COOK COUNTY, IL – A 44-year-old woman, charged in the 2003 deaths of her newborn twins following an extensive cold case investigation by Sheriff’s Police, has been convicted of murder, Cook County Sheriff Thomas J. Dart announced today.
Antoinette Briley pled guilty to murder today at the Bridgeview Courthouse and was sentenced to 20 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. The remaining counts against Briley were dismissed during the plea hearing.
The bodies of the twin baby boys were discovered on June 6, 2003 by a Waste Management employee emptying trash bins in an alley in the 4800 block of South Latrobe Avenue in unincorporated Stickney Township. A subsequent autopsy by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office determined the victims had been born alive and died of asphyxiation. The Medical Examiner’s Office ruled their deaths homicides. Sheriff’s Police conducted a thorough investigation at the time, but an offender could not be identified.
In 2018, Sheriff’s Police Detectives reopened the case and utilized DNA from evidence recovered from the scene in an effort to identify the birth mother using genetic genealogy. A breakthrough from that research and subsequent investigation allowed detectives to identify Briley as the potential birth mother.
As part of the investigation, Sheriff’s Police Detectives travelled to Holland, Mich., where Briley is from, and obtained a discarded item containing Briley’s DNA. The DNA from that item was strongly associated with the victims’ DNA.
On December 3, 2020, Sheriff’s Police detectives took Briley into custody after learning she was in Cook County. After she was issued her Miranda warning, Briley admitted her involvement in the death of the boys and the disposal of their bodies.
The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office approved two counts of first-degree murder charges against her the next day.
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