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This undated photo
provided by the Mississippi Department of Corrections shows David Neal Cox. The
Mississippi Supreme Court has set a Nov. 17, 2021, execution date for Cox, who
withdrew his appeals. He pleaded guilty in September 2012 to shooting his wife
Kim in May 2010 in the town of Sherman, sexually assaulting her daughter in
front of her, and watching Kim Cox die as police negotiators and relatives
pleaded for her life. (Mississippi Department of Corrections via AP)
On
this date, November 17, 2021, David Neal Cox was executed by lethal injection
in Mississippi. He was convicted murdering his wife, Kim Kirk Cox on May 15,
2010.
He was not a good father and husband and Ashin Wirathu was right when he once said:
You can be full of
kindness and love, but you cannot sleep next to a mad dog. - Ashin Wirathu
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[PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.storemypic.com/image/mVEb] |
Mississippi executes man who killed wife, terrorized family
PARCHMAN, Miss. (AP) — A man who pleaded guilty to killing his estranged wife and sexually assaulting her young daughter as her mother lay dying was put to death Wednesday evening, becoming the first inmate executed in Mississippi in nine years.
David Neal Cox, 50, abandoned all appeals and filed court papers calling himself “worthy of death” before the state Supreme Court set his execution date. He appeared calm as he received a lethal injection. A coroner pronounced him dead at 6:12 p.m. CST at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.
Cox pleaded guilty in 2012 to capital murder for the May 2010 shooting death of his estranged wife, Kim Kirk Cox. He also pleaded guilty to multiple other charges, including sexual assault. A jury handed down the death sentence.
Cox wore a red prison jumpsuit and was covered by a white sheet during the execution. Wide leather straps held him down on a gurney.
“I want my children to know that I love them very much and that I was a good man at one time,” Cox said just before the injection started. “Don’t ever read anything but the King James Bible.”
Cox thanked the state corrections commissioner, Burl Cain, for “being very kind to me. And that’s all I got to say.”
Cox appeared to take several deep breaths after the lethal chemicals started flowing through a clear plastic tube into his body, and his mouth moved some. He was pronounced dead within a few minutes.
Among those who witnessed the execution was Cox’s now 23-year-old stepdaughter. She was 12 when he sexually assaulted her three times in front of her wounded mother as he held them and one of her younger brothers hostage on the night of May 14 and May 15, 2010, in the small town of Sherman.
Kim Kirk Cox in an
undated picture provided by daughter Lindsey Kirk. Kim was short in the arm and
in the abdomen in 2010 by Cox, days after bumping into him at an intersection
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[PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10211317/1st-Mississippi-execution-9-years-set-man-killing.html] |
Mississippi carried out six executions in 2012. The state does not have any others scheduled among the more than 30 people currently on its death row.
States have had difficulty finding lethal injection drugs because pharmaceutical companies began blocking the use of their products to carry out death sentences.
The Mississippi Department of Corrections revealed in court papers earlier this year that it had acquired three drugs for the lethal injection protocol: midazolam, which is a sedative; vecuronium bromide, which paralyzes the muscles; and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.
Cain told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the drugs listed in the court records were the ones being used for the execution. He would not say where the department obtained them.
Cain, the onetime head of the Louisiana state penitentiary in Angola, witnessed several executions in that neighboring state before he took up his new role in Mississippi. He stood by Cox during the execution.
“You couldn’t make it more picture perfect than we had tonight,” Cain told reporters afterward.
A group that opposes executions, Death Penalty Action, said earlier that killing an inmate who surrendered all appeals would amount to “state-sponsored suicide.” The group had petitioned Republican Gov. Tate Reeves to block the execution of Cox, but Reeves’ spokeswoman said the governor declined to intervene because Cox admitted to ”horrific crimes.”
Attorneys from the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel represented Cox in recent years. After the state Supreme Court set his execution date, Cox sent a handwritten statement strongly objecting to their continued involvement. The office director, Krissy C.
Nobile, said Tuesday that after “considerable and difficult deliberation, and out of respect for David Cox’s autonomy and stated desire,” the office did not plan any more appeals for him.
Kim Cox’s father, retired law enforcement officer Benny Kirk, said David Cox called during the night of the attack and said he had shot Kim. Benny Kirk spoke on the phone with his daughter and she told him: ”‘Daddy, I’m dying.’”
Police surrounded the house and tried to get David Cox to release his wife and the two children. Kim Cox was dead by the time the ordeal ended after more than eight hours.
The Associated Press does not usually identify victims of sexual assault but Cox’s stepdaughter, Lindsey Kirk, agreed to be interviewed and talk about what happened to her. She told The Associated Press last week that David Cox had sexually assaulted her for a few years when her mother was out of the house, and that he threatened to kill them if she told anyone.
While staying with her grandparents in the summer of 2009, Kirk texted her mother and told her of the assaults by her stepfather. Soon after that, David Cox was arrested and charged with statutory rape, sexual battery, child abuse and possession of methamphetamine. He was released in April 2010 without standing trial. Kim Cox obtained a restraining order against him, and she moved to her sister’s home.
Kim Cox’s family did not issue a statement after the execution.
Questions remained about whether David Cox was responsible for the 2007 disappearance of his brother’s wife, Felicia Cox, who was last seen in a neighboring county. Her daughter, Amber Miskelly, recently told WTVA-TV that David Cox was the last person to see her mother alive. After the execution, Cain said David Cox had not spoken about his sister-in-law’s disappearance.
Emily Wagster Pettus was a witness to the execution of David Neal Cox.
INTERNET SOURCE: https://apnews.com/article/executions-mississippi-f5ed67bec986526e6c063ec7a16f3d37
If the criminal taking of a human life does not merit forfeiture of
one's own life, then what value have we placed on the life taken? - Pat
Buchanan
‘He’s evil’: Victims' family prepares for killer's execution
A
Mississippi woman is scheduled to be a witness when her stepfather is executed
this week
NEW ALBANY, Miss. -- If all goes as scheduled, 23-year-old Lindsey Kirk will be at a Mississippi prison this week to watch the execution of the stepfather who terrorized her family, sexually assaulted her when she was a child and killed her mother.
David
Neal Cox is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection Wednesday at the
Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. The state Supreme Court set the
execution date after Cox relinquished all appeals.
In 2012, he pleaded
guilty to capital murder for the May 2010 slaying of his estranged wife, Kim
Kirk Cox, as well as multiple other charges including sexual assault on his stepdaughter. A
jury handed down the death sentence, and Cox has filed court papers calling
himself “worthy of death.”
Lindsey
Kirk looks at childhood photographs of herself and her late mother Kim Kirk
Cox, Saturday, Nov. 13, 2021, in New Albany, Miss. She was 12 years old when
her stepfather, David Neal Cox, terrorized her family, sexually assaulted her,
and killed her mother, Kim Kirk Cox, in May 2010 at a home in Sherman, Miss.
The Mississippi Supreme Court set an execution date of Wednesday, Nov. 17,
2021, for Cox after he said he wanted to surrender all appeals. (AP
Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
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[PHOTO
SOURCE: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/hes-evil-victims-family-prepares-killers-execution-81204845] |
“When I found out that he was wanting to go ahead and get it over
with, I wasn’t really happy about it. Like, I kind of just wanted him to sit
there,"
Kirk told The Associated Press last week. “I guess I’m
OK with it now."
This
will be Mississippi’s first execution since 2012, as states have had difficulty
finding lethal injection drugs because pharmaceutical companies began blocking
the use of their products to carry out death sentences.
Republican
Gov. Tate Reeves will not delay the execution or grant clemency, spokeswoman
Bailey Martin said Tuesday.
“The
Governor has reviewed the facts of this case and there is no question that
David Cox committed these horrific crimes. Mr. Cox has admitted his guilt on
multiple occasions and has been found competent by both the Circuit Court and
Mississippi Supreme Court,” Martin said. “Further, Mr. Cox himself filed a
motion requesting that all appeals be dismissed and his execution date be set.”
Kirk
said she misses her mother every day and has two tattoos in her memory: Kim
Cox's birthdate in Roman numerals and a dolphin, her mother's favorite animal.
Kirk was a small child when her mother married Cox, and she was 8 before her
mother told her another man was her biological father.
Cox
was a commercial truck driver until he injured his back and started receiving
disability checks, Kirk said. She said he used methamphetamine in front of her.
She said he also sexually assaulted her “for a few years" when her mother
was out of the house, but she was afraid to tell anyone because “he always told
me that he'd kill us" if she told.
While
staying with her grandparents in the summer of 2009, Kirk worked up the
courage: "I texted Mama and told her.”
David
Cox was soon arrested and jailed in north Mississippi. Court records show he
was charged with statutory rape, sexual battery, child abuse and possession of
methamphetamine. He was released from jail in April 2010, without going on
trial.
After
David Cox's release from jail, Kim Cox got a restraining order against him and
moved in with her sister, Kristie Salmon, taking Lindsey and two younger sons.
One day, Kim saw David at an intersection. She told relatives that David held
his hand up like a gun and pointed it at her three times.
Within
days, he killed her.
On
May 14, 2010, 12-year-old Lindsey Kirk was sitting on the couch while her aunt
cooked supper. One of her brothers was outside playing basketball. Her mother
was in the back of the house filling the bathtub for her other little brother.
“A
gunshot came through the screen door, and he ran in and told me not to
move," Kirk said of her stepfather, who chased her aunt out of the house.
Kirk
was not in the room when her stepfather shot her mother in the arm and abdomen,
but he soon took her back there.
“Mama
was laying on the floor. She was bleeding,” Kirk said. Her brother “was balled
up in a closet.”
Her
stepfather sexually assaulted her three times in front of her dying mother —
even as police surrounded the home and tried to get him to release the
hostages.
On
the day of the attack, Kim's father and stepmother were three hours from home
at a track meet with one of their children. Salmon called and told them David
Cox had shown up at her house and started shooting. Kim, Lindsey and one son
were trapped inside.
Benny
and Melody Kirk immediately started driving back, and David Cox called while
they were on the way. Benny Kirk said he talked to Kim, who had already been
shot.
“I
told her we was coming just as quick as we could get there,” Benny Kirk said.
“And she said, ‘Daddy, I’m dying.’”
Benny
Kirk said Cox blamed him, Melody, Kim and Lindsey for the arrest: “He told me
over the phone that he meant to kill all of us."
Melody
Kirk said dozens of officers, multiple ambulances and a helicopter were at the
house when they arrived. She said David Cox by then was refusing to talk to
officers, so she had to take on the role of negotiator, trying to persuade him
to let the family go.
The
ordeal lasted more than eight hours before officers got the two children got
out, recovered Kim Cox's body and arrested David Cox. Authorities said their
last confirmation of Kim still being alive was after midnight May 15.
Kim
Cox’s father and stepmother describe Kim as a caring mother who was generous
toward others. They said they didn’t know David had been abusive to her or her
children until Lindsey spoke up.
Benny
Kirk wants to witness his son-in-law's execution if a spot is available, saying
simply: “He's evil."
Questions
remain about whether David Cox was responsible for the 2007 disappearance of
his brother's wife, Felicia Cox, who was last seen in a neighboring county. Her
daughter, Amber Miskelly, recently told WTVA-TV that David Cox was the last
person to see her mother alive. Lindsey Kirk said her mother and Felicia Cox
were close friends. Benny and Melody Kirk said they wonder if Cox will confess
to his sister-in-law's death before he is executed.
Benny
and Melody Kirk raised Lindsey and her two younger brothers after Kim's death.
Lindsey calls them Mamaw and Papaw, and they say she's their angel. The boys
are now young men, 18 and 19 years old. The couple said the younger son does
not like to talk about his mother's death or his father's impending execution,
and the older son is still fearful Cox might come back and hurt him.
“I’ve
told him," Melody Kirk
said, “a dead person can’t hurt anybody."
INTERNET
SOURCE: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/hes-evil-victims-family-prepares-killers-execution-81204845
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You
killed a person and you are put in prison for life? The one you killed is not
in jail but he is dead." - Yoweri Museveni
RELATED LINKS:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/110883080/kim-everette-cox
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