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David Cox Mississippi Death Row

david cox

David Cox was sentenced to death by the State of Mississippi for kidnapping and murder. According to court documents David Cox shot his way into his ex wife’s home and would shoot and severely injure the woman. David Cox would barricade himself into the home and refused to release the woman for medical attention. By the time David Cox was placed under arrest his wife had died from her injuries. David Cox would be convicted and sentenced to death.

Mississippi Death Row Inmate List

David Cox 2021 Information

Race: WHITESex: MALEDate of Birth: 11/30/1970
Height: 6′ 2”Weight:Complexion: FAIR
Build: LARGEEye Color: BROWNHair Color: BROWN
Entry Date: 09/24/2012Location: MSPUNIT: UNIT 29
Location Change Date: 10/01/2018Number of Sentences: 8Total Length: DEATH

David Cox More News

David Cox (“Cox”) and Kim Cox (“Kim”) had two children of their marriage, D.C. and J.C. Cox was the stepfather of Kim’s daughter, L.K., born in April 1998.2 Kim and Cox separated in 2009 after L.K. told Kim that Cox had raped her. Kim reported the crime to local law enforcement. In August 2009, Cox was arrested on charges of statutory rape, sexual battery, child abuse, possession of precursors, and possession of methamphetamine. During his nine months in jail prior to posting bond, Cox often would become enraged and would proclaim to his cellmates his hatred for Kim, blaming her for his incarceration. Cox professed to them that he would kill Kim once released. Because Kim feared Cox, she and the children moved in with her sister, Kristie Salmon.

¶ 3. Cox was released on bond from the Pontotoc County Jail in April 2010. Cox was working as a commercial truck driver. On his way home on May 14, 2010, Cox purchased a .40 caliber hand gun and two extra magazines. Cox then borrowed a van from his sister and brother-in-law and went to Salmon’s home. Cox shot his way into the home. Kim, L.K., D.C., J.C., and Salmon were at the home. J.C. and Salmon escaped and called for help. Kim, L.K., and D.C. were taken hostage by Cox for more than eight hours.

¶ 4. The first 911 call was made at 7:10 p.m. Cox communicated with police throughout the night and early morning. Through those communications, police learned that Cox had shot Kim twice, once in the arm and once in the abdomen, between 7:00 p.m. and 7:10 p.m. During the ordeal, Cox communicated with hostage negotiators, Kim’s father and stepmother, and members of Cox’s family. The last confirmation that Kim was still alive was at 12:45 a.m. on May 15. While Kim lay dying, Cox sexually assaulted L.K. in Kim’s presence on three separate occasions.

¶ 5. Agent Chris Jones of the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation testified that Cox cursed and screamed into the phone and stated that he was going to kill Kim and L.K. Cox threatened that if law enforcement entered, he would “be going for head shots,” as he knew the officers would be wearing body armor. Cox also threatened that, if Jones called back, he would “shoot [L.K.] in the head.”

¶ 6. Officer Alan Chavers, a police officer and hostage negotiator for the Tupelo Police Department, testified that Cox told him that he had shot Kim in the stomach. Chavers encouraged Cox to release Kim for medical treatment. Unmoved, Cox said that he wanted to watch Kim die. Chavers testified that he repeatedly pleaded with Cox to release Kim. Cox replied, “since you’re so interested in her ․ I want you to hear her beg before she dies.” Kim also spoke with Chavers, pleading for her life. Chavers and Cox had several conversations in which Cox repeatedly said that he would not release Kim, because he wanted her to die. Cox also continued to threaten to kill the children if anyone tried to enter the home. Kim expressed her fear that Cox would follow through on his threats against the children.

¶ 7. Cox also spoke with Kim’s father, Benny, and Kim’s stepmother, Melody. Cox told Benny that his original plan had been to kill Benny, Benny’s other daughter, and Melody, then to “go to Sherman and finish up and kill the rest of them.” Cox told Benny that he “shot her and she was bleeding like a stuck pig.” Benny spoke with Kim and she told him, “Daddy, I’m dying.” Cox spoke with Melody multiple times, but he refused to speak to Benny again. Cox told Melody, “You f––––bitch, I hate your guts, but I hate his worse so this is the way it’s going to be. You and me are going to do the talking․” Melody testified that Cox taunted Kim while talking to Melody, saying, “Are you having fun yet, you bitch? Are you enjoying this? Is this fun, Kim?” Cox renewed his threats to “put a bullet in [L.K.’s] head.”

¶ 8. Cox also talked to his sister and brother-in-law, bragging that he had shot “the bitch” and that he wanted her “to die a slow and painful death.” Cox’s brother-in-law, Michael, testified that he spoke with D.C., who told him that “Daddy hurt Mama.” Michael also testified that Cox was yelling at L.K. and threatening to shoot her. Michael stated that Cox told him that he had a bullet for L.K. and for himself. Michael testified that he heard Kim say, “David, you know I’m dying,” and Cox unmercifully responded, “I know you are.”

¶ 9. Cox never released Kim for medical care, satisfying his depraved desire to see Kim suffer and die mercilessly. After negotiation attempts failed, a SWAT team entered the home at 3:23 a.m. Cox was taken into custody, L.K. and D.C. were removed from the scene, and Kim was found dead, having bled out as a result of the abdominal gunshot wound.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ms-supreme-court/1726205.html

David Cox Execution

David Neal Cox will die by lethal injection Wednesday for the May 2010 killing of his estranged wife, Kim, in the northern Mississippi town of Sherman, the state’s first execution since 2012.  

Here is what to know about the upcoming execution at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman:

The Coxes separated in 2009 after Kim Cox’s daughter, who was a minor, said David Cox sexually assaulted her, according to court documents. Kim Cox reported the incident to the police, leading to David Cox’s arrest. 

On May 14, 2010, David Cox purchased a handgun and two extra magazines, according to court documents. He went to the home of his sister-in-law, where Kim Cox and her three children, including two with David Cox, were staying. 

Court documents say David Cox shot into the home. His sister-in-law and one of his children escaped and called for help. David Cox took the others hostage for more than eight hours. 

He shot Kim Cox in the stomach and sexually assaulted his stepdaughter in front of his dying wife, according to court records. Kim Cox pleaded for her life to police and her relatives who were brought in as hostage negotiators.

David Cox pleaded guilty in 2012 to eight charges, including capital murder, sexual battery and kidnapping, according to court records. A jury unanimously sentenced him to death for capital murder and 185 years for his other charges. 

David Cox appealed in 2015, arguing that the jury was impartial because of amplified local news coverage and his in-laws worked in law enforcement in the community, according to court records. He asked for a new sentencing hearing in a different location. 

The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld Cox’s sentence in June 2015, according to court records.

In 2016, attorneys from the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, which represented Cox at the time, filed for post-conviction relief, asking the court to reduce or reverse Cox’s conviction based on new evidence, according to court records. 

In July 2018, David Cox sent a handwritten letter to the local district attorney asking for his appeals and lawyers to be dismissed and for the court to set a date for his execution.

“If I had my perfect way & will about it I’d ever so gladly dig my dead sarkastic wife up whom I very happily and premeditatedly  slaughtered on 5-21-2010 & with eager pleasure kill … agan & agan, happilly if chance was given,” he said in the letter, which included various misspellings. 

A week after that, Cox filed a motion on his own asking his appointed lawyer be dismissed because Cox is an Anabaptist and having a lawyer or state representative conflicts with his religion, according to court documents. 

That August, Cox wrote to the chief justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court saying he was “worthy of death” and requested to fire his lawyer, waive his appeals and set a date for his execution, according to court records.

In response to Cox’s requests to dismiss his lawyers and waive his appeals, the Mississippi Supreme Court asked the Union County Circuit Court in December 2018 to determine whether he was mentally competent to make those decisions. 

In April, Union County Circuit Court Judge Kent Smith ruled Cox was mentally competent to waive his appeals, which the Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, which represents Cox, appealed a month later, court records show. 

Cox filed three motions between July and September asking for his attorneys be fired, for them not to file any additional appeals or motions on his behalf and to waive his appeals, according to court records. 

On Oct. 17, Mississippi Supreme Court justices agreed with the Union County judge’s decision that Cox was competent. 

In the ruling, justices said they are aware of the heightened standard in death penalty cases to ensure an innocent person is not executed, but said Cox declared guilt and accepts his punishment.

“The record before this court resoundingly evinces Cox’s waiver was made intelligently and understandingly, knowing full well the end result would be sure and certain death,” wrote Chief Justice Michael Randolph. 

https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2021/11/14/david-neal-cox-mississippis-first-execution-12-years/6371164001/

David Cox Executed November 17 2021

A Mississippi man who shot his estranged wife to death and sexually assaulted his stepdaughter during an eight-hour 2010 standoff with police was put to death on Wednesday, local media reported.

David Cox, who in 2018 dismissed his attorneys and dropped his appeals in the case, saying he deserved the death penalty, was the first prisoner executed in Mississippi in nine years.

He was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. central time at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman, the Clarion-Ledger newspaper reported.

The condemned man, in his final words said: “I want to tell my children that I love them very, very much and that I was a good man at one time,” Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain told the paper.

Cox was the first inmate executed in Mississippi since 2012 and the ninth executed in the United States in 2021. Mississippi is among the U.S. states that have had recent difficulties in buying lethal-injection drugs from pharmaceutical companies unwilling to supply them for executions.

Cox had petitioned the Mississippi Supreme Court for all attorneys to be removed from the case and all appeals on his behalf to be halted. In 2018, Cox wrote a letter to the court’s chief justice, saying that he was “a guilty man worthy of death.” On May 14, 2010, Cox bought a gun and went to his sister-in-law’s Sherman, Mississippi, home where his estranged wife Kim, their two children and his stepdaughter lived. Cox shot his way into the home and took his wife and two of the children hostage for more than eight hours, prosecutors said.

During the standoff with police, Cox shot his wife in the stomach and arm. As she lay dying for several hours, he sexually assaulted his stepdaughter three times in front of her.

He also refused medical treatment for his wife, forcing her to beg for her life to hostage negotiators, court documents showed.

Police entered the home early the next morning and arrested Cox. A jury sentenced him to die in 2012 after he pleaded guilty to all eight charges he faced, including capital murder.

https://torontosun.com/news/crime/mississippi-man-who-killed-wife-sexually-assaulted-stepdaughter-executed

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