JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) – On Tuesday, groups protested against the death penalty at the Mississippi State Capitol. This comes one day before David Neal Cox is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.
In 2012, he pleaded guilty to capital murder for the May 2010 slaying of his estranged wife, Kim Kirk Cox, as well as multiple other charges including sexual assault on his stepdaughter. A jury handed down the death sentence, and Cox has filed court papers calling himself “worthy of death.”
There has not been an execution in Mississippi since 2012 because states have had difficulty finding lethal injection drugs because pharmaceutical companies began blocking the use of their products to carry out death sentences.
Charles Keith was one of those who took part in the protest on Tuesday. He traveled from Ohio. For his family, Keith said it’s been a nearly 30-year battle to get his brother, Kevin, off death row.
“Myself, I sat there for the longest. I finally got that phone call. It was the most terrible thing I had to go through, but it did say he would not be executed,” said Keith.
The execution of Cox has been scheduled for November 17, 2021, at 6:00 p.m.