The parents of murdered five year-old Andrew
‘AJ’ Freund made him stand under a cold shower for lengthy periods of time, a court heard. JoAnn Cunningham, 36, and Andrew Freund Sr also battered the vulnerable youngster on numerous occasions before killing him last week, it is alleged.
Freund Sr called cops to report his son missing last Thursday, with Cunningham saying he’d vanished after she put him to bed on Wednesday night at their dilapidated home in Crystal Lake, Illinois. But court documents seen by CBS Chicago allege that AJ was actually killed two days earlier, on Monday April 15. Cunningham sobbed during her first court appearance Thursday, as a judge read out charges of first-degree murder and aggravated battery.
Her husband remained composed as the murder charge was put before him. Neither has entered a plea, with each jailed in lieu of $5million bond.
A day after AJ was reported missing, his mother stopped cooperating with police. Cunningham’s attorney George Kililis said he’d advised her to do so after it became apparent she was being lined up as a possible suspect in her son’s death. The mother, who also has a three year-old son with Freund Sr, finally went back to Crystal Lake Police Department Wednesday morning.
Police later said one of AJ’s parents had confessed to murdering him, and also accused the other parent of the same thing. It has not yet been released which of the two parents made this outburst. After the confession, police were able to find AJ’s body wrapped in plastic and buried in a shallow grave. The youngster’s corpse had been buried in a remote area in Woodstock, around nine miles from his home. It has also emerged that police visited AJ’s home 10 times in the last five years. They said the squalid property was strewn with feces as well as needles, and that it did not have any electrical power.