Having pleaded guilty from the first moment, he waived all legal remedies that could have prevented his sentence – He was executed by lethal injection on November 17 in the State of Mississippi
David Neil Cox , 50 , became the first man to be executed by lethal injection on November 17 in the US state of Mississippi in nine years. Having pleaded guilty from the outset, he waived all appeals that could have prevented his execution, demanding that the sentence be carried out.
Last Wednesday afternoon, shortly before the lethal injection, he said to himself: “I deserve to die . ” And for many, he really deserved it.
David had shot Kim Kirk’s estranged wife and while she was lying on the floor covered in blood, he raped her then 12-year-old daughter, Lindsay , three times in front of her eyes..
The girl, who is now 23 years old, watched his execution, 11 years after she was raped and her mother was killed…
“Pass away…”
According to Lindsay Kirk, her mother, Kim , married David Cox when she was still an infant. When Lindsay was eight, her mother informed her that Cox was not her biological father. Cox was a commercial truck driver until the day he suffered a back injury, could not work, began receiving disability benefits and used to use methamphetamine in front of children.
Lindsay claimed he raped her for years when her mother was away from home, but was afraid to talk about it as he threatened her. “He always told me he would kill us if I spoke.”
In the summer of 2009, however, Lindsay informed her mother of what Cox had done to her.
Immediately after Kim Kirk’s complaint, David Cox was imprisoned in North Mississippi. He was charged with child abuse, methamphetamine possession and rape, but was released without trial in April 2010.
After Cox was released from prison, Kim and Cox met on the street and then David raised his palm with his index finger outstretched. , as if holding a gun and marking it. After 2 days he killed her.
Kim Kirk, during his imprisonment, had obtained a court ruling forbidding Cox from approaching her and her family.
The whole family, namely the mother, Lindsay and her two younger brothers moved to Kim’s sister’s house in the small town of Sherman.
They were all there on May 14, 2010. Kim was in the back of the house filling the bathtub to bathe her little son.
“A bullet went through the glass of the front door, Cox entered the house and told me not to move”, Lindsay reported about her stepfather, who chased her aunt, Christy Salmon, and forced her out of the house.
Lindsay was not in the room when her father shot her mother in the arm and abdomen, but he soon led her to where her mother had been beaten .
“Mom was lying on the floor. He was bleeding . ” Her father then raped her three times in front of her dying mother – even when police surrounded the house and Kim tried to persuade Cox to release Lindsay and her two brothers.
That same day, Lindsay’s father, Benny, and her stepmother, Melody Kirk, were three hours away from home. Kim’s sister called them and told them that Cox had appeared at her house and started shooting.
They immediately made a change and took the road back while Salmon alerted the Police.
The father, while driving like crazy, managed to talk to Kim, who had already been shot.
“I told her we were coming as fast as we could,” said Benny Kirk. And she replied: ” I am dying …” .
Benny Kirk said Cox was blaming himself, his wife Kim and Lindsay: “He told me over the phone that he wanted to kill us all . ”
Melody Kirk said Cox refused to talk to police until they got home, at which point he took on the role of negotiator, trying to persuade him to let the family go.
The hostage-taking lasted more than eight hours before police arrested Cox, took the three children out of the house and collected Kim’s body.
Questions also remain about whether Cox was involved in the disappearance of his brother Felicia Cox’s wife, with whom Kim was a very close friend, who was last seen in a neighboring county in 2007.
Her daughter, Amber Micheli recently revealed that David Cox was the last person to see her mother alive. However, Cox did not confess to the murder of his sister-in-law before he was executed.
Lindsay Kirk told the Associated Press that she misses her mother every day.
To never forget, she has two tattoos on her: her mom’s date of birth in Latin numerals and a dolphin, her mother’s favorite animal. Kim’s children grew up with their grandparents.
The boys are now 18 and 19 years old. The youngest son does not want to talk about his mother’s death or his father’s execution and the older son is still afraid that his father, although dead, may return and hurt him…
The last hours of a devilish man
Shortly before the lethal injection began, Cox shouted: “I want my children to know that I love them very much and that I was once a good person …” .
He took several deep breaths as the deadly chemicals began to flow through a clear plastic tube into his body and within minutes his death was confirmed.
Cox was described as having fun on Wednesday afternoon, in his final hours.
The special commissioner of prison executions reported what passed for Cox these times: “We met for about 45 minutes to talk about what will happen, the process that we followed and what he wanted for his last meal” , Caine said. “He was happy.”
“I deserve to die …”
Six executions took place in the State of Mississippi in 2012.
The State currently has no other executions planned among the more than 30 death row inmates.
The reason why there are no more executions is that there is a growing difficulty in obtaining lethal injections from pharmaceutical companies, which oppose their disposal for ethical reasons and prevent the use of their products for the execution of death sentences.
The Mississippi Penitentiary Department revealed in court documents earlier this year that it had obtained three drugs for the lethal injection protocol: midazolam, which is a sedative, vecuronium bromide, which paralyzes the heart muscle and stops chlorine.
Kane told the Associated Press on Tuesday that the drugs listed in the court records were the ones used for the execution.
He did not say where they came from.
After the State Supreme Court set a date for his execution, Cox sent a handwritten statement to the attorneys representing him, objecting to their continued involvement.
The director of the office, Chrissie Nobail, stated that“After an important and difficult discussion and out of respect for David Cox’s self-determination and his stated desire, the office will not make any further appeals for the suspension of his execution.”
An anti-execution group, Death Penalty Action, has said, however, that the killing of a detainee who has given up all legal means of suspending his execution is tantamount to “suicide under the auspices of the state” .
The group had asked Republican Gov. Jonathan Tate Reeves to block Cox’s execution, but Reeves’s spokeswoman said the governor refused to intervene because Cox had confessed to horrific crimes.
