Man acquitted in shooting that killed retired Hampton judge’s daughter

It was close to midnight on July 7, 2020 when dozens of rounds from an assault rifle tore into a home on Hampton’s Aspenwood Drive.

One round struck 56-year-old Anne Wyatt Ford-Cox, who was asleep on a living room couch near the front of the house. Additional rounds sprayed into other bedrooms, with one bullet striking the mattress on which Ford-Cox’s adult daughter was sleeping. .

Ford-Cox — the daughter of retired longtime Hampton Circuit Court Judge Walter J. Ford — was hit in the head and died hours later.

Hampton Police charged David L. Andrews, of Hampton, with the shooting. But following a two-day trial last week, a 12-member Circuit Court jury acquitted the 37-year-old on all charges.

The jury, made up of seven Black jurors and five white jurors, deliberated for about two hours before finding Andrews not guilty of second-degree murder and two counts of shooting into an occupied dwelling.

The case’s prosecutors, Joshua Jenkins and Molly Newton with the Virginia Attorney General’s Office, contended that Andrews shot up the house to get back at Anne Ford-Cox’s husband, Vincent “Bubba” Cox, over an argument 16 days earlier.

There was no evidence the shooting had anything to do with Ford’s time on the bench. The jurist, now 93, retired in 2000 after 16 years as a judge, though he heard cases for decades on an on-call basis and still presides over settlement conferences.

The prosecution’s key trial witness — the uncle of Andrews’ baby’s mother — testified that Andrews showed him an assault rifle on the evening of July 7, saying he was going to shoot up the home down the block.

According to multiple sources who attended the trial, that witness testified that Andrews told him he was doing so because Cox, who is white, had called him the N-word during the prior argument.

The witness testified that he then watched as Andrews, who is Black, walked over to the house where Cox and Ford-Cox lived, south of West Mercury Boulevard in Aberdeen. The witness said Andrews opened fire with the assault rifle and ran away.

The prosecution introduced Ring home security footage that showed a dark-colored car fleeing the area within seconds of the shooting. Prosecutors also introduced evidence that Andrews had his gray car painted white within days of Ford-Cox’s slaying.

Also during last week’s trial, a neighbor testified that on June 19 — 16 days before the fatal shooting — Cox and Ford-Cox had a small Father’s Day gathering at their home, while another family was having a cookout down the street.

But Cox got into an argument with people attending the other gathering, apparently over a parking issue or people cutting through his yard, the neighbor testified.

The neighbor testified that Cox was acting belligerently during the altercation, and that she overheard him using the N-word toward others.

But the neighbor also testified that she did not witness an argument between Cox and Andrews and did not hear Cox directing a racial epithet toward him.

Another neighbor testified that Cox would often drink heavily and “say racist things.”

But Andrews’ attorney, Joshua Goff, asserted that Andrews’ former girlfriend’s uncle — the only eyewitness tying Andrews to the shooting — simply made up the story that Andrews shot up the house.

The lawyer said the witness and Andrews didn’t get along, as evidenced by a significant physical altercation they had in a car during a trip to Georgia days before the shooting.

Moreover, Goff contended that police investigators didn’t follow up on the possibility that the witness might have been protecting his own brother from being investigated for the shooting.

Goff showed the jury a silent cell phone video clip of an apparent argument — also on Father’s Day — between the witness’ brother and a man who was out of the camera’s view but that a neighbor said was Cox. Goff pointed out that the witness’ brother was holding a gun.

“Our argument was that that was a suspect who was never investigated,” Goff said in an interview with the Daily Press after the acquittal. “He appeared to be having a heated argument with Mr. Cox the same day, and was holding a gun.”

No shooting occurred that day. It was more than two weeks later, on July 7, that someone fired more than 28 rounds at the home.

That night, Ford-Cox was working on her laptop on her living room couch when her husband and daughter went to bed before the 11:30 p.m. shooting.

Aside from the round that struck Ford-Cox, another bullet tore through the bedroom where Cox was sleeping, and three rounds flew into Ford-Cox’s adult daughter’s bedroom, striking the mattress where she was sleeping.

An obituary from Ford-Cox’s family said she graduated from Peninsula Catholic High School, earned her degree as a practical nurse and was working at Kroger’s at the time of her death.

She was known to “have a kind word and smile on her face for everyone,” the obituary said. “She loved animals and had the kindest heart, ready to help anyone in need.”

Andrews is expected to be released after completing a federal probation in the coming months. Ford did not attend the trial and could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Peter Dujardin, 757-247-4749, pdujardin@dailypress.com