Riley Fox’ murderer Scott Eby’s plea bargain was accepted yesterday by Will County (IL) Judge Richard Schoenstedt.
Before his sentence, Eby rose and addressed the courtroom briefly. He apologized to Riley‘s parents saying that he wished he could trade his life to bring her back.
In June of 2004, the body of Riley Fox(3) was pulled from a creek near her home in Will County, Illinois. As police attempted to build a case against Riley’s father, evidence that could have helped them find the real killer was right under their noses. Within an hour of finding Riley’s body, police had in their possession a pair of shoes with Eby’s name written inside. Combined with other evidence, it could have led to Eby. Within days, if not hours.
Riley’s father, Kevin, went through extensive police interrogations that led to a false confession on tape. After 14 hours of interrogation in a small, windowless room, Kevin Fox simply gave up. He knew he hadn’t sexually assaulted or murdered his 3-year-old daughter, but police had rejected his requests for a lawyer and told him they would arrange for inmates to rape him in jail, according to court records.
The distraught father later testified that detectives also screamed at him, showed him a picture of his daughter, bound and gagged with duct tape, and told him that his wife was planning to divorce him, the records show.
Fox finally agreed to a detective’s hypothetical account of how his daughter, Riley, died in an accident, thinking investigators would realize that the phony details didn’t match up with the evidence, his lawyer said. Instead, he remained in Will County jail for 8 months, released only after DNA evidence excluded him as a suspect. Eby was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
Riley Fox (March 31, 2001 – June 6, 2004) was three when she went missing from Wilmington, Illinois. Later the girl was found dead in Forsythe Woods County Forest Preserve. This public park was just a few miles from the family’s home. Riley was face down in a creek. She had been bound, gagged, sexually assaulted, and then drowned.
Fox’s father was initially the prime suspect however, Scott Eby was ultimately convicted for Fox’s rape and murder. In 2010, Scott Eby was charged on five counts of first-degree murder and one count of predatory sexual assault after DNA evidence linked him to Riley. He is serving life without parole.