compiled by Patrick H. Moore
The babysitter from hell is a common motif in our popular entertainment. If you come across a movie with the word “babysitter” in the title, you can safely assume that the babysitter in question will be evil, deranged, or even — in some cases — the very spawn of Satan. Unfortunately, this villainous stock figure manifested in the real world this past summer in the tiny hamlet of Watson in southern Illinois when a 22-year-old man, Justin DeRyke, while babysitting his niece Willow, allegedly went berserk and cut her throat before stabbing her repeatedly in a kind of demonic frenzy.
Or so the prosecutors are claiming. Justin’s story, however, deviates markedly from that of law enforcement. The Associated Press has the story:
As first reported by the Effingham Daily News, Effingham County State Attorney Bryan Kibler stated that DeRyke told investigators he was baby-sitting Willow and her 3-year-old brother at the Watson home he and his parents shared with his sister, Ciara DeRyke, and her two children, one of whom is the victim.
According to Kibler, DeRyke claimed Willow grabbed his arm, wanting him to watch television with her, but accidentally scratched him and drew blood. The prosecutor said DeRyke told the investigators he then became angry and chased the girl out of the house. While running, she fell onto a pile of brush, piercing her neck on a stick.
Then, according to Kibler, DeRyke said that poor Willow, who was apparently badly wounded, “began twitching”. Believing “he had to put her out of her misery”, DeRyke then retrieved a knife from his bedroom, knelt beside the girl and cut her throat before stabbing her repeatedly.
DeRyke’s story would be unconvincing even if he had reported the incident immediately after “the accident”. Instead of going to the authorities, however, he apparently wrapped the child’s dead body in several garbage bags, sealed the bags with duct tape, and dumped her a few miles from the family home. It is unclear at this point whether it was DeRyke or the victim’s mother — who woke up from a nap and and discovered that Willow was gone — who reported her absence to the authorities.
Once the child was reported missing, hundreds of searchers scoured fields, sheds and other rural structures in the area over a 30-hour time span before Willow’s body was finally discovered on Monday night. Instead of sticking around to help with the search, DeRyke went to his restaurant job Sunday evening in Effingham.
DeRyke was arrested on Tuesday morning. He has been indicted on three counts of first-degree murder. The three counts specify different ways in which the suspect may have caused the little girl’s death.
In his probable cause statement, Kibler reported that the autopsy identified the body as Willow’s and revealed numerous knife wounds, including a slash across the child’s throat and a stab wound that severed a vein. He said cuts on her hands suggested that there perhaps had been a struggle. Kibler made no mention of any autopsy findings of a possible neck wound caused by a stick.
DeRyke’s father, Dale DeRyke, a truck driver, has told St. Louis’ KSDK-TV that Willow’s death was a tragic accident and that Justin panicked and hid the girl’s body.
“He’s thinking, ‘Oh my God, I killed her or she’s died. They are going to blame me. He’s not thinking correctly … He tries to hide her. He’s scared.”
State Attorney Kibler declined to address other aspects of the case when talking to reporters on Wednesday — most notably claims by Willow’s mother that she last saw her daughter alive watching television Sunday morning and that she fell asleep and woke up later only to discover the girl was gone. Willow’s mother’s version appears to contradict DeRyke’s account that the girl already was dead when the mother claimed to have last seen her alive.
“What is a lie is not always clear,” Kibler told reporters, somewhat enigmatically.
Kibler made it very clear, however, that DeRyke faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted on any one of the three first-degree-murder counts.