The convicted sex offender who confessed to the 2004 slaying of 3-year-old Riley Fox after the girl’s father was wrongly accused in the horrific far southwest suburban case died in prison Thursday, officials said.
Scott Eby was sentenced to life in prison after admitting to kidnapping Riley from her unlocked Wilmington home, stuffing her in the trunk of his car, sexually assaulting and drowning her in a creek, the Sun-Times reported at the time.
The Will County State’s Attorney’s Office confirmed Eby’s death.
The 52-year-old had been held at the downstate Menard Correctional Center. Officials at the Illinois Department of Corrections didn’t respond to requests for comment on the cause of death.
Kevin Fox, Riley’s father, was arrested shortly after his daughter’s death when investigators said he’d confessed to accidentally killing Riley and then trying to make it look like a kidnapping, authorities said at the time.
He spent more than eight months in jail before being freed by a federal appeals court after DNA evidence cleared him in the case. In 2007, a jury awarded Kevin and Melissa Fox $15.5 million in a civil suit charging false arrest and malicious prosecution. The award was later reduced on appeal to $8 million.
Despite the fact that shoes with his name inside them were found in the creek where Riley was found, Eby — who lived near the Fox family — wasn’t charged until 2010 after someone tipped off FBI agents reinvestigating the case.
Eby could’ve faced the death penalty, but prosecutors agreed to a life sentence in return for a guilty plea.
Fox died in an Arkansas car crash earlier this year at age 46.
Kathleen Zellner, Fox’s former attorney, hailed news of Eby’s death in a social media post: “Finally justice for Riley!”
After Eby’s sentencing, Fox told reporters: “I hope he rots in hell.”
