A death row prisoner convicted of murdering his estranged wife and sexually assaulting his step-daughter has chosen a bizarre last meal to eat before he is executed.
David Neal Cox, 50, is scheduled to be killed by lethal injection today at 6pm local time at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman, US, for the death of his wife Kim Cox.
His execution will mark the state’s first since 2012 and the ninth in the United States this year.
Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday afternoon, Commissioner Burl Cain of the Mississippi Department of Corrections revealed that Cox’s last meal will consist of banana pudding, French fries, fried catfish and cornmeal.
He told reporters that Cox had been “very normal, very calm, and it’s almost unique to say upbeat a little bit” during his last days on death row, WLBT news reports.
When asked if Cox had expressed any remorse for his crimes, the commissioner replied: “Yes, he has. He did a little bit this afternoon... I think he qualified it best when he said 'I wasn't always that bad.’”
In 2009, Kim Cox reported to the police that her husband had sexually assaulted her daughter from a previous relationship.
Cox, a former truck driver, was arrested and spent nine months in prison before being released on bond.
On 14 May 2010, Cox bought a handgun and went to his sister-in-law's home where his estranged wife, their two young sons and his stepdaughter lived.
He shot his way into the home and took his wife and two of the children for more than eight hours, prosecutors said.
During the standoff with police, Cox shot his wife in the stomach and arm and as she lay dying for several hours, he sexually assaulted his then 12-year-old stepdaughter three times in front of her.
He also refused medical treatment for his wife and forced her to bed for her life to hostage negotiators, according to court documents.
Police entered the home early the next morning and arrested him. He was sentenced to death in 2012 after pleading guilty to murder, sexual assault and other charges.
Cox had petitioned the Mississippi Supreme Court to ask that his lawyers, who were seeking to halt his execution, be removed from the case and all appeals on his behalf to be halted.
In a 2018 letter to the court’s chief justice, he wrote that he was "a guilty man worthy of death."
