1st Mississippi execution in 9 years set for man in killing

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS
Associated Press

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A man who killed his estranged wife and terrorized their family is set to become the first person executed in in Mississippi since 2012. The state is planning a lethal injection Wednesday evening for 50-year-old David Neal Cox at the state penitentiary in Parchman. He pleaded guilty in 2012 to the killing of his wife two years earlier. Cox relinquished all appeals and filed court papers calling himself “worthy of death.” States have had difficulty finding lethal injection drugs because pharmaceutical companies began blocking their use for carrying out death sentences. A court filing this year showed Mississippi had acquired three drugs for its lethal injection protocol.