Sergeant says Fox lied on stand

A week after Kevin Fox moved some jurors to tears, one of the lead detectives accused of trying to railroad him for his daughter's murder said Wednesday the father lied repeatedly during his emotional testimony.

Will County sheriff's Sgt. Edward Hayes disputed many of Fox's allegations that detectives coerced a false confession that led to his arrest and violated his rights during an intense interrogation.

Hikers found the partially nude body of 3-year-old Riley Fox in a creek June 6, 2004, hours after she disappeared from her nearby home in Wilmington. Her killer remains free. Instead, the Will County law-enforcement officials who investigated her slaying are the ones on trial.

In their federal lawsuit, Kevin Fox and his wife, Melissa, who moved to DuPage County, allege that sheriff's officials subjected the father to threats, lies and false promises of a deal during the 14½-hour interrogation that began late Oct. 26, 2004. Jurors, listening to their sixth week of testimony, must decide if detectives acted reasonably or instead conspired to frame Kevin Fox through fabricated evidence.

Melissa Fox was in Chicago for an anti-cancer walk that weekend. Kevin Fox reported Riley missing when he called a non-emergency police line some 40 minutes after his son alerted him that Riley was gone. Fox later explained he thought Riley was playing a game, such as hide-and-seek.

Detectives focused on the last person to report seeing Riley alive -- her father. They arrested Kevin Fox after they said he failed a lie-detector test and provided a videotaped confession. Prosecutors planned to seek the death penalty.

Fox was freed eight months later in June 2005 through DNA from saliva evidence collected in the child's body.

Fox, 30, confessed on videotape that he accidentally bumped Riley's head on the bathroom door but panicked and tried to make it look like an abduction. Fox testified last week he agreed to the story only because detectives told him he'd be freed within 24 hours on lesser involuntary manslaughter charges. So, Fox said, he took the deal out of desperation and planned to clear his name later.

But Hayes backed the testimony of other detectives, who said they never coached Fox on the accident story. Hayes also denied Fox's contention that was told he'd be raped every day in prison if he didn't cooperate.

The defense also called its own expert, Kenneth Lanning, a retired 30-year FBI investigator who now works as a consultant. He told jurors that it's his opinion detectives acted reasonably in suspecting Kevin Fox, given several aspects of the crime.

Detectives argue they had probable cause to arrest Fox even before he confessed. They said Fox was the last person to see Riley alive; his young son told them he saw Fox leave the house with her; his story changed during the interrogation; and surveillance footage from a service station showed a car that resembled Fox's.