Father says he was 'mentally beaten down' by cops

After a 14-hour police interrogation filled with denials, threats and promises, Kevin Fox said he felt the only way out was to offer a false confession.

So, he relinquished his once steadfast claims of innocence and told the Will County sheriff detectives he accidentally killed his 3-year-old daughter.

"I was just mentally beaten down," he said. "I felt hopeless and alone. I had no other choice. I went along with the accident story just to get out."

His emotional testimony came Tuesday during his federal civil-rights trial alleging his false arrest and malicious prosecution for his child's unsolved murder.

Riley Fox's partially nude body was discovered June 6, 2004, in a creek, hours after she vanished from her nearby Wilmington home.

After five weeks of testimony, the jury finally heard Tuesday from the star witness -- Kevin Fox -- who moved at least two female panel members to tears when he described failing Riley.

"I blamed myself," he said through tears. "I wasn't there to protect her."

Kevin Fox was charged Oct. 27, 2004, with the murder after a heated interrogation in which police said he failed a lie-detector test and provided the videotaped confession.

Fox said he and his wife, Melissa, drove hand-in-hand to the detectives' Joliet offices earlier that night, certain they were about to learn who killed Riley.

Instead, Fox said he felt as if detectives "ripped my heart out of my chest" when they began accusing him.

He remained resolute, the father said, for several hours. But his anger turned to despair. He failed a lie-detector test. Fox said he was falsely told that his family, including Melissa, believed in his guilt.

Kevin Fox said a sheriff's detective taunted him with threats that he'd be repeatedly raped while in prison for murder. He said they ignored his requests for an attorney, showed him crime-scene photos of his slain daughter, beat on the interrogation table with handcuffs while shouting in his face -- hour after hour after hour.

Then, Fox said, they offered a deal -- confess that it was an accident and be freed on lesser involuntary manslaughter charges. So, Fox told jurors, he took the deal.

Fox confessed in the Oct. 27, 2004, videotaped statement that he accidentally bumped Riley's head on the bathroom door but panicked and tried to make it look like an abduction.

"I felt alone, beaten down," he said. "I knew it would be checked out and that I'd be cleared."

He remained jailed for eight months until a DNA analysis of saliva evidence excluded his genetic profile.

He and his wife sued Will County and about one dozen law-enforcement officials, including former State's Attorney Jeff Tomczak, who later was dropped from the suit. The remaining defendants are six sheriff's officers, including the estate of one who is deceased, a polygraph examiner and a forensic examiner.

The couple never returned to their Wilmington home. They now live in DuPage County, where they are raising their 10-year-old son and a 1-year-old daughter.

He said the two shared a special bond. Kevin Fox said Riley rarely let him out of the house without her tagging along. She ran to greet him each day after he returned home from work.

His attorney, Kathleen Zellner, alleges police targeted Kevin Fox from the onset despite leads that suggested an unknown sexual predator abducted, raped and killed Riley.

Zellner said police never tested the DNA swabs of up to 21 registered sex offenders living nearby before arresting Fox. She said they ignored a report of a red sports car seen nearby. She called experts to try to debunk the lie-detector test's reliability.

The defense team said authorities 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 a detective he saw Fox leave the house with Riley, and surveillance footage from a service station showed a car that resembled Fox's.

The night before Riley's body was found, Kevin Fox said he and his brother-in-law, Tony Rossi, went to a concert in Chicago. Melissa Fox also was in Chicago for a breast-cancer walk.

At 1 a.m. June 6, 2004, Kevin Fox said he picked up Riley and his son, Tyler, at his mother-in-law's house and returned home. He placed Riley on the couch and Tyler on a chair, both in the front room. As they slept, Kevin Fox watched television and then went to bed. He awoke to find Riley gone.

At first, the father said, he didn't panic. He figured she was playing hide-and-seek, one of her favorite games. Fox said he reluctantly called a non-emergency police line.

"I wanted her to be in that house so bad," he said. "I was in denial. My belief was she was there somewhere. She was left in my care. It was so hard for me to accept."

He described a frantic communitywide search to find her, and how he learned that afternoon while at the Wilmington Police Department that his daughter's body was found.

"Everyone had a blank stare," he said. "My dad said, 'They found Riley. It's not good.' I just collapsed. I was so weak. I said, 'Tell me it's not true. Tell me it's not true.'"

His testimony continues today.