WOODSTOCK, Ill. _ JoAnn Cunningham, the mother of slain 5-year-old Crystal Lake boy AJ Freund, pleaded guilty Thursday morning to first-degree murder in the beating death of her son.
The plea was made in the McHenry County courthouse in Woodstock. 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 stood quietly with her lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Rick Behof, during Thursday's hearing. McHenry County State's Attorney Patrick Kenneally was also present. When Judge Robert Wilbrandt asked Cunningham if she had anything to say, she replied, "Nothing at this time, your honor."
After the hearing, Kenneally said his office will seek the maximum sentence. Whatever the sentence, Cunningham will have to serve all of it and will not be eligible for parole.
"I'm satisfied with the plea. It's on the most serious charge," Kenneally said. "We expect if not a life sentence, the vast majority of her life will be spent in prison."
Cunningham, 36, and the boy's father, Andrew Freund, 60, 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.
Kenneally said that there had been ongoing negotiations with Cunningham for some time. He would not comment on how this would affect Freund's case or if Cunningham would be called as a witness should he go to trial.
He said Cunningham's family members, who were not in court, were made aware of the plea and they supported it.
Her mother, Lori Hughes, told The Chicago Tribune she is relieved her daughter pleaded guilty and spared her other children and family members the ordeal of an emotional trial.
Hughes said she has not yet visited Cunningham in jail and the two spoke only a few times on the phone, though not recently, since the arrest. She did not know what prompted the sudden plea from Cunningham, who in a series of recorded phone calls with CBS-Channel 2 earlier this year vehemently denied harming AJ.
"I hope her incentive was because she cares about (her other sons) and didn't want to make them go through a trial and have to testify on the stand," Hughes said. "That's my hope."
In the end, though, Hughes said she assumes her daughter realized the evidence of her guilt was overwhelming.
"She knew there was all this evidence against her," Hughes said. "She knew she was guilty, obviously."
Kenneally said dismissing other charges wouldn't have affected the sentencing had they resulted in findings of guilt because many of the sentences would have run concurrently.
Another Cunningham attorney, Assistant Public Defender Angelo Mourelatos, would not comment on the plea. He said he has requested Cunningham receive a psychological, psychiatric and substance abuse evaluation before sentencing.
Authorities say the boy's death occurred in his own home 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 7 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.
Cunningham gave birth to a girl following her arrest. She also has an older son. The younger children are being raised by members of Cunningham's family.
Cunningham and Freund were not married. Freund is also the father of AJ's younger brother.
Hughes and other family members said they had been estranged from Cunningham and Freund the last couple years of AJ's life. Hughes won a long custody battle against her daughter in 2013 shortly after AJ was born regarding Cunningham's oldest son, now 19 and a sophomore in college.
Hughes said Cunningham's oldest son, his younger brother and a baby girl born while Cunningham was in custody are doing well and recently spent the Thanksgiving holiday together.
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 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 _ 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."
Kenneally said his office has been working to revamp the protocol and process in McHenry County cases that involve DCFS in hopes of avoiding cases similar to AJ's. He said he has appointed Assistant State's Attorney Sharyl Eisenstein as a criminal supervisor in charge of juvenile abuse and neglect cases.
Hughes and other relatives have said they were never notified of 2018 calls to the DCFS hotline, including two complaints alleging the boy had suspicious bruises.
The child welfare agency determined both DCFS investigations to be unfounded. The slain boy's estate has since filed a lawsuit against two DCFS workers, both of whom remain on paid desk duty.
Janelle Butler, who lives across the street from the home at 94 Dole Ave. where the child was killed, said she is "glad" Cunningham pleaded guilty, saving the family and community from going through a trial.
"That was the best thing she could do," Butler said. "But I do hope she gets the maximum sentence. I think she had a lot of opportunities to turn things around before she did what she did. I feel forgiveness but I am still very angry that she did that."
