EFFINGHAM CO., Ill.—A guilty plea to the stabbing death of Willow Long last September has been entered in her uncle’s First Degree Murder case.
This location is found at a borrow pit about two miles to the south and west of the village of Watson; a purple ribbon marks the spot near where Willow Long’s body was found.
Effingham County State’s Attorney Bryan Kibler has just released this announcement:
Justin DeRyke
Justin D. DeRyke pled guilty Tuesday to the stabbing death of his niece, 7-year-old Willow Long, in Watson, Illinois, in September of 2013.
DeRyke’s guilty plea was accepted by the Honroable Kimberly G. Koester, Circuit Judge, who pronounced a mandatory life sentence, without the possibility of parole, on the 22-year-old defendant.
DeRyke has been held in custody since confessing to the murder, hours after volunteer searchers found the child’s body in a pond south of Watson. And Effingham County Grand Jury indicted DeRyke on September 18, 2013, charging that he, “without legal justification, and with the intent to kill, stabbed Willow Long in the clavicle…thereby causing the death of Willow Long.”
“Justin DeRyke’s plea of guilty to the offense of Frist Degree Murder means that society will be protected, and the murderer will spend the rest of his life behind bars,” said Bryan M. Kibler, State’s Attorney of Effingham County, who prosecuted the matter. “The sentence in this case is the maximum allowed by law.”
“Justin DeRyke will never again pose a threat to any child,” Kibler said.
Kibler credited local agents Tim Brown and Jeff Kline of the Illinois State Police, the Effingham County Sheriff’s Department, and Effingham County Coroner Duane Guffey, among a multitude of law enforcement officers, who worked to resolve the case.
Kibler also credited the thousands of volunteers who came forward to assist in the September 2013 search efforts for the child.
“Our hearts were broken by the discovery of Willow Long’s body,” said Kibler. “But, the way that the good citizens of Effingham County reached out to one another in the search for this innocent child will never be forgotten.”
Willow Long