Kevin Fox, 46, Father Of Riley Fox, Dies In Head-On Crash

WILMINGTON, IL — Kevin Fox, the former Wilmington man who was wrongly arrested by the Will County Sheriff's Department for murdering his 3-year-old daughter Riley Fox in the summer of 2004, was killed Monday in a head-on crash in Arkansas. Fox was 46.

"Kevin was one of the most courageous clients I have ever had," Fox's wrongful conviction lawyer Kathleen Zellner wrote Joliet Patch's editor on Tuesday. "He will be remembered as the best father to his children anyone could have ever been. It is heartbreaking that he died so young."

Zellner also shared the tragic news on her Twitter page. She told Patch that Fox was living in Arkansas, along with his new wife and their two young daughters, ages 1 and 2.

According to an Arkansas news outlet, around 4 p.m. the Arkansas State Police responded to a head-on crash that killed both drivers.

Fox's GMC Sierra was traveling north on State Highway 7 and the Ford Focus, driven by a 47-year-old Arkansas man, was headed south. The Ford Focus crossed into Fox's lane, colliding with his GMC Sierra. Both crash victims lived in Centerville, Arkansas.

Kevin Fox was initially charged with his daughter’s June 2004 murder. Under questioning by Will County detectives, Fox confessed to the crime, but was later exonerated through DNA evidence after attorney Zellner pushed to have a private lab test “inconclusive” saliva samples.

In 2010, imprisoned sex offender Scott Eby confessed and was later convicted of Riley’s murder.

The Fox family was ultimately awarded $8 million in a civil rights suit filed against Will County authorities.

In May 2021, ABC News' "20/20" aired a two-hour special surrounding the Wilmington murder of 3-year-old Riley Fox.

The 20/20 segment included new interviews with Melissa Fox Hodgen, Riley's mother, as well as suburban Chicago attorney Kathleen Zellner, who served as criminal defense attorney for Kevin Fox. The two-hour special, featuring anchor David Muir, also included interviews with FBI agents Lori Warren and Jeremy Resar, who are credited with stepping in and solving the case from the Will County Sheriff's Office, which messed up the homicide investigation by targeting Kevin Fox as the killer, even though he was innocent all along.