Scott Eby: From petty thief to child rapist and murderer

SUMNER — The FBI agents walked in and told the prisoner exactly why he’d been let out of his cell that morning.

“We’re here to talk about Riley Fox,” they said.

Scott Eby “almost immediately” said he wanted to see a lawyer and repeated that statement as they tried to further the conversation.

Disappointed, but legally bound by the exercise of his constitutional rights, the agents walked out of the interview room and into a corridor of the Lawrence Correctional Center.

A minute passed. Eby looked down at the microphone on the table in front of him.

“OK. I’ll talk,” he said.

Other investigators made a mad scramble to get the FBI agents back in the room.

Eby’s run-ins with the law

Scott Wayne Eby was born July 21, 1971. His criminal career began three days before Christmas 1988 when he walked into an Old Second Bank branch in North Aurora.

Eby, who was living in an apartment on Old Indian Trail in Aurora, attempted to cash a check made out to him that day for $125. The teller noticed the signature on the check did not match the bank’s signature card and Eby was detained until police arrived.

“This (will be) the defendant’s first trip to the Department of Corrections and his first problems with the law,” an assistant Kane County state’s attorney wrote.

In exchange for pleading guilty on March 2, 1989, an unrelated attempted residential burglary charge was dismissed.

Eby was sentenced to two years in prison.

Upon release, Eby continued his burglary career. He was caught breaking into a residence in September 1993 in Cook County while awaiting trial from another burglary arrest the previous year.

Sentenced to respective four- and three-year terms, he was still released early.

On March 28, 1997, a woman drove her 1986 Saab 9000 to a Citgo on Main Street in Lisle and went inside to pay for gas.

Eby opened the driver’s door and stole a backpack that was on the front seat. He ran behind some buildings, but was recognized by a witness.

Court records show Eby had been staying on Tallman Avenue in Romeoville and in Ronks, Pa., a small farming community with a prominent Amish population, around this time.

Wherever he was living, Eby skipped a court date that August and ducked an arrest warrant for nearly three years.

He was caught in Florida, where sources said he spent time in a mental institution and underwent the brain surgery that has left a large scar on his forehead. Eby was extradited back in August 2000 and pleaded guilty in exchange for seven years in prison.

While Eby was finishing his stretch in the Danville Correctional Center he bought a new pair of shoes. He wrote his last name on the tongues in permanent marker because he was worried his property would be stolen by thieves.

“Eby has an extensive criminal history. This defendant does not deserve any consideration for early release,” an assistant DuPage County state’s attorney told the court.