WOODSTOCK, Ill. _ JoAnn Cunningham, the mother of slain 5-year-old AJ Freund, pleaded guilty Thursday morning to murder in the beating death of her son.
The plea was made in the McHenry County courthouse in Woodstock, Ill. Cunningham will be sentenced at a later date. A status hearing is set for Jan. 30. She faces 20 to 60 years in prison. Other charges against her were dropped.
Cunningham sat quietly in the courthouse during Thursday's hearing. When Judge Robert Wilbrandt asked if she had anything to say, she replied, "Nothing at this time, your honor."
Cunningham, 36, and the boy's father, Andrew Freund were charged in April with first-degree murder and other crimes after the boy's body was found buried in a shallow grave in Woodstock following a massive search for him that began after he was reported missing. Andrew Freund remains charged.
The two have been held in the McHenry County jail on $5 million bail each.
Authorities say the boy's death occurred in his own home in Crystal Lake, about 50 miles northwest of Chicago, a few days before Andrew Freund made a 911 call reporting him missing. Crystal Lake residents, the FBI and police from several agencies across the state scoured the community for about a week. The child's body was found wrapped in plastic and buried in a shallow grave about seven miles from his home.
An autopsy determined his cause of death was head trauma from multiple blunt-force injuries. He had other visible marks and bruises on his body as well, records show.
Throughout his short life, AJ was the subject of many police and child welfare contacts.
Last month, a McHenry County judge approved a request from the city of Crystal Lake to demolish the dilapidated, mold-ridden home where AJ and his parents lived with AJ's younger brother. The brother now is under the care of the state child welfare agency, as is a girl to whom Cunningham gave birth following her arrest. She also has an older son.
Cunningham and Freund were not married. Freund is also the father of AJ's younger brother.
Along with first-degree murder, Freund and Cunningham also were charged with aggravated battery, aggravated domestic battery and failure to report a missing child or child death. Freund also was charged with concealment of a homicidal death.
McHenry County prosecutors said AJ was beaten and his parents forced him "to remain in a cold shower for an extended period of time" before he was put to bed, where they later found him dead. He was buried before his father reported him missing.
A grand jury indictment alleged that Freund and Cunningham committed "great bodily harm." The charges also state "the murder was accompanied by exceptionally brutal or heinous behavior indicative of wanton cruelty."
A Chicago Tribune review found that Department of Children and Family Services employees who investigated the family failed to properly assess the danger AJ faced. Warning signs included multiple police contacts, the misdemeanor arrests of his parents, squalid living conditions, substance abuse and domestic violence.
A report by the DCFS inspector general, which focused on the agency's handling of two hotline investigations _ both from 2018 and involving AJ's suspicious bruising _ found DCFS employees "failed to see the totality" of the family's troubled history and missed chances "to slow down or stop the steady deterioration of the Freund family."
The report found: "It was because of the indifference and incompetence of the department's child protection investigators and supervisor that the opportunity to alter this family's disastrous course was missed."
