Slain white supremacist’s child sex assault case to be dismissed

Prosecutors plan to drop the child sex assault charges filed against a white supremacist who was run over in a Joliet parking lot, but only because he’s dead.

Derek Walsh, 39, was scheduled to appear in court April 6 for a hearing on his felony sex assault case but instead prosecutors “will move to have the ‘cause abated based on the suggestion of death,’” said Carole Cheney, the spokeswoman for the Will County State’s Attorney’s Office.

Walsh was severely injured in the parking lot of Supermercado Las Palmas on Plainfield Road Monday afternoon and died shortly after at AMITA Saint Joseph Medical Center in Joliet.

A Crest Hill woman, 27-year-old D’Kiva Jones, was charged with first-degree murder in connection with Walsh’s death.

Jones and Walsh argued after she drove a Ford Escape into his parked motorcycle, police said.

Walsh then walked up on her and she ran him over, according to police.

Jones and Walsh were “prior acquaintances, and her actions were intentional,” according to a statement released by the Joliet Police Department, but Cheney and police would not specify how the two knew each other or what basis there was to suspect she ran him over on purpose.

Jones fled after hitting Walsh, police said, but officers located her unoccupied vehicle and then tracked her down as well.

On Wednesday, detectives obtained a warrant for her arrest on three counts of first-degree murder along with charges of failing to report an accident involving injury or death, aggravated battery, and failing to stop after an accident involving injury or death.

Her bond was set at $2 million.

Walsh’s sex case dates back to June 2013, when he was arrested and jailed on charges of predatory criminal sexual assault, criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

Walsh assaulted two girls under the age of 10, according to police. He was in a dating relationship with a relative of their mother when he committed the crimes, police said.

When asked why the prosecution of Walsh dragged on for nearly nine years without resolution, Cheney said the “file reflects how the case progressed.”

Walsh remained in the Will County jail for only six of his case’s nine years, posting $100,000 bond for his release in April 2019. His bond was reduced from $200,000 more than a year before that.

After he completed an earlier stretch in the county jail while facing charges of armed robbery, to which he eventually pleaded guilty, Walsh sued the warden and six other staffers, claiming he was deprived access to the “White Man’s Bible,” a racist work penned by white supremacist Ben Klassen.

In his filing, Walsh admitted he was a member of the white supremacist group the World Church of the Creator and that he “paid a price for his dedication” to the “advancement of the white race,” namely that he was “harassed and arrested by police during peaceful marches, and fired from work.”