Sarah Avon Mystery: 'Everyone Just Stayed Away From Billy'

JOLIET, IL — A decade before Sarah Avon was abducted from her Oscar Avenue neighborhood near Richards Street, William "Billy" Redden was convicted of aggravated battery against a 19-month-old child.

Redden spent more than three years in prison at the Menard Correctional Center and was released in May 1975. Six years later, in 1981, he emerged as a suspect in the Sarah's disappearance and presumed killing.

Sarah was 6-and-a-half when she disappeared in Joliet Township, never to be seen again. Redden lived less than two blocks away, in an older two-story house in the 200 block of Reichman Street. He was not a stranger. He was family, he father Chuck's cousin.

This week, the Will County Sheriff's Office revealed that Redden is the prime person of interest in Sarah's disappearance and presumed homicide. Then 69-year-old Redden died in 2010.

Even though it's been 39 years this week since Sarah vanished, there are a handful of people from the little girl's neighborhood still living there. On Tuesday afternoon, Joliet Patch's editor talked to Sarah's former babysitter in her house on Old Richards Street.

"Billy Redden was creepy, really, really, scary," the babysitter told Patch, asking that her name not be published. "Everybody was kind of thinking it was Billy."

The older woman said she has six grown children, and one of her daughters often played with Sarah and Sarah's younger sister, Marie, who was 5 at the time. The woman furnished Patch with photo of Sarah Avon at the top of this article.

The woman said that one of her daughters had a neighborhood newspaper route when she was a teenager. Her daughter was "terrified" of delivering the newspaper or collecting her payments from the house in the 200 block of Reichman where Redden lived, she said.

Neighbors told Patch they remembered Redden lived at the house with his mother. They said he always drove an older pickup truck.

During the winter months, Redden would use his fingers to make strange drawings on his front porch windows, the former newspaper carrier told Joliet Patch.

"I delivered newspapers back then, and he was a creep. He would say inappropriate things to me and I was scared to death of him," the woman said.

Sarah's babysitter recalls the night Sarah went missing — July 21, 1981 — as if the crime happened yesterday. At the time, Sarah's mother, Mary "Jame" Avon, was 26.

She came by the babysitter's house on Old Richards Street looking for Sarah around 9 p.m.

"My house was always full of kids. I told her I hadn't seen her," the babysitter recalled. "And Jame said she was busy reading the newspaper ... She realized Marie was there, but Sarah wasn't."

Redden's house on Reichman was just a couple houses down the hill behind the Irving Athletic Club. The Avons' house on Oscar Avenue is about a two-minute walk.

However, Redden was a regular presence at the Avon house because he was family.

"He was there all the time," the babysitter said.

Sarah's babysitter remembered that the Will County Sheriff's Office responded to the neighborhood later that night "and started checking houses where Sarah hung around."

The babysitter said her house was one of the places the police checked.

"Because she was here all the time," she said. "Jame really thought she would be here."

When Sarah did not turn up in her neighborhood, Will County police expanded their search to the other side of Richards Street where there is a massive stone quarry.

"At the quarry, they were up in airplanes with lights," the babysitter said.

When Sarah was not found at the quarry either, the babysitter began to fear she had been snatched. After all, the Richards Street exit for Interstate 80 is only a few blocks up the street.

Even though she was 6, Sarah always acted and talked a lot older. "Very friendly and almost like a little grown up," her babysitter said.

"I had six kids, and I was always baking and cooking for all of them. One time, Sarah just came in and sat at this end of the table, and she just talked. I asked her, 'Sarah, why aren't you out there playing with the kids?' And she said, 'I don't know. I just want to be in here and talk to you.'"

Back then, most of the parents on the east-side of the Joliet neighborhood around Oscar Avenue and Old Richards Street let their children explore, run around and play games outside. Kids could roam the neighborhood for hours without parents being concernred.

"Everybody knew each other," Sarah's babysitter explained. "The kids just played. You pretty much knew where they were. You don't have to worry about them until this happened."

"This" refers to the night Sarah Avon never returned home. Joliet's Oscar Avenue neighborhood changed that night. Kids and parents, people of all ages, were devastated and scared.

Nobody knew what happened to Sarah, and nobody was arrested for her disappearance.

"It changed everything," Sarah's babysitter said Tuesday. "Then, you had to make sure they stayed right around the house."

The Will County Sheriff's Office did not arrest Redden in 1981 in connection with Sarah's abduction. However, it was well known around the neighborhood that the police made him a focus of their investigation.

The sheriff's office told Patch this week that Redden was questioned by investigators in connection with Sarah's disappearance at the time.

"In 1981, they did a cursory search of the property and the residence on consent to search," Will County Deputy Chief Dan Jungles informed Joliet Patch this week. "We excavated the crawl space of the residence last year and did a thorough search."

How did the Joliet neighborhood react upon learning that Redden was on Will County's short list of potential suspects at that time?

"I think everybody kind of just stayed away from Billy," Sarah's babysitter remembered.

Sarah's mother and younger sister left Joliet sometime after her death, moving to Georgia, according to the babysitter.

In 2019, the babysitter and one of her now-grown daughters were interviewed by Will County Sheriff's Office investigators as they tried to solve the cold case.

In their quest to find Sarah's remains, Detective Nat Freeman and fellow sheriff's investigators focused on Redden.

"They did a lot of investigating with him because he was their dad's cousin, and like they said, he's dead now," Sarah's babysitter remarked.

"We're pretty certain it was Billy. The kids were all uncomfortable with him. Anybody that knew them pretty much thought it was Billy."

The babysitter fears that Sarah's remains may never be located, given that Redden has died.

She wonders, though, if it's possible that Redden buried her on the Reichman Street property. On Tuesday, Joliet Patch noticed one large boulder in the front yard that looked out of place.

A wooden porch stretches across the front yard, another possible place to bury a child's body.

This week, Sarah's sister, Marie, who lives out of state, sent an email to Joliet Patch reacting to the news of Redden being publicly identified as the person of interest in her sister's disappearance.

"It is not breaking news to us though," Marie wrote. "Our family has been in consistent contact with Detective (Nat) Freeman and DC Jungles. My mother and I were there in October when the second search was conducted and their team's dedication to our case is commendable.

"We deeply appreciate the efforts of all of those at the Sheriff’s Department, (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children) and the family who lives on the property on Noel Road for all of their hard work, dedication and commitment to finding a resolution to Sarah's case."

Last October, the Will County Sheriff's Office searched a 2-acre property on Noel Road in unincorporated Jackson Township in hopes of finding Sarah's remains. Redden owned the property in Jackson Township until the mid-1990s, the sheriff's office stated.

"While her remains were not found," Sarah's sister emailed Patch, "we continue to be hopeful that someone, somewhere, knows something and will come forward with information that can bring long awaited resolution to Sarah's case, for our family and the community who has kept her memory alive for the last 39 years."

The Will County Sheriff's Office said it is seeking the public's help, particularly "anyone having information pertaining to William R. Redden, of Joliet, around the time of the disappearance of Sarah Avon."

If you have information, contact detectives at 815-727-8574. You can also leave anonymous tips on the Will County Sheriff's website at www.willcosheriff.org/enforcement/submit-a-crime-tip.