Mother sentenced to 53 years in prison for murder of her 3-year-old son

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Crystal Cox will live out the next 38 years in prison, which is more living than she gave her 3-year-old son, Zeus, whom she is convicted of killing.

"How do you quantify the death of a 3-year-old?" Tippecanoe Superior 1 Judge Randy Williams rhetorically asked Tuesday before sentencing Cox, 31.

"One way, according to life expectancy, would be 74 more years," Williams said, noting that someone born the same year as Zeus is expected to live 77 years. "That's one way to quantify it."

Williams cited two precedent cases that state parents bare the responsibility for raising and tending to their children.

Tippecanoe County Deputy Prosecutor Elyse Madigan said Tuesday, "What happened to Zeus, the abuse he endured at 3 years old, is unfathomable."

Williams sentenced Cox to 53 years in prison, followed by two years of probation.

Cox will have to serve 39 years before she's eligible for release, and she's already had more than a year credited to her sentence since her Aug. 17 incarceration.

She'll be 69 years old by the time she finishes serving her prison sentence, and then she'll be on probation for two years.

Cox's family members attended the sentencing hearing, but prosecutors said they were there for Zeus.

A jury deliberated about 90 minutes on May 19 before convicting Cox of murder, neglect of a dependent resulting in death, battery resulting in death of a person younger than 14 and battery resulting in death.

For sentencing, Cox was only sentenced on the murder convictions and the other verdicts were vacated.

Jurors concluded that Cox murdered her 3-year-old son, Zeus, by allowing her boyfriend, Jermaine Garnes, to punch Zeus in the chest several times, rupturing Zeus' intestines in four places, breaking his ribs and rupturing his kidneys. Additionally, Zeus had bruises and cuts from head to toe, forensic pathologist Dr. Darin Wolfe testified in the trail.

Tippecanoe County Deputy Prosecutor Cassidy Laux told jurors during closing arguments that Cox and Garnes staged their apartment with pediatric Tylenol and other remedies for fever inside the house at the corner of Howell and 12th streets. The staging was to make it appear Cox was a caring parent taking care of a sick child. Cox told police that Zeus became sick the night of July 4, 2021. She claimed he fell and hurt himself.

But Cassidy pointed out that Zeus was cold to the touch at 9 a.m. July 5, 2021, when paramedics arrived, and cited Wolfe's testimony that the body loses 1 degree an hour after death. And Cox claimed that Zeus had a fever.

Garnes is scheduled to stand trial in October for murder and neglect.

Cox plans to appeal her conviction and sentence.

Reach Ron Wilkins at rwilkins@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @RonWilkins2.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Lafayette mother sentenced to 53 years in prison for murder of her son