Family describes its efforts to clear accused dad's name

After police asked them to come in for a talk, the slain girl's parents told family they were about to learn the answer to a question that haunted them for months.

Who killed Riley?

Hours later, though, a new chapter in the parents' nightmare unfolded. The police suspect wasn't a stranger. It was one of them.

Kevin Fox was charged that Oct. 27, 2004, with his 3-year-old daughter's murder after he confessed in a videotaped interview that he accidentally killed her, then panicked and tried to make it look like she was abducted from their Wilmington home. Police said he also failed a lie-detector test.

Fox was cleared through DNA testing eight months later. He and his wife, Melissa, sued about one dozen Will County law-enforcement officials alleging they concocted evidence -- including a coerced confession and sham polygraph test -- to frame him.

On the civil rights trial's second day, Kevin Fox's brother and mother described Thursday their campaign to clear his name. The family spent nearly $330,000 on investigators, DNA scientists and polygraph experts.

Their efforts, which began with hiring Naperville attorney Kathleen Zellner, netted Fox's freedom 243 days later when he was excluded as a match to DNA evidence -- saliva -- collected from his child's body.

Chad Fox testified he told his younger brother to hire an attorney before the arrest. He said Kevin Fox refused.

"(He's) just a little naive about things like that," Chad Fox said. "He thought they would look at it like a form of guilt. I looked at it as a way to protect his rights."

Kevin Fox was the last known person to see Riley alive. He said his son, Tyler, awoke him early June 6, 2004, and said Riley was missing.

After a massive search, her body was found hours later in a creek, 4 miles away. Riley, who had been sexually assaulted, died from drowning, an autopsy showed.

Dawn Fox testified her son, Kevin, collapsed in the Wilmington police station when his father told him Riley died. She narrated a four-minute slideshow for the federal jury of family photos, including one of a smiling Riley atop her dad's shoulders.

The defense argues police also left no stone unturned and had more than enough probable cause to arrest Fox, even before he confessed. Dawn Fox described how her husband, Curt, told her:

"He said, 'We lost our granddaughter. Now they've taken our son. Don't worry. We'll get him back. Whatever he needs, we'll provide.' We both just sat there and cried."