Kevin Fox, the Wilmington man wrongfully arrested in the June 2004 sexual assault and murder of his 3-year-old daughter, Riley, died Monday in a car crash in Arkansas.
Fox had been arrested four months after his daughter’s half-naked body was found drowned in a creek 4 miles from his family’s home.
Police had said Fox confessed to the murder and sexual assault in a videotaped confession but was released after spending eight months in Will County jail when DNA tests showed he was not linked to the crime.
Fox’s attorney, Kathleen Zellner, confirmed his death in a tweet Tuesday.
“I just learned that one of our best, most courageous & kindest clients, Kevin Fox was killed in a car crash yesterday. Our sympathy goes out to his family and everyone who loved him. RIP,” she wrote.
Zellner alleged at the time Fox was freed that authorities failed to conduct genetic testing and had even told the FBI to not test evidence.
The DNA tests she sought long after Riley had been abducted from her home while sleeping in flamingo pajamas with a Dora the Explorer blanket would go on to prove Fox wasn’t the man who killed and sexually assaulted the young girl.
The evidence left prosecutors “flabbergasted” a year after the girl’s death. After a brief court hearing in which the prosecutors said they no longer had enough evidence to hold Fox, he walked out of jail and into a crowd of cheering, sobbing relatives and friends.
[ From 2007: Fox gets $15.5 million ]
In December 2007, a federal jury initially awarded $15.5 million to Fox and his wife, Melissa, after deciding Will County sheriff’s detectives had falsely arrested the man, violated his due-process rights, maliciously prosecuted and inflicted severe emotional distress.
At the time, it was the largest Illinois award in a civil rights case alleging wrongful arrest, Zellner said, though an appeals court ruling that upheld the decision later reduced the damages to $8 million.
The ordeal “made us that much stronger of a family,” Melissa Fox said at the time of the initial ruling. The couple shed tears and hugged Zellner after the verdict was read.
In May 2010, convicted rapist Scott Eby confessed to 3-year-old Riley’s rape and murder. He was sentenced to life without parole in November 2010 after pleading guilty to the crime.
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A pair of prison-issued shoes with Eby’s name written on both tongues had been found near the girl’s body but were not given a closer look by investigators.
[ Sex offender pleads guilty to rape, murder of 3-year-old Riley Fox ]
But a partial DNA sample taken from duct tape used to bind the girl would eventually be matched to Eby, who lived near the Fox family at the time of the killing and years later was in prison for raping a relative.
In a letter confessing to the crime before an unsuccessful suicide attempt, Eby said some of Riley’s last words were, “I want my daddy.” Fox paid Eby’s former girlfriend, Trisha Keifer, a $100,000 reward for the tip that helped solve the crime.
Fox, 46 years old and living in the rural Arkansas town of Centerville, according to published reports, had been driving a GMC Sierra on a western Arkansas highway Monday when he crashed “head on” with the driver of a Ford Focus.
Paramedics pronounced both men, their bodies trapped in their vehicles, dead at the scene, according to Arkansas news site River Valley Now.
The weather had been clear and the roads dry, Arkansas state troopers said.
