most unpleasant

In a series of articles by Amy Lee from Chicagoland this morning, commemorating the brutal killing of little Jaclyn Dowaliby, the similarities to the abduction, murder and botched investigation of JonBenet Ramsey's murder is clearly memorialized.


Just like JonBenet's case, from the moment Jaclyn was discovered missing from her bed, the investigation was mismanaged by law enforcement and persecution of the parents ensued. Mrs. Dowaliby was arrested and found not guilty but after being convicted, jailed then released after 18 months, Jaclyn's father David cannot be tried again under the double jeopardy rule.


The Ramsey's have been cleared of guilt due to even more crime scene DNA discoveries in 2008. I often wonder if it would have been some kind strategic advantage for initiating a real investigation if either of the Ramseys were to have been arrested shortly after JonBenet's murder early in 1997. Later that same year, once the discovery was made that law enforcement was withholding critical DNA evidence, when combined with lack of other evidence either Ramsey would have been swiftly acquitted. Had that happened the business of actually looking for JonBenet's killer could have begun years ago and the case could have been investigated properly. Just as is now being done today in the heinous and unsolved murder of three year old Riley Fox, also kidnapped from her bed in the middle of the night while her family slept nearby.

What we can learn from these cases is invaluable if we are willing to pay attention. Ask any of these parents that have suffered the imaginable. While they pursue and yearn for an answer to the question of who murdered their child and why, their concern for derailing similar persecution of innocent victims, and how this impedes a real investigation to find the killer, will be bubbling right under the surface --

Unsettling ending
Published in the Southtown Star
BY AMY LEE

"...Jaclyn's horrific abduction and murder occurred eight years before child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, 6, was found dead under eerily similar circumstances in her Boulder, Colo., home.

In both the cases, a broken basement window became pivotal to the police investigation. In both cases, investigators did not immediately secure the homes to glean evidence and prevent contamination. In both cases, a media frenzy ensued when police fingered the parents and the parents shied from the press and hired lawyers.

"At the time this was a very rare occurrence. No one raced in and accused the parents. The police work was consistent with the times...This was the end of an era when people left keys in their cars, their doors unlocked and windows open at night to sleep."

More in the series by Amy Lee:

Justice for Jaclyn?


Did mentally ill uncle do it?


DNA not likely to solve case

rules of engagement

While Boulder authorities continue to internalize the investigation of JonBenet's murder, in Illinois the state's attorney James Glasgow has taken a noble stand in commitment to helping little Riley Fox's family find answers by soliciting the FBI for assistance with that 5 year unsolved murder--

Killing of 3-year-old a mystery five years later
Updated Wed July 15, 2009
By Rupa Mikkilineni

NEW YORK (CNN) -- One summer night in 2004, 3-year-old Riley Fox lay asleep on a couch not far from her 6-year-old brother on a chair in the living room. Their father was sleeping in a nearby bedroom...

Her body was found later that day in a river in Forked Creek, Illinois, just 4 miles from the family's home. She'd been bound and gagged with duct tape, raped and drowned, according to the Will County Sheriff's Office and the coroner's report...

Indeed, five months later, Will County sheriff's officers arrested and charged Kevin Fox with the sexual assault and murder of his daughter. Zellner says the arrest came after authorities coerced a confession from him after 14 hours of relentless questioning.

Fox spent eight months in jail, but DNA evidence from the rape kit conducted on Riley's body finally exonerated him. There was no semen found during the autopsy, Zellner says, but saliva of an unidentified male was found on the duct tape covering Riley's mouth and elsewhere on her body...

Last month, the FBI joined the investigation at the request of Will County State Attorney James Glasgow. FBI agents combed Riley's neighborhood and talked with neighbors and other potential witnesses.

"The FBI is bringing unprecedented resources and expertise to this investigation," Glasgow said in a statement. "We cannot allow this horrific crime against an innocent child to remain unsolved."

The family is offering a $100,000 reward, and the FBI is offering $10,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for Riley Fox's death.

Anyone with more information is urged to call the FBI's Chicago office at 312-421-6700.