Three weeks before he was executed for killing his estranged wife, authorities say a death row inmate in Mississippi revealed the location of the body of his sister-in-law who disappeared in 2007.
The alleged confession from David Neal Cox to his attorneys of his potential involvement in a second homicide was disclosed to prosecutors in “hand-delivered writings” on Nov. 19, according to a statement Monday from First Circuit District Attorney John Weddle.
The notes were provided two days after he was killed by lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, Weddle said.
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Cox’s writings, provided by attorneys with the Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, revealed “the alleged location of the body of Felicia Cox; missing since July of 2007. Cox has been a longtime suspect in her disappearance,” the statement said.
“The Pontotoc County Sheriff’s Department and the District Attorney’s Office were in contact with Cox … prior to the execution urging the disclosure.”
Cox shared details of his sister in-law’s whereabouts and an admission of guilt on or about Oct. 26, prosecutors said.
Weddle said Tuesday over the phone he’s hopeful authorities will find Felicia Cox’s body, who was 40-years-old when she vanished.
“The case has been open for a long time, 14-and-a-half years. We’ve never had the evidence that we needed to prosecute this,” Weddle said. “He’s always been a suspect because he was one of the last people to see her alive. But he never confessed to it. We didn’t have a body.”
Officials are working on the logistics of searching for Felicia Cox’s remains and her relatives are optimistic she will be found, Weddle said. He added the body will be looked for in Pontotoc County.
Authorities have contacted experts in archeology and anthropology with Mississippi State University to help in the search and recovery if Felicia Cox is found, officials said.
Cox, 50, last month became the first inmate executed in Mississippi in nine years. He had pleaded guilty to killing his estranged wife and sexually assaulting her young daughter as her mother lay dying more than a decade ago.
Cox exhausted appeals and filed court papers calling himself “worthy of death.” He appeared calm as he received a lethal injection on Nov. 17. A coroner pronounced him dead at 6:12 p.m.
“I want my children to know that I love them very much and that I was a good man at one time,” Cox said just before the injection started. “Don’t ever read anything but the King James Bible.”
Cox was sentenced to death for the 2010 fatal shooting of Kim Kirk Cox.
He pleaded guilty in 2012 to capital murder. He also pleaded guilty to multiple other charges, including sexual assault. A jury handed down the death sentence.
Prosecutors said Cox shot his wife and let her bleed to death over several hours while he sexually assaulted his stepdaughter three times in front of her dying mother.
Erik Ortiz and Associated Press contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
