These monsters really had no shame or love for this boy.
A video of a badly beaten 5-year-old Crystal Lake boy on his mother’s cellphone helped crack the investigation into his killing, according to court documents.
The video on JoAnn Cunningham’s phone, taken more than a month before Andrew “AJ” Freund’s death, showed the boy had severe bruising on his face and body, and was berated for urinating in his bed, the documents alleged. And his mother allegedly searched online for “child cpr” the night of AJ’s death, the documents indicated.
AJ’s father, Andrew “Drew” Freund, said the boy was forced to take a long, cold shower and was put to bed “cold, wet, and naked” before being found dead, the documents read.
Those tragic details came out in a sworn statement by McHenry County sheriff’s Detective Edwin Maldonado in a request for a search warrant April 24, which was posted in the court file this week.
The parents were charged with AJ’s killing, as well as aggravated battery, aggravated domestic battery, failure to report a missing child, and in Freund’s case, concealment of a homicide. Cunningham was also charged with an earlier aggravated battery from on or about March 4 relating to the video.
The video on Cunningham’s phone, dated March 4, showed AJ lying on a bare mattress in his bedroom, with a voice that sounds like Cunningham’s “berating AJ for urinating on his bed,” according to the affidavit.
“AJ is seen to (be) naked except for some small bandages around both wrists and circling his hips,” the affidavit stated. “AJ is seen to be holding an ice pack to his face and when he removes it he is seen to have deep red bruising around his eyes, and yellowish-green bruising around his neck and upper chest. It did not appear from the video that AJ received professional medical attention.”
When FBI and Crystal Lake police investigators confronted the father with the video at 2:40 a.m. April 24, Freund blamed AJ’s injuries in the video on Cunningham, and then gave an account of what happened the night AJ died, the documents alleged.
“Drew also said that he believed AJ died on Monday morning after spending a prolonged time in a cold shower,” the affidavit stated. “Drew explained he wanted JoAnn to stop with the hard physical beatings and do some less violent form of punishment. Drew said cold showers was decided (as the alternative). Drew said on or about … 4/15/19, AJ had lied about soiled underwear and he was subjected to a cold shower. Drew said he helped AJ out of the shower after he’d been there approximately 20 minutes, and put AJ to bed ‘cold, wet, and naked.’
“Drew said JoAnn got up and checked on AJ and that was when she got Drew and used Drew’s phone to search for child cpr. Drew advised at some point that he believed AJ had died. Drew said the next day he took AJ’s body to the basement and stored him in a tote. He said on the night of 4/17/19 he placed Andrew inside of several trash bags, placed the body in the trunk of his car, and drove him to an area in Woodstock. Drew said he dug a shallow grave for AJ, placed him in it, covered it with straw, and left.”
Freund then took police to the grave on a vacant property near Woodstock, where they found AJ’s body, the documents alleged.
An autopsy determined that AJ died from blunt force trauma to his head.
The house was in “hoarder” condition, with garbage bags stacked inside and outside. Freund’s cellphone contained a photo of a handwritten shopping list containing duct tape, plastic gloves, air freshener and bleach, and at least some of those items were found at the house.
Heaven forbid they would, gasp, wash the soiled underwear.
The CBS 2 Investigators are digging into a case that riveted the nation earlier this year.
JoAnn Cunningham is accused of murdering her young son, 5-year-old A.J. Freund. Over a series of a half dozen recorded conversations and even more letters, CBS 2’s Brad Edwards asked her everything.
“I would rather kill myself than hurt my family,” Cunningham said tearfully in one of the calls. “I’d rather kill myself than hurt anybody.”
Before that, it started with a missed call. It was from the 815 area code and included a voicemail that identified the caller as JoAnn Cunningham – an inmate at the McHenry County Jail.
So started a series of communications between Cunningham and Edwards.
Edwards asked to record the calls, and Cunningham said yes.
“I feel like this is getting worse in here for me the more I talk to you,” she said.
Edwards: “Did you kill A.J.?”
Cunningham: “No. I would never hurt my children.”
Edwards: “Now, you say that, but some people will say you used drugs while you were pregnant.”
Cunningham: “I know, and that’s something I cannot take back.”
Cunningham also said: “If it’s Drew, then he needs to grow some balls and he needs to tell them so everyone isn’t suffering. You know, I’m scared.”
The Illinois mother charged in the beating death of her 5-year-old son Andrew "AJ" Freund, a Crystal Lake boy who was reported missing before his body was found in a shallow grave in a far northwest suburb in April, has pleaded guilty to murder.
Joann Cunningham, 36, had previously pleaded not guilty and requested a trial by jury in May. On Thursday, she filed a guilty plea to first-degree murder at the McHenry County courthouse in Woodstock, where she will now face 20 to 60 years in prison.
A status hearing in the case is set for Jan. 30 and the remaining charges against her have been dropped.
Court records revealed that video police recovered from Cunningham's cell phone, showing AJ naked on a mattress and covered in bruises, prompted Freund Sr. to lead investigators to the boy's body.
On Apr. 25, the McHenry County Coroner's office identified the body found as AJ's and said the cause of death was "craniocerebral trauma as a consequence of multiple blunt force injuries."
Most of the balloons arranged in an arch on the Woodstock square Saturday afternoon were black and blue -- one the color of mourning and the other a favorite of a little boy who had been beaten to death.
White balloons representing innocence also were intertwined in the centerpiece assembled on the pavilion for a rally to remember and demand justice for 5-year-old AJ Freund, who died in April 2019.
In December, his mother, JoAnn Cunningham pleaded guilty to AJ's murder in their Crystal Lake home. She faces up to 60 years in prison without the possibility of parole. Sentencing by Judge Robert Wilbrandt is scheduled for Thursday.
People gathered Saturday in the Woodstock Square also in memory of other children who have died while on the radar of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, and to demand changes within the agency, which had several encounters with AJ's family.
"Look at that face," said Tracy Kotzman, who founded the ROAR for AJ Facebook group and organized Saturday's event. "He was 5 years old. We want justice, but more importantly, we want change."
At the base of the pavilion were little cardboard cutouts of children to represent the 123 child deaths in 2019 investigated by the DCFS inspector general's office. Participants say DCFS was "deliberately indifferent" in its dealings with AJ and have called for charges to be brought against the caseworker and supervisor.
For the past 14 months, Kotzman and a small but determined group have stood vigil outside the McHenry County courthouse on the many days of court proceedings for Cunningham and AJ's father, Andrew Freund Sr.
Sparse attendance at the beginning of the vigil was disappointing to Kotzman but she said it won't dilute the mission of standing up for kids.
"We're still here," she said.
Too bad Jason Voorhees didn't bump these assholes off since Crystal Lake is his stomping grounds! That poor baby didn't have a snowball's chance in Hell!@Satanica @cubby @Fives My Charm
Parents charged in death of missing Crystal Lake boy
Authorities searching for a missing 5-year-old Illinois boy who had lived in deplorable conditions dug up his body Wednesday and charged his parents with murder, sadly declaring that the youngster would "no longer have to suffer."www.fox32chicago.com