Chicago Police said today a person of interest in the death of 2-year-old Kyrian Knox has ties to Rockford. The person’s name is being withheld.
“I don’t know if he has a residence in Rockford, but he has some type of presence in Rockford, and he is known to the family,” said Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
Kyrian’s mother, Lanisha Knox, told the Register Star’s media partner, WREX, “Justice will be served, and whoever did this, they are going to jail.”
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Kyrian was last seen in mid to late August in Rockford but was not reported missing until Sept. 17. He reportedly was in the care of a family friend, Kamel Harris, 40, of Rockford, while Lanisha Knox was moving. Harris was arrested the day of or shortly after Kyrian was reported missing. He was held in the Winnebago County Jail on a burglary charge for over a month before he was released in October.
While Rockford police detectives were working a missing person case, Chicago police was already culling missing person reports to try to identify the remains of a child found over the Labor Day weekend in the Garfield Park Lagoon.
According the Chicago Tribune, a passer-by on Sept. 5 spotted a foot floating in the lagoon. Over the next few days authorities recovered a child’s head, hands, feet and a 20 pound weight. The torso is still missing. The Chicago Medical Examiner’s Officer determined the child was likely 2 or 3 years old, African American and possibly a male because the ears were not pierced.
Less than a week after Kyrian was reported missing, Chicago detectives were in Rockford to collect DNA from Kyrian’s mother. The DNA was submitted to the FBI crime lab in Quantico, Virginia. On Nov. 4, Chicago police revealed the DNA from Lanisha Knox matched the DNA collected from the recoverd remains.
Police do not know if the child was dead or alive at the time of dismemberment. Chicago Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said police are awaiting the cause of death to be determined by the Chicago Medical Examiner’s Office.
Becky Schlikerman, a spokeswoman for the Medical Examiner’s Office, said the office is still awaiting the FBI report before officially declaring the remains belonging to Kyrian Knox.
How a cause of death can be determined without the torso is not clear.
Schlikerman said, “We’ll rely on the what evidence we see in the remains and the police investigation.”
Garfield Park is a 184-acre urban park located in the East Garfield Park neighborhood, located just north of the Eisenhower Expressway on Chicago’s west side. The park features multiple athletic fields, a garden, and a fishing lagoon 1- to 6-feet deep.
Carolyn Jones Calvert lives within walking distance of Garfield Park. She identified herself on a social media posting as Kyrian’s babysitter after it was made public the recovered remains belong to Kyrian.
Contacted today, she said, “When he came to me, he was only a few months old. We taught Kyrian how to walk. Believe it or not when they put that sketch (a police sketch artist rendering of what the child may look like) up there, I said that’s Kyrian. Kyrian’s mother didn’t believe it was him. His grandmother didn’t believe it was him, but I told my mother, ‘That’s Kyrian.'”
Calvert said she cared for Kyrian from late summer 2013 to early 2014. She said Kyrian was removed from her care by Lanisha Knox when she refused to watch him for up to 16 hours a day.
“I said, ‘That’s a bit much.’ I said, ‘If you want me to, I can take custody of him.’ But she didn’t want that.”
