DAVID Cox, 50, sexually assaulted his young stepdaughter in front of her dying mother, Kim Cox, who was shot and left to suffer for hours during a hostage situation in Mississippi
A monster who shot his estranged wife and sexually assaulted his stepdaughter in front of the dying mother has been executed.
David Cox, 50, was killed by lethal injection on Wednesday for the capital murder of Kim Cox, who was left to suffer and bleed to death for hours after being shot in the arm and stomach.
Ms Cox was still alive as her abusive and drug-addicted husband sexually assaulted her 12-year-old daughter multiple times and tortured her family, at one point even calling her father and handing the phone to her.
Two of her three children watched her die during an eight-hour hostage situation that ended when police finally stormed a home in the US town of Sherman, Mississippi.
Cox, who apparently feared that his death would be painful, was pronounced dead at 6.12pm local time on Wednesday after a lethal cocktail of three drugs was administered.
His last words were: “I want my children to know that I love them very much and I was a good man at one time. And don’t ever read anything but the King James Bible and I wanna thank the commissioner for being so kind to me. And that’s all I got to say.”
Cox left behind a mystery letter which could relate to the 2007 disappearance of his sister-in-law Felicia Cox, whose body has never been found. Felicia Cox’s daughter, Amber Miskelly, believes David Cox had something to do with it as he was the last person to see her alive.
After the execution, reporters asked corrections Commissioner Burl Cain about Felicia Cox’s disappearance. He said David Cox mentioned he had left a letter that would be put in the post after his death.
It appeared the killer was worried that he would have a painful death, and he asked officials about the wires and lines that delivered the drugs into his body as he lay strapped to a gurney in the death chamber, WDAM reported.
Mr Cain, who was with Cox during the execution, added: “He asked me while he was there if he was going to have any pain. And you can’t answer that without thinking about the victims, but in his case, no, you’re not going to have any pain.
“I don’t see any pain. I explained about blue lights, and things like that, and what Billy Graham said, about the angels carrying your soul to Heaven. That’s the kind of thing we talked about.”
Earlier, Mr Cain said Cox had expressed remorse and said his death would bring “closure to his sons for taking their mum”. He was calm and “upbeat” in the days before the execution.
Mr Cain added: “I think he qualified it best when he said, ‘I wasn’t always that bad’.”
The killer, a former lorry driver, ordered fried catfish, French fries, cornbread and banana pudding for his last meal.
Members of Ms Cox’s family, including Lindsey Kirk, her daughter who was sexually assaulted, had planned to watch the execution at the state prison at Parchman.
Cain told reporters: “He was OK and ready to go. He talked about closure to the victims, particularly to his sons, because, you know, for taking their mom and so forth.
“That’s a good thing. He’s pretty normal at this time. One thing that moved this one along is that he wanted the execution.”
Mississippi prison officials said they did not foresee any complications during the execution, and would use midazolam, the same sedative used in the October 28 execution of 60-year-old John Marion Grant in Oklahoma.
After being injected, the first of three drugs used in lethal injections, Grant began convulsing and vomiting, The Oklahoman reported.
“That’s not going to happen here,” said Mississippi Department of Corrections Assistant Deputy Commissioner Leo Honeycutt.
– mirror.co.uk
