Murder of Riley Fox

Riley Fox, born March 31, 2001, was a 3-year-old girl living in Wilmington, Illinois. On the night of June 6, 2004, her father Kevin Fox picked up Riley and her older brother Tyler from their grandmother's house around 1 a.m. Because the children's beds lacked clean sheets, he had Riley sleep on the living room couch and Tyler in a nearby chair before going to bed himself around 2:33 a.m. The next morning, Tyler woke his father to report that Riley was missing. After searching the home and checking with neighbors, Kevin Fox called police.

Later that day, Riley's body was found in Forsythe Woods County Forest Preserve, a public park a few miles from the family's home. She was discovered face down in a creek, having been bound, gagged, and sexually assaulted before being drowned.

In the initial investigation, Kevin Fox was charged with the crime based on a confession that was later determined to have been coerced. He spent eight months in jail. His attorney, Kathleen Zellner, obtained a court order for new DNA testing on saliva evidence that had previously been deemed inconclusive; the new results excluded Fox as the source, leading to his release. Investigators had earlier recovered a pair of mud-covered shoes at the crime scene bearing the name "Eby" written inside, but this evidence was not acted upon at the time. Other leads, including a burglary at a nearby house the same night Riley disappeared, were also not pursued. The Fox family subsequently won a $15.5 million jury verdict—later reduced to $8.5 million—in a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Will County Sheriff's Office and the detectives involved in obtaining Kevin Fox's coerced confession.

Scott Eby, who was on parole and living about a mile from the Fox family at the time of the crime, was later charged with five counts of first-degree murder and one count of predatory sexual assault after DNA evidence linked him to Riley. At the time charges were filed, Eby was already serving two consecutive seven-year sentences for other offenses. According to his confession, Eby had cut a window screen at a neighboring house and stolen $40 before entering the Fox home through a back door that did not lock properly. He described seeing Riley and her brother asleep in the living room and said he "fixated on the little girl." He left, retrieved his car, then returned to the house, covered Riley's mouth, carried her out the front door, and placed her in his trunk before driving to a nearby park, where he sexually assaulted her in a restroom and then drowned her in a creek. Eby was convicted and received a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. He died in prison on December 7, 2023. Kevin Fox died in a car crash in Arkansas in March 2023, where he had been living with his new wife and children.