She was laid out in a white flower-girl’s dress. Her family members at the wake, even the men, wore some bit of pink, the 3-year-old’s favorite color.
But as locals crowded into St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Wilmington for a last look at Riley Fox’s body Thursday afternoon, investigators were again searching the wooded banks of Forked Creek, where she had been found slain by drowning five days before.
The girl’s barefoot body was found in a white T-shirt, facedown about 3 miles from her home on South Outer Drive in the Kankakee River community south of Joliet.
Just hours earlier, her father, Kevin Fox, had reported her missing.
Investigators on Thursday said their case so far was built around forensic evidence. They seemed to be collecting more Thursday afternoon at the creek, where investigators believe Riley was killed. A white county sheriff’s mini-van with the words “Evidence Unit” was parked beside a bridge over Forked Creek, a short distance from where the girl’s body had been discovered.
Damp bouquets were still stabbed into a bridge railing, as close as the public could get to the place where a little girl they briefly hoped to find alive had died.
Tears filled the eyes of Shari Van Duyne, 38, of Wilmington as she walked Thursday out of Riley’s wake just outside of Wilmington’s downtown.
“It was comfortable to be here. Now you lock your windows, lock your doors, you watch your children every second,” Van Duyne said.
Later, in a light rain, a black Ford Explorer full of detectives pulled into a parking lot across the street. Inside, they snapped pictures through telephoto lenses and videotaped mourners as they entered and exited the church.
Police said their investigation has moved methodically, though there still are no suspects as dozens of tips pour in each day.
“I think we’ve made progress by at least eliminating things that were of no use, to get to things that are useful,” Wilmington Police Chief James Metta said. Leads, and not suspects, were eliminated, he said.
Will County Sheriff’s spokesman Pat Barry said family members and any others known to come into regular contact with Riley had been asked to provide DNA samples to investigators. “No one refused to cooperate,” he said.
Another crucial analysis authorities said they must perform is to determine a more precise time of death.
The reason such information is important is to further rule out or bolster other tips, said Metta–such as a report from Sue Beasley, a neighbor of Riley’s grandmother. Beasley told police she saw the girl in front of the grandmother’s house Sunday morning, miles away from where the girl lived.
“That’s one of the things that they are trying to find out–if it is possible or not,” Metta said of Beasley’s statement.
Beasley said she saw the girl between 7 and 7:30 a.m. kneeling on the sidewalk across the street in pink pants and a white T-shirt. Riley was last seen wearing similar clothing, according to an Amber Alert issued early Sunday.
A feisty woman with deep convictions, Beasley sticks by her account even though it has been bluntly dismissed by Barry and she has been confronted by the girl’s disbelieving family members.
“I will not back down,” said Beasley, 48, a security guard. “I did see her.”
Beasley’s account seems to contradict what Kevin Fox told police. He said he returned with friends from a Saturday street festival and picked up Riley and her brother Tyler, 7, from their grandmother’s house around midnight Saturday. He took them home and left them sleeping on the family couch, with the front door locked, when he went to bed early Sunday.
The boy rose the next morning to find Riley missing and woke his father around 8 a.m., police said. Fox told police the door was ajar.
“Right now, that’s the only story we have, and he’s the only witness,” Metta said of Kevin Fox’s account.
