A jailed sex offender was charged Thursday in the rape and murder of 3-year-old Riley Fox, whose body was found in a Will County creek in 2004.
Scott Eby, 38, was charged with first-degree murder and predatory criminal sexual assault of a child on Thursday, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. DNA evidence linked Eby to the crime, and if he is convicted it will wrap up one of the area's highest-profile unsolved murders.
Riley Fox was sexually assaulted, bound with duct tape and drowned in a Wilmington creek, according to the Chicago Tribune.
After Riley's body was found, her father Kevin Fox was considered the top suspect, NBC Chicago reports. He was arrested and served 8 months in prison for her murder before DNA evidence exonerated him. He and his wife were awarded $15.5 million for the false arrest and malicious prosecution.
Eby was on parole for a burglary in DuPage County when Riley was killed, the Sun-Times reports:
Eby, who lived about a mile from Riley in Wilmington at the time of her death, is a registered sex offender who was sent to Lawrence Correctional Center in July 2005 for criminal sexual assault of a relative, who is now 27, records show. Eby is not scheduled to be paroled in that case until 2017.
Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow and Michael Cosanovich, the FBI's assistant special-agent-in-charge of the Chicago office, announced the charges Thursday in Joliet, the according to the Sun-Times. Glasgow told reporters the evidence clears Riley's father of any wrongdoing.
"It was very diligent and tedious work," Glasgow told the paper of finding Riley's killer. "This was just dogged determination by agents in the field."