MEMPHIS, TN (abc24.com) - Dexter Cox was charged with three murders by the time he was 19. Now on the second day of his second murder trial, Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong provided chilling details on the case.
When Dexter Cox was first arrested he didn't look like a teen that had killed three people. A different looking man sat in court. Cox is already serving a sentence of life in prison for the first murder. This trial is about him trying to stay off death row.
The defense is trying to prove that Cox snapped when he killed Gwendolyn Cherry on October 7, 2009, stating that she provoked him after she asked him for money and her death wasn't premeditated first degree murder.
The medical examiner told jurors Cherry was shot four times.
Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong was a homicide detective when Cox was arrested; he led the interview with the suspected killer.
Armstrong testified that Cox told him he killed Cherry because "she made him mad." He said Cox was carefree and relaxed when he detailed the murder for detectives.
"He said he was walking down the street she walked up to him and asked for change. He told her he didn't have any. She cursed him, he said I got mad, I got a gun out of my pocket and started to shoot her. He said when he started to shoot her she took off running and to use his own words, he said, 'I hunted that b**** down and continued to shoot her,'" Armstrong told jurors.
Even though Cox wouldn't take the stand in his own defense, the jury still heard from him on a recorded confession with MPD.
Armstrong: Okay, are you aware that you struck her during that shooting?
Cox: At the end, yeah…
Armstrong: How were you made aware of that?
Cox: Because I looked and went over there. I looked at her and seen her gasp for air and I walked off.
Armstrong also told jurors Cox felt empowered when he killed. "He enjoyed the fact that when he put a gun in his hand the power that he felt, especially the power he felt when he killed someone," Armstrong said. "When he pulled the trigger and killed somebody, he got what he described as a rush."
The state has rested its case. The defense did not have any witnesses, so the jury will hear closing arguments and begin deliberations on March 8.
If convicted of first degree murder, Dexter Cox could face the death penalty.
Even after this murder trial he'll have one more to go, facing another first degree murder charge for the murder of Memphis officer Edward Vidulich. That trial date is still pending.
