I'm sorry, I was wrong, Kevin Fox didn't kill his daughter
**THIS POST IS PRETTY GRAPHIC IN ALL RESPECTS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED**
Last year, I wrote a pretty vitriolic piece attacking Kevin Fox. To refresh your memory, Kevin was accused of, and confessed on video to, accidentally killing his three year old daughter Riley and then sexually assaulting her to cover it up. I said he deserved the death penalty and I would be happy pulling the switch.
DNA evidence finally came back from the semen samples. It didn’t match. Not Kevin, nor anyone from his, or his wife’s family.
So obviously, the district attorney released Kevin Fox from jail (over Father’s Day weekend nonetheless) and he’s now a free man.
Ever since I heard the news, I’ve felt uneasy. On one hand, I called for the death of this man. For that, I was wrong, and I’m sorry. Don’t be confused however, I still feel that the killer should die. It’s just that Kevin isn’t the killer. Obviously, it’s not good for the karma to be wishing death upon anyone, much less an innocent man. And there is one thing I totally agree with the family on. It shouldn’t take nearly a year for DNA evidence to be returned. That is unacceptable. I did feel bad for the family on that one.
But, the more I thought about things, the more angry I’ve become. Everybody in the media is fawning over him because he was falsely imprisoned, I don’t think he deserves such a free ride.
You see Kevin confessed to the crime. He said, on video, that he accidentally killed his child and in a panic, sexually assaulted her and dumped her in a river to cover his tracks and make it look like someone else had done it.
Think about that for a second. Every one of you that’s a parent, think about that statement.
He confessed, on video, to killing his daughter and then sexually assaulting her (which we could only assume was post-mortem if he had accidentally killed her) and then dumping her in a river. Semen was found in the body, so if you believed the confession, after killing his child, we can only assume he was able to get an erection, defile the corpse, and leave his semen.
Now his lawyers and his family say this was all coerced and coached out of him. Now go back and read that last graphic paragraph, let the weight of it sink in. Would you, or could you as a parent, EVER fathom making that statement? Could you ever agree to that?
I don’t care how long you ask me questions, how long you berate me, how much you threaten me with prison rape or how much I am grieving. I would NEVER admit to something so heinous, and so disgusting.
Next, during his 14 hour “ordeal” at the police station, authorities have said that he never asked for a lawyer.
Think about that.
How many of you have seen some sort of cop or law show? NYPD Blue? Any one of the 53 variations of Law & Order? How about the CSI’s? Jag? I think everyone knows that you don’t talk to the police without your lawyer present.
If they called me in for questioning I would simply say “not without my lawyer present.” If they told me the lawyer wasn’t necessary, I would basically tell them to go fuck themselves, and unless they were putting me under arrest, I would leave. I simply wouldn’t go through 14 hours of questioning without calling for a lawyer.
So, for one, he was too much of an idiot for not asking for a lawyer. Even if he DID ask for a lawyer (the family has claimed that he repeatedly asked for his Dad for the purpose of getting him a lawyer), and they wouldn’t let him get one, he’s an idiot for answering ANY of their questions without a lawyer present.
Next, he was weak. Weak enough to admit to killing his child, having the ability to get an erection and ejaculate inside her corpse, and dumping her in the river. All because some mean men bullied him for 14 hours, when he was without his lawyer. Because once again, he didn’t ask for one. And even if he did, he answered questions anyway without one present.
So now, Kevin has spent the better part of this last year behind bars, himself and his family proclaiming his innocence. There’s been no more investigation. Until now.
So not only did Kevin get himself incarcerated for nearly a year, he also let the trail of his daughter’s killer get cold for a year. His idiocy and weakness may have caused the real killer to get away, while putting himself behind bars.
Since we are in sue-happy America, the civil lawsuit is pending. They are going to be asking for a LOT of money. But can you really blame the people that put him behind bars? He confessed, to something that no parent would ever confess to. With a videotaped confession, the judge had no choice but to put him behind bars. The police had no choice but to stop the investigation. They got their man.
But no. Kevin was too stupid to get his lawyer, and too weak not to be coerced into confessing something that no parent would ever confess. Now it cost him nearly a year behind bars, and may have cost him ever finding out who the real killer was. And he’ll get money for it. A lot of money.
Kevin Fox didn’t kill his daughter, but in this whole thing, he’s not exactly innocent.
June 21, 2005 @ 2:36 pm
yeah but you don’t know how all that stuff went down. they are way too good at manufacturing false confessions. they hear what they want to hear. i’m glad (really) that we have police. i know we’d be in a world of sh!t without them in many many ways. but they are a little more than fallible many times. all you have to be is a little on the dumb side, or too nervous, or a hundred other things personality wise, and they’ve got you over whatever barrel they manufacture, if they choose to. it’s what they do, i don’t think it is hard for them to pull it off, even on video.
it could happen to you, it could happen to me. it isn’t out of the realm of possibility. just my opinion.
June 21, 2005 @ 2:46 pm
I don’t disagree that they probably DID coerce him. But for him to admit to something so repugnant is hard for me to stomach. For him to also do it all without a lawyer present is also hard for me to handle.
Let me ask you John. If someone had done that to Roan, what would it take for someone to get you to lie and admit that YOU did it? My bet is that it would take quite a bit.
I don’t doubt that they did do some of the tactics that the family says they did, but you would have to do a lot more than that to get me to admit to something like that.
His confession allowed the trail to go cold for nearly a year, in a town where my daughters spend the night with their grandparents about once a month.
He let himself down, and he let the town down, and he may have let a killer get away. Because he wasn’t smart, and he was weak.
I have a problem with that unfortunately. And one that gnawed enough at me these last days that I had to comment. I know I’m not making any friends with this one, but I’ve never censored myself before, and I don’t plan on it now.
-Grey
June 21, 2005 @ 3:28 pm
Something is definately wrong here; I just can’t put my finger on it. If Mr. Fox is truly innocent; then I am very sorry he spent so long in jail, and he should “sue the pants off them”. However, I doubt that he is completely innocent in this case.
As I understand it, the DNA tests (that should never have taken this long to perform) prove that the semen found in the girl is not his. OK, fine, I’m willing to accept that. But that is the only thing it proves.
I myself am a father of a beautiful little girl. If something this terrible ever happened to my girl, I would hunt down and personally kill the one(s) responsible, or I would die trying. I cannot imagine any father doing anything else. Kevin Fox admitted to killing his daughter, raping her corpse, and dumping her in a river.
To all fathers out there, I ask this question. What would it take for you do admit the same? Just what would the cops have to do to to coerce you to confess to such a terrible, evil thing? For me, the answer is nothing. There is nothing that you could do to make me admit to such a thing. There is no torture or pain great enough in this world to cause this to happen.
There is much more to this case than has been published. The DNA tests prove the semen did not come from Kevin Fox. But that does not mean he is innocent.
We may never know what evil deeds occured that day, but I’m convinced that Kevin knows.
(My opinions on this are based solely on this blog entry and the linked articles -I have no other information to go on.)
-Devin.
June 21, 2005 @ 8:53 pm
Yeah, something’s bogus. You’re right, Grey, there’s nothing any copper (as my grandfather the 30 year beat patrol man preferred to be called) could ever do to make me “confess” to doing something so heinous to my daughter. To jonvon’s point, Johnny Law has some interesting tricks up his sleeve, and he might be able to coerce me into admitting I knocked off one of you jokers. But my daughter?!? Not in a million years.
I wonder if this guys not quite right in the head, to use a particularly technical medical term. Devin’s right – the natural father’s instinct in this case is to hunt down and obliterate whoever did this. This guy didn’t react normally. He could be nuts (again, technical medical jargon alert). Or he could be involved in some way. I guess he could just be unbelievably weak-willed, but that strikes me as inconceivable when one’s daughter is involved.
June 22, 2005 @ 7:04 am
Can we admit to one another here that we are not “of average intelligence”? Or that “average intelligence”, by definition, indicates that half of the population lives somewhere below that line?
Coercion is easy; the techniques are widely known and practised. It is also easy to avoid granting the suspect the legal representation he/she is entitled to — narrow interpretations of what constitutes a request for legal representation mean that the suspect must use one of a short list of “magic words” before police are compelled to cease interrogation. These words (“lawyer”, “attorney”, and so forth, or the name of any person known to the police to be a lawyer) might immediately come to mind for any one of us, but can we assume the same for everyone else?
Now, consider that the suspect being interrogated is facing the following:
* sleep deprivation over the course of several days;
*periods of intense interrogation lasting several hours each over the same period; and
* deliberately misleading statements of rock-solid evidence, including DNA, that make conviction a certainty (I leave it to the class to think about ways one might phrase such statements without actually lying).
Now, facing a certain death, the suspect is told that his life “may” be spared if he essentially repeats the story as it has been told to him, and further, that his family and neighbors will be spared the sordid story and publicity that would surround the trial. At that point, it’s not so much about saving one’s own life for even the most strong-willed, it’s about saving the rest of the family.
Of course, there will come a time, when formal charges are preferred, when the state can no longer avoid providing legal representation, but by then there is a confession on video tape, even if it isn’t backed up by a signed document. That makes things a little tougher for the defence, wouldn’t you think? Especially if the confession’s been televised.
So, yeah, I can be sympathetic.
June 23, 2005 @ 7:13 am
Hey Stan,
First, I think this is the only time anyone in the Blogosphere has implied that I may be above average intelligence
Woo Hoo.
Anyway, to touch on your points. Like I said earlier, I don’t disagree that they were trying to coerce a confession, but I still don’t think that most people would agree to say they did something quite so vile to their own child.
Secondly, he didn’t have sleep deprivation over several days. He worked a full day and then went in to the police station. So by the end he was probably up a little over a day. I’m sure that’s something everyone has done.
Also, just in case anyone wondered. This confession came nearly four months after the killing. So it wasn’t like the murder had just happened and he was in intense mourning. I would still be upset, but four months later, I don’t think I would have been as easily influenced.
That’s the other thing. Over the course of those four months, don’t you think that he would have thought about the fact that they might question him? Don’t you think the family talked about it?
On my initial rant back then, one of the anonymous comments actually originated from a law firm. So either it was a lawyer astroturfing, OR it was a friend or family member. IF it WAS a friend or family member (and I think it was his brother) they would have DEFINITELY talked to him about the possibility of being questioned.
You have someone close to you that works for a law firm. Don’t you think that sometime during those four months they would have clued you in to the “don’t answer questions without your lawyer present?”
I think so. Given that and the pervasive nature of cop dramas in America, I cannot believe anyone would allow that to happen to themselves.
I guess I like to give even stupid people a little more benefit of the doubt…
-John
June 23, 2005 @ 12:27 pm
sorry, i haven’t tuned back in here since i posted…
ok, “Kevin Fox admitted to killing his daughter, raping her corpse, and dumping her in a river.”
see, this is the kind of thing where you have to wonder, did he? i heard a detailed account of how some cops in new york put confessions together that convicted several young people of a rape that they did not commit. it was chilling.
i think what you have to realize is that, they aren’t always just “getting them to admit something”, they are often feeding them the story. or not even feeding it to them, just making it up and then putting it together, taking huge liberties with the details, and then using coercive measures to make them admit to the story they come up with.
there is a difference here, and it is a big one, between one guy being weak willed enough to admit to something he didn’t do, and the actual tactics that can and unfortunately often are used by police in obtaining a “confession”.
if on top of all of that you happen to be poor, a little “off” mentally, or below average intelligence, you are basically f*kd in that situation. no two ways about it, unfortunately.
you have to ask as well, why did it take a year for the dna test to come out? probably because the cops knew they’d manufactured the confession. i agree, there are some things that are off here, but i am willing to take a variety of possibilities into consideration. i am certainly not going to judge this guy based on rhetoric coming out of the police pr machine that has at this point been at least partially and categorically disproven.
there are good reasons why there are so many rules around the presentation and consideration of evidence and this case looks like a good example of why.
btw john, i hope you don’t ever censor yourself here, i love your blog, it is one of the few i go out of my way to read every week, usually several times a week. and also, yes, you are definitely above average when it comes to smarts.
also, i should say that like devin i’d want to be out hunting the bastard who killed someone in my family. i wouldn’t be weak in that situation, i guarantee you. but i don’t want to judge someone else based on that conviction. the truth is, you never know what might happen until it really goes down. and also, where one person is strong, another person may not be. one of my strengths is communication. i have a feeling the fellow who spent all that time in jail may have not had the same strength as i have in that regard.
also like devin this is the first i’ve heard of this case and i am basing everything i am writing about it on the contents of this blog post (and the responses).
and one last thing, i am not trying to take sides. probably more than anything else i am saying that i would have to be in a sort of “godlike” position to make a judgement here. one that would at the very least take into consideration all of the evidence. one that would include more legal training than i have had (i have had a little, i used to be a paralegal). i’d want to see all kinds of stuff, and interview people in depth and so on. i woudn’t want to come to a conclusion based on a few news stories, and i certainly wouldn’t want to come to a conclusion based solely on what the cops were saying. there is a lot of pressure on them to find an answer in a situation like that, and sometimes that pressure gets the best of them.