Mississippi executes inmate who shot wife, sexually assaulted stepdaughter while she lay dying

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A Mississippi man convicted of fatally shooting his estranged wife and sexually assaulting his 12-year-old stepdaughter in front of her mother while she was dying became the first inmate to be executed in the state in nine years on Wednesday. 

David Neal Cox, 50, was sentenced to death in 2012 for murdering Kim Kirk Cox and assaulting her daughter Lindsey Kirk three times while her mother was bleeding to death at her sister's Sherman, Mississippi, home in 2010, according to WVTA-TV in Tupelo, Mississippi. 

Cox surrendered all his appeals and wrote in court filings that he was "worthy of death." He died by lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. 

David Neal Cox said in a court filing he was "worthy of death." (Mississippi Department of Corrections via AP) (Mississippi Department of Corrections via AP)

Before his death he said he wanted to tell his children he loved them "very much and that I was a good man at one time. Don’t ever read anything but the King James Bible." 

Lindsey Kirk looks at old photos of herself and her mother Kim Kirk Cox who was fatally shot in 2010 by her stepfather. He also sexually assualted Lindsey. She was 12 at the time. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis) ((AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis))

Cox also left a letter related to the 2007 disappearance of his brother’s wife Felicia Cox that wasn’t to be mailed or read until after his death, WTVA reported. Some in her family, including her daughter, believe he may have been involved in her disappearance. 

Lindsey Kirk shows childhood photographs of herself and her late mother Kim Kirk Cox. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis) (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

Lindsey Kirk said she misses her mother every day. She also said Cox had been secretly sexually assaulting her for years but he said he would "kill us" if she ever said anything. After she worked up the courage to tell her mom he was arrested and given a restraining order. Soon after he was released from jail without trial he found her at her sister's house and killed her.

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"Mama was laying on the floor. She was bleeding," she said of that day. One of her brothers was also trapped inside the house during the attack but survived. 

"He’s evil," Kim's father Benny Kirk added. He said he spoke to her on the phone while they were racing to get to her after being told Cox was at the house. His daughter told him, ‘Daddy, I’m dying.’"

The Associated Press contributed to this report.