Jury chosen in false arrest case
More than three years ago, the body of 3-year-old Riley Fox was discovered in a Will County creek about 4 miles from her Wilmington home.
Her killer remains free. Instead, the law-enforcement officials who investigated the murder are the ones on trial.
Opening statements begin today in the highly anticipated civil rights trial before U.S. Northern District Judge John Darrah. A jury was impaneled Tuesday.
The slain toddler's father, Kevin Fox, filed the lawsuit alleging malicious prosecution in his daughter's slaying. The defendants are former Will County State's Attorney Jeffrey J. Tomzcak, six sheriff's detectives, three sheriff's supervisors, a jail deputy and a polygraph examiner.
Riley vanished from her home June 6, 2004. Hours later, after a massive search, the toddler was found slain in Forked Creek in Forsythe Woods Forest Preserve. An autopsy showed she died from "homicidal drowning" and was sexually assaulted.
Her small town erupted in panic as police hunted the killer. But, months later, few strong leads had emerged.
Detectives continued to focus on the last person to report seeing Riley alive -- her father. On Oct. 27, 2004, Will County sheriff's detectives arrested Kevin Fox after a more than 14-hour interrogation.
They said he confessed in a videotaped statement that he accidentally bumped Riley's head on the bathroom door but panicked and tried to make her death look like an abduction.
Tomczak charged Kevin Fox with first-degree murder and quickly announced his death-penalty intentions, just days before a hard-fought Nov. 2, 2004, election that he lost to James Glasgow. Eight months after the arrest, in June 2005, Glasgow dropped charges against Fox after DNA test results excluded him as the source of that recovered from Riley's body.
Kevin Fox and his wife, Melissa, who wasn't home when Riley disappeared, allege a variety of misdeeds, including false arrest, malicious prosecution and federal due-process violations. The father also said police coerced the confession. Naperville attorney Kathleen Zellner is representing the couple.
The defendants sought the lawsuit's dismissal in pretrial filings while arguing they had probable cause to arrest Fox. Judge Darrah ruled that is a disputed matter for a jury to decide. He also rejected Tomczak's claim that police and prosecutors are immune from such legal action, thus, allowing the trial to proceed.