Man confesses to sister-in-law’s slaying before he’s executed for killing wife, DA says
Felicia Cox disappeared on July 2, 2007, while visiting her sister-in-law in Mississippi, according to missing persons records and local media reports.
Police found her 1999 Chevrolet Blazer abandoned on a rural road that cuts through dense forests and farmland in Pontotoc County — but the 40-year-old was nowhere in sight. More than 14 years later, her alleged killer has come forward from beyond the grave.
David Neal Cox confessed to killing Felicia Cox, his brother’s wife, just three weeks before he was scheduled to be executed for the murder of his wife, Kim Cox, in 2010, the First Circuit District Attorney’s Office said in a news release on Monday, Dec. 6.
Cox made the confession and disclosed the location of his sister-in-law’s body in a discussion with his attorneys on Oct. 26, waiving his right to attorney-client privilege after his death.
He was executed by lethal injection on Nov. 17, and his lawyers brought writings with the confession to the First Circuit District Attorney’s Office on Nov. 19.
“Mr. Cox felt deep remorse and wanted to bring closure to her family,” the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, which represented Cox, said in a news release on Tuesday, Dec. 7.
District Attorney John Weddle said Cox was a “long-time suspect in her disappearance” and that “there was no indication anyone other than Cox is responsible for Felicia Cox’s death.”
The circumstances surrounding her death remain unclear. But the district attorney’s office said they are now working with the sheriff’s office and experts in archaeology and anthropology at Mississippi State University to search for her remains.
“We would like to stress that locating the remains of Felicia Cox is not a foregone conclusion,” the district attorney said. “We are hopeful the information is accurate and that recovery efforts will be successful so that Felicia’s family may give her a proper burial.”
Felicia Cox’s daughter Amber Miskelly told WTVA in an interview shortly before Cox’s execution that she believed he was responsible for her mother’s disappearance.
“He was literally the last person with her when she was alive,” Miskelly said, according to the TV station.
‘Daddy, I’m dying’
Nearly three years after Felicia Cox’s mysterious disappearance, David Cox shot his way into the home where his estranged wife, Kim Cox, was staying with their two sons and her daughter.
What followed was a nearly eight-hour standoff.
According to a Mississippi Supreme Court opinion summarizing the events of that day, Kim and David Cox separated in 2009 afterallegations of rape. David Cox was subsequently arrested and charged with 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,” a state supreme court justice wrote in the 2012 opinion. “Cox professed to them that he would kill Kim once released.”
One month after he made bond from the Pontotoc County Jail, David Cox made good on his promise.
On May 14, 2010, Cox bought a .40 caliber hand gun on his way home from work as a commercial truck driver, borrowed his sister’s van and showed up at the home of Kim Cox’s sister — where she and the kids were staying, the justice said. One of the boys and her sister escaped to call for help. But Kim Cox, her other son and her daughter remained trapped inside.
David Cox shot his wife once in the arm and once in the abdomen.
Cox spoke on the phone with hostage negotiators as well as Kim Cox’s father and stepmother. During those conversations, he repeatedly spoke of wanting Kim Cox to die and threatening to hurt the children if law enforcement tried to intervene. He let his wife speak to her father on at least one occasion.
“Daddy, I’m dying,” she reportedly told him.
According to Mississippi State Supreme Court records, another relative testified that he also spoke with David Cox during the lengthy standoff. He said he heard Kim Cox say, “David, you know I’m dying,” to which David Cox reportedly replied, “I know you are.”
The last confirmation Kim Cox was still alive was at 12:45 a.m. May 15, 2010, the supreme court opinion states.
A SWAT team eventually entered the house just before 3:30 a.m. and rescued the children, at which point Kim Cox was found dead “having bled out as a result of the abdominal gunshot wound,” the justice said.
‘Executed immediately’
David Cox was indicted on charges of capital murder, kidnapping, burglary and sexual battery. He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death. The case spent years tied up in the appeals courts before David Cox sent a letter in 2018 asking to “waive all of his appeals and to be executed immediately,” court documents state.
“I seek in earnest to wave all my appeals immediately,” he said in a letter to the court. “I seek to be executed as I do here this day stand on MS death row a guilty man worthy of death. Please grant me this plea.”
In October, the state supreme court found David Cox competent to waive all appeals and an execution date was set.
Before his death, he asked his lawyers to relay a message, saying in part, “I want my children to know that I love them very much” and that the “horrible living conditions” at the Mississippi State Penitentiary “made [his] decision to give up [his] appeals very easy.”
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