. that day in
Forked Creek, a couple miles from the Fox home.

Riley's father, Kevin Fox, then 27, was accused of the crimes. He was
held in jail for eight months before DNA evidence showed that he was not
her killer.

Melissa Fox, Riley's mother, criticized investigators Thursday for
missing early clues in the case, including a pair of Eby's shoes left
near the crime scene with his name written inside. Eby, who lived near
the Foxes, is serving two seven-year prison sentences on other sexual
assault convictions in Will County.

The FBI agents walked in and told the prisoner exactly why he’d been let out of his cell that morning.
“We’re here to talk about Riley Fox,” they said.
Scott Eby “almost immediately” said he wanted to see a lawyer and repeated that statement as they tried to further the conversation.
Disappointed, but legally bound by the exercise of his constitutional rights, the agents walked out of the interview room and into a corridor of the Lawrence Correctional Center.
A minute passed. Eby looked down at the microphone on the table in front of him.
“OK. I’ll talk,” he said.
Other investigators made a mad scramble to get the FBI agents back in the room.


Eby’s run-ins with the law
Scott Wayne Eby was born July 21, 1971. His criminal career began three days before Christmas 1988 when he walked into an Old Second Bank branch in North Aurora.
Eby, who was living in an apartment on Old Indian Trail in Aurora, attempted to cash a check made out to him that day for $125. The teller noticed the signature on the check did not match the bank’s signature card and Eby was detained until police arrived.
“This (will be) the defendant’s first trip to the Department of Corrections and his first problems with the law,” an assistant Kane County state’s attorney wrote.
In exchange for pleading guilty on March 2, 1989, an unrelated attempted residential burglary charge was dismissed.
Eby was sentenced to two years in prison.
Upon release, Eby continued his burglary career. He was caught breaking into a residence in September 1993 in Cook County while awaiting trial from another burglary arrest the previous year.
Sentenced to respective four- and three-year terms, he was still released early.
On March 28, 1997, a woman drove her 1986 Saab 9000 to a Citgo on Main Street in Lisle and went inside to pay for gas.
Eby opened the driver’s door and stole a backpack that was on the front seat. He ran behind some buildings, but was recognized by a witness.
Court records show Eby had been staying on Tallman Avenue in Romeoville and in Ronks, Pa., a small farming community with a prominent Amish population, around this time.
Wherever he was living, Eby skipped a court date that August and ducked an arrest warrant for nearly three years.
He was caught in Florida, where sources said he spent time in a mental institution and underwent the brain surgery that has left a large scar on his forehead. Eby was extradited back in August 2000 and pleaded guilty in exchange for seven years in prison.
While Eby was finishing his stretch in the Danville Correctional Center he bought a new pair of shoes. He wrote his last name on the tongues in permanent marker because he was worried his property would be stolen by thieves.
“Eby has an extensive criminal history. This defendant does not deserve any consideration for early release,” an assistant DuPage County state’s attorney told the court.
But Eby was paroled in 2003 and living with relatives on East Street in Wilmington on June 6, 2004.


Drug-fueled crime spree
Eby had been drinking a lot of alcohol and using cocaine when he drove to Outer Drive in the early morning hours. He cut the screen door of an elderly woman’s house and took $40 from her purse on the kitchen table.
A few houses away, he saw the back door was open and walked into the laundry room.
During his interview with FBI, Eby said he looked in to see Kevin Fox passed out in a bedroom and was about to walk out the front door when he saw 3-year-old Riley and her 7-year-old brother, Tyler, sleeping on couches in the living room.
Eby told agents he had never had sexual contact with children before, but he felt “compelled to take her.”
The petty burglar walked back to his car, backed into the driveway, opened the trunk and put a bandana over his face so the girl wouldn’t be able to describe him.
Covering her mouth with his hand, Eby put the 3-year-old in his trunk and drove 2 miles to Forsythe Woods. “He carried her down the hill and into the wooded area over the wooden bridge where he duct taped her wrists and mouth,” court reports said. His DNA would later be found on that duct tape.
Eby took Riley to the men’s room where he laid her on the floor. The weather was “stifling hot” and he began to sweat from stress and exertion.
Eby reportedly told the FBI he was attempting to arouse himself in order to rape the girl when his bandana fell off his face and he “freaked out.”
“He looked down and stated that Riley Fox was staring at his face. Eby said he panicked because he believed he would probably be going to prison for the rest of his life,” his plea agreement said.
Eby picked up his victim and climbed down a muddy hill to Forked Creek where he held her under the water by her shoulders until she stopped struggling.
“She floated to the surface, face down, and the current carried her down the creek,” the plea agreement said.
The killer worried his muddy shoes would leave footprints, so he threw them in the creek. He took off his clothes as well, but put them back in his car. Eby took a bottle of motor oil and poured it in the men’s room to ruin any physical evidence.
As Eby left the forest preserve he thought he was seen by a woman looking out from a nearby house, but he figured the only thing he could do about it was drive home and hope he’d gotten away with murder. He wasn’t optimistic. He remembered his name was written in the shoes he’d thrown in the creek — “a mistake,” he reportedly told the FBI.
Eby returned home and started drinking again. He was passed out as Tyler Fox woke up to see his sister was gone and went to tell his father.


Police question Eby only once
Wilmington police went door to door searching for the missing girl. Eby threw up when they asked if he knew anything, but the heavy odor of alcohol coming from him bolstered his claim that he wasn’t feeling well. He stayed in his room for the rest of the day while Riley’s body was found and Will County Sheriff’s police began a murder investigation that pointed to her father as the culprit.
Eby was not questioned again.
An evidence technician recovered Eby’s shoes and stored them away with other junk collected from the creek.
Eby was discharged from parole for his third burglary conviction three months after Riley’s murder.
Riley’s father wrongfully arrested
Eby told the FBI he “felt bad” when Kevin Fox was arrested, but he later learned “he got money out of it (and was) glad for that.”
Fox was interrogated by detectives throughout the night of Oct. 26, 2004, and gave a videotaped confession the next morning, saying he had accidentally struck his daughter with the bathroom doorknob and tried to make it look like a sexual assault and kidnapping when he thought she was dead.
Prosecutors announced they would seek the death penalty against Fox, who immediately filed a civil suit against sheriff’s detectives for coercing a confession from him.
Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow allowed his attorneys to arrange for DNA testing of the duct tape that had been used to bind his daughter.
When those results excluded Kevin Fox in June 2005, he was released after spending eight months in the county jail.
Glasgow had an investigator assigned to his office review the case, but the civil lawsuit essentially froze the investigation.
“With (Fox’s) confession, the small window of opportunity and lack of similar crimes in the area, there was a lot of speculation how the DNA could’ve somehow been incorrect,” a source said.
The lawsuit was heard during a two-month trial at the end of 2007. After appeals and settlements were processed, Kevin Fox and his wife, Melissa, were awarded approximately $11 million.


Sexual assault of relative
In the months after Riley Fox’s murder, Scott Eby’s behavior had become increasingly erratic and his alcohol and drug abuse continued.
It appears he expected to be caught soon after authorities released Kevin Fox.
Eby came home drunk on the morning of July 31, 2005. He confronted his brother-in-law about “being a man” before passing out on the couch. A few hours later, he went into the room of an adult female relative and forced her to have sex with him for about 30 minutes.
“He covered my mouth and started having intercourse with me,” the victim told a nurse at Provena Saint Joseph Medical Center. He told her “this is the last piece of (expletive) I’ll get before I go to the penitentiary.”
The victim said she was getting sick and had to go to the bathroom, but fled out the front door and ran toward the police station, stopping at a nearby funeral home to call 911.
Wilmington police arrested Eby later that day.
During a bench trial in December 2005, Eby was found guilty on two counts of sexual assault. Unrelated DUI and traffic charges were dropped when he was convicted.
Eby’s victim asked for the judge to give him probation.
“I believe the six months that he has been in jail is enough time,” she wrote. “He was suppose (sic) to be seeking mental help but was not … also taking medication.”
“I believe he deserves a second chance in life. Also he will lead a more productive life on the outside,” she wrote.
Eby was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Initially sent to the Dixon Correctional Center then back to Danville, Eby ended up at Lawrence Correctional Center in Sumner, 218 miles south of Wilmington.
FBI tracks down Eby
After the Fox’s civil lawsuit was heard, Glasgow “spearheaded discussions with the FBI regarding its assistance in the investigation … in early 2008,” the state’s attorney’s office said in a statement.
In June 2009, five years after Riley Fox was murdered, FBI agents canvassed Wilmington again and were tipped to look at Eby as a suspect.
“He believed his mother and a former girlfriend had suspicions he’d been involved,” an investigator said.
The agents went to interview Eby in prison in May. Besides confessing, the convicted felon provided more DNA samples to match with the duct tape from the girl’s body.
With good behavior, Eby will finish his serving time for the rape of his relative in June 2017.
That’s when he’ll immediately start serving six life sentences for raping and murdering Riley Fox.

Official Report Blasts Riley Fox Murder Investigation


JOLIET, Ill. (AP) - A review of the Riley Fox murder investigation made by a private consultant has determined “major mistakes” were made by investigators assigned to the case.
LISTEN: Newsradio 780′s Lisa Fielding Reports
Official Report Hit Riley Fox Murder Investigation
Andrews International was hired by the Will County Sheriff’s Department to scrutinize why detectives wrongly pinned the 3-year-old’s murder on her father, Kevin Fox.
The Chicago Tribune reports Tuesday that in its 45-page report, Andrews determined the management of the investigation was almost nonexistent and police missed opportunities from the beginning that could have led to the killer.
The report also says investigators were too focused on Kevin Fox to correct their error.
Kevin Fox spent eight months in jail before DNA evidence cleared him of his daughter’s death. Scott Eby pleaded guilty in November to sexual assault and murder to forestall a death sentence.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/01/24/official-report-hit-riley-fox-murder-investigation/