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DNA EVIDENCE
Man sent to prison in Mesa cold case murder, sexual assault
(Metro Creative Connection/GeoStock)
Posted
INDEPENDENT NEWSMEDIA
A 60-year-old man has been sentenced to concurrent prison terms for murder and sexual assault in Mesa cases that date back to 1989.
Thomas David Cox, who pleaded guilty last month to one count of first-degree premeditated murder and one count of aggravated assault, has been sentenced to life with the possibility of release after 25 years for first-degree murder and to 10 years for aggravated assault. The sentences will run concurrently, according to a release Friday from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.
The first crime occurred in October 1989 when the Mesa Police Department conducted a welfare check on a 22-year-old who had not shown up for work. In her apartment, they found the victim on a bed.
She suffered blunt force trauma to various parts of her body and had been strangled to death with an electrical cord, police said.
A year later in November, police responded to another report in the same apartment complex. A stranger broke into a single mother’s home and sexually assaulted her, according to authorities.
In each case, police took DNA swabs and created a profile for the assailant.
The Mesa Police Department Crime Lab found in November 2002 that the DNA in both cases matched, linking the crime scenes, but the discovery yielded no results when the DNA was then compared to profiles of convicted offenders using the FBI’s national database of convicted offenders.
Twenty years later, using advanced DNA testing funded by the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative Project, Cox was identified as a suspect.
His DNA matched samples collected from both crime scenes and his palm matched a print taken from the second victim’s apartment.
“One of the most agonizing aspects of cold cases is the long uncertainty endured by victims and their families,” Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said.
“This defendant committed these offenses in such a cruel manner and then went on to have a full life while the victim’s young life was halted. It’s only appropriate that this defendant spend the rest of his life in prison.”
We’d like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.
