By Lew Cox —

In October 2005, I attended a California State parole hearing for the slayer of my daughter, Carmon. Carmon was 22 years old when she was murdered in 1987 in Los Angeles. The drive from Tacoma, Wash., to the Soledad Prison in central California was a philosophical time that gave me the chance to reflect on the ramifications this crime has had on my family.

This would be the first time that I would face Carmon’s killer. When he was sentenced for his crime, I was not informed by the L.A. District Attorney’s office that I had a right to attend the sentencing and the right to give an impact statement. At this point, I wasn’t sure what emotions I still had stuffed down inside of me that I may not have dealt with.

The Hearing

The purpose of a parole hearing is for a convicted felon to establish a realistic parole plan that proves to the Board of Prisons that the public would be safe if this person is released.  The hearing opened with the following people present: two parole board commissioners, the inmate, his attorney, the D.A., me, and a prison-victim advocate. There were two prison guards standing behind the offender at all times.

The lead commissioner opened the hearing by asking all present to introduce themselves. Then, the commissioner asked the inmate’s attorney if his client was going to speak. The attorney said his client would talk about his crime. However, when the commissioner asked him to talk, he responded by saying that he wasn’t going to talk about the crime. He was told if he wasn’t willing to talk about the murder, the hearing wouldn’t go well for him. I believe he wasn’t willing to talk about how and why he killed my daughter in front of me.

Since he refused to speak about the crime, the commissioner could not proceed with the questions about the murder. I was the last person to speak at the hearing after the Los Angeles County D.A. read a letter from the L.A. Police Department stating their reasons for not wanting this killer released.  The D.A. then stated why his office did not want him released as well.

Impact Statement

I had been waiting 18 years to give my impact statement. This was a surreal moment for me. I couldn’t believe that I was actually sitting a few feet from my daughter’s killer. I was soon to find out what kind of emotions I still had stored up inside of me. As I gazed into his eyes, with my jaw quivering and my voice cracking, I spoke to him and the commissioner about the moment I received the call from my son that Carmon had been murdered. I talked about the father-daughter relationship we had, including teaching her to water-ski, drive a car, and fly an airplane.

My Emotions

Halfway through my statement, my voice became paralyzed. I was saturated with emotions. Tears were rolling down my cheeks and dropping onto the table. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to pull myself together and complete what I had to say. Then, I fixed my eyes on the large clock at the end of the room and I asked the Lord to give me the strength to continue. It took more than a minute for me to regain my composure and resume speaking. That minute seemed like an eternity.

I finished by saying, “We cannot change what has happened to Carmon. I am not Superman, I cannot turn back time. But my family and I are gravely concerned that if this man is ever paroled he most likely will kill again if he is rejected by another woman.” We know that he was not high on drugs or alcohol that night he killed her because he didn’t use them. He murdered her in pure rage, in a brutal fashion by shooting her six times with a pistol. First he shot her four times in the back. She was able to turn and fight for her life, and then he shot her two more times in the chest. I told the commissioners, “We do not want another family to have to go through what the Cox family has had to endure because of his fatal actions.” After I finished speaking, the commissioners broke to discuss their decision to grant or refuse him parole.

The Decision

After a five-minute recess, the hearing resumed. The lead parole commissioner was very direct as he faced the inmate. He told the inmate that parole was denied. Among many things, they believed that his crime had been committed with extreme cruelty, and that he lacked sympathy for shooting and killing a young woman. He had expressed no remorse for his crime.

The commissioner asked him if Ms. Cox had attacked him. He said that she attacked him after he shot her and the reason he shot her was because he was afraid that she might take the gun from him and shoot him. That statement did not go over very well with the commissioners. The hearing concluded and the commissioner set his next parole hearing in two years. It seems that I will have to deal with this man’s parole hearings every two or three years for the rest of my life.

History of Crime

The person who murdered Carmon was charged with first degree murder after being at large for two weeks. In the winter of 1989, the D.A.’s office accepted a guilty plea of second-degree murder with a life sentence, with the possibility of parole after 15 years of hard time. In January of 2007 my two other daughters and I attended his third parole hearing. He was once again denied parole and he was given an additional year (3 years) before he can petition for another parole hearing.

Lew Cox is the founder and executive director of Violent Crime Victim Services in Tacoma, WA, which provides direct services to co-victims of homicide. Lew is a Certified Trauma Service Specialist and a Certified Victim Advocate Specialist.  He has extensive experience as a homicide victim advocate, peer court companion, and a peer support group facilitator. He is trained in Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) and debriefing. He is a Chaplain with the Des Moines, WA, Police Department. He served in the capacity of a chaplain at the World Trade Center disaster site, Christmas week 2001. Lew is a survivor of the 1987 murder of his twenty-two year old daughter Carmon, and is the co-author, along with Dr. Robert Baugher Ph.D, of the book, Coping with Traumatic Grief: Homicide.

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