Riley Fox/Photograhp courtesy Fox Family
An appeals court Wednesday agreed with a federal jury’s 2007 finding that Will County Police framed Kevin Fox for the rape and murder of his 3-year-old daughter Riley, but reduced the damages awarded to Fox and his wife from $12.2 million to $8 million.
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals chastised the investigators on the case, implying that their decision to quickly rule out Riley’s 2004 death as the work of a sexual predator was “absurd.” The Foxes always maintained that a stranger had come into the house and abducted Riley while Fox was asleep. Police told Fox that Riley’s injuries were minor hence denying a “real” sexual predator could have been responsible for Riley’s murder. However, “at trial the pathologist flatly denied ever characterizing Riley’s sexual injuries as minor. He testified that her injuries would have been severe for an adult woman and were absolutely at the top of the scale for a small child.”
The court, in a 52-page decision by Judge Terence Evans, also found that detectives lacked probable cause to arrest Fox using the “exceedingly weak evidence” they had assembled. Click here for the judge’s decision/pdf file.
Fox was arrested four months after the death of his daughter, who was sexually assaulted, bound with duct tape, and drowned in a Wilmington creek. Fox gave police a videotaped confession that he said was fabricated. The videotape was not shown during the civil trial. If you read the Judge’s decision you will find a lot of abusive language and threats. Here is an example taken from the judge’s decision:
Seeing the photographs and exhausted after 14 hours of interrogation, Kevin Fox broke down and said everything police wanted to hear. Shortly after, Edward Hayes, the detective supervisor, called the FBI and told them to stop testing DNA evidence, trial evidence showed. Testing by a private lab later ruled out Fox as a suspect, and he was released in 2005 after eight months behind bars.
In a statement, the Will County State’s Attorney’s Office said it was pleased that the damages were reduced but “firmly” believes the deputies had probable cause to arrest Fox and should not be liable for any damages. The police were suspicious because they didn’t believe the house showed any signs of forced entry and what were the odds, they wondered, that an intruder would be able to get access to the house while Fox was asleep, on a rare night when his wife wasn’t home? Police were also suspicious of the fact that 40 minutes had elapsed between the time Fox said he learned Riley was missing and the moment he called police. Fox said he simply didn’t consider the possibility that his daughter had been abducted and didn’t realize it was an emergency until he’d done some searching around the house.
This case reminds me of what happened to Richard Lapointe when he was interrogated for more than nine hours without legal assistance. Remember that Lapointe has Dandy Walker Syndrome. He gave police four confessions that contradicted the crime scene, all evidence, and logic. Lapointe is serving life inprisonment. Read about him here in the post “Who really killed Mrs. Bernice Martin?”
No other arrests have been made in either the Martin or Fox case. The latter is still being handled by Will County police with the help from the FBI.
Should you have any information about the Riley Fox case, please contact the Will County Sheriff’s Office at 1-815.727.8575 or contact your local FBI Office. You can find a list of local FBI offices here.
Read more here. Please also visit the website in Riley’s honour here.
