Mississippi's Hometown News Source

We promise to report the unfiltered truth regardless of personal or political consequences.

We will not sacrifice integrity to win the favor of any audience.

November 17, 2021

Man set to die by lethal injection Wednesday in 2010 torture, death of his wife

Therese Apel

David Neal Cox, scheduled for execution Nov. 17, 2021.
Kim Cox and her daughter Lindsey Kirk, when Lindsey was an infant. (Photo Courtesy: The Daily Journal)

David Neal Cox’s stepdaughter, whom he sexually assaulted 11 years ago as her mother lay dying, will be in the audience to watch him die tonight.

Cox, now 50, shot his wife Kim Kirk Cox, letting her bleed to death slowly while he sexually assaulted her 12-year-old daughter Lindsey in front of her as she died. It was done to make a point because Kim Cox had pressed charges after finding out he’d been molesting the girl for years when she was out of their home in Sherman.

According to the Associated Press, Lindsey disclosed the abuse to her mother by text message while staying with her grandparents in the summer of 2009. David Cox was arrested as a result. He was charged with statutory rape, sexual battery, child abuse and possession of methamphetamine.

Cox was then was released in April 2010 without standing trial. The Associated Press reports that Kim Cox then was granted a restraining order against her estranged husband, so she moved with her children to her sister’s home.

That’s where Cox found her on the day she died. He shot his way into the home. Kim’s sister Kristie Salmon was able to grab one of Kim’s sons and escape to a neighbor’s house. As police tried to talk them out, Cox kept Kim and the two children hostage for eight hours. Kim Cox was dead when they finally ended the standoff.

Recently Cox stopped fighting the death penalty, rescinded his appeals, and asked the court to allow the process to carry through. In his filings, he referred to himself as “worthy of death.”

Cox is scheduled to die by lethal injection tonight at 6 p.m. at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.

Lindsey Kirk spoke to the press for the first time last week in an extended interview with the Daily Journal. Darkhorse Press usually does not identify the victims of sexual assault.

“I’m not ashamed to talk about it,” she told the Daily Journal. “It’s my life. I lived it.”

Governor Tate Reeves has announced will not be granting clemency or delaying the execution, even though family members suspect him in the 2007 disappearance of his sister in law, Felicia Cox. Groups such as Death Penalty Action and The Action Network have petitioned to have the execution overturned, calling the execution “State-sponsored suicide.”

Cox pleaded guilty in 2012 to capital murder in the shooting death of Kim Cox, and to several other charges including the sexual assault of his stepdaughter. He was given the death penalty.

That same year, six executions were scheduled. Cox’s will mark the first in Mississippi in nine years.

“I don’t think it will bring any closure. I don’t think I could ever forgive him for what he did,” Kirk told the Daily Journal. “He took a lot from all of us. But I don’t want to hate him for it.”

Share this Article

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email
Print

Related Articles