2 COX BROTHERS - 14 and 16 yo - / Charged: Stepmother, Jessica Ann Cox - Farragut, TN

Affidavits say Farragut children handcuffed, beaten, burned

10:29 AM, May 30, 2013

(WBIR - Knoxville, TN)  Knox County court documents have revealed new details about allegations of child abuse against a Farragut woman.


Jessica Ann Cox

On Tuesday the Knox County Family Crisis Unit arrested 36-year-old Jessica Ann Cox. She now faces charges of child abuse and aggravated child abuse. Authorities say she has a criminal history that includes drug possession without a prescription and shoplifting.

10News protects the privacy of children when covering criminal abuse cases by withholding the victims' names. The court records indicate the victims in this case are two boys who are brothers.

According to court documents as well as neighbors and family members who spoke to 10News, the two young teenage brothers live in a trailer near Farragut with their biological father, Jessica Ann Cox, and two of Cox's biological children.

None of the neighbors or family members wanted to speak on-camera or be quoted by name as the case is ongoing and a very sensitive topic. However, what they stated to 10News off-camera matched and reinforced the details in the affidavits.

Investigators accuse Cox of handcuffing the two brothers together to a kitchen cabinet on numerous occasions. In some instances the boys were handcuffed with their hands above their heads so they were unable to sit down.

The affidavit says handcuffing was a common occurrence and Cox is accused of "burning the victims with cigarettes and incense." Investigators confirmed the boys have scars consistent with healed burn marks on several locations, including very sensitive body parts.

Cox is also accused of hitting the boys with heavy objects while they were defenseless. Specifically, the affidavit claims when one of the boys was handcuffed, "the suspect hit him repeatedly on his feet with a rubber mallet and/or a wooden rolling pin."

Investigators discovered injuries consistent with those claims on Tuesday as one of the victims "suffered from swollen legs and a large open wound on the top of his right foot."

The boys also had scrapes and cuts on their wrists caused by the handcuffs.

A family member said the handcuffs likely belonged to the boys' biological father because he previously served as a police officer in another state. The biological father has not been charged with any crimes as of this report.

The family member told 10News someone apparently called 911 when they saw the two teenage victims walking down Kingston Pike handcuffed together while wearing no socks or shoes. The relative says the boys were attempting to walk barefoot from the trailer in Farragut to safety at their grandparents' home in Loudon County.

The victims were taken to Children's Hospital for medical treatment and are under the guardianship of extended family members. The victims' relatives have requested the public respect their privacy and are not providing updates on the physical condition of the children.

The family member told 10News the boys have been removed from the care of Cox and their biological father and will now be taken care of by "loving relatives in a good home."

A spokesperson for the Department of Children's Services the two other children who lived in the mobile home are staying with relatives.

Previous Story, Tuesday, May 28: West Knox County woman charged with child abuse


A Knox County woman has been charged with aggravated child abuse and child abuse.

The Knox County Sheriff's Office Family Crisis Unit arrested Jessica Ann Cox, 36, without incident Tuesday at her home in Farragut.

Authorities say she has a criminal history that includes drug possession without a prescription and shoplifting.

According to neighbor Aleasha Gutierrez, there were anywhere from three to five children living in her home off Canton Hollow Road. Gutierrez told 10News deputies arrived at Cox's residence around 8:30 a.m. through the afternoon.

"There was a total of seven or eight actual police cars," she said. "There was like four or five undercover cars and there was an SUV-type vehicle that said 'Forensic Services' on the back."

Gutierrez added that she also saw authorities take containers out of Cox's home and place them into the forensics vehicle.

"They seem like a normal, typical family," Gutierrez said of Cox's residence. "You wouldn't expect anything."

Right now, Cox is being held on a $25,000 bond in the Knox County Sheriff's Office Detention Facility. The Knox County Sheriff's

Office is not releasing anymore info on the incident at this point.

http://www.wbir.com/news/article/275978/2/Knox-Co-woman-arrested-on-child-abuse-charges

Mom accused of burning, beating, handcuffing step-kids in court



WBIR 11:09 p.m. EDT October 16, 2013


A fourteen-year-old boy sat on the stand for more than an hour Wednesday to testify about the nearly six months of abuse he says he and his older brother suffered at the hands of his step-mother, Jessica Cox.

He told a judge he and his sixteen-year-old brother were both beaten by the woman, but it was the older child who bore the brunt of Cox's abuse. He said the teen was forced to sit for hours handcuffed to a kitchen cabinet and went days without food. Then there were the beatings, when the younger son said he witnessed his step-mom hitting his brother in the feet with rolling pins and mallets. And there was the time where she allegedly held his head under water in an icy bath tub, before burning his penis with a lit cigarette.

The child said it all led up to May 28th when both children sat handcuffed together on the kitchen floor, their cuffs looped around a kitchen cabinet. They stealthily began removing the tupperware contents so the younger boy would be able to crawl through and free them from the anchor. Then they waited until the trailer they shared with Cox, their biological father Mike McIntosh, and Cox's son went to sleep, and slipped out a window.

The boys would eventually wind up at Farragut High School where a janitor called 9-1-1 and offered to go get bolt cutters until another school employee cautioned him police may want to see the handcuffs as evidence.

Judge Tony Stansberry bound Jessica Cox over to a grand jury Wednesday on charges of aggravated child abuse and child abuse in connection with the case.

But another witness who testified at the preliminary hearing told the court the charges aren't warranted. Although the child's testimony implicated his father as participating in abusing the boys, McIntosh is not yet facing charges.

McIntosh told the court he was struggling to raise two boys with behavioral issues who couldn't be trusted to tell the truth. He said his younger son would frequently lie to cover for the older one, implying that was what he believed was happening on the stand that day. His older child, says McIntosh, sexually abused his younger brother and step brother, in addition to feeding a neighbor's dog bleach.

McIntosh conceded he handcuffed the older boy to a kitchen cabinet in two instances, but denied it was for more than two hours and says that while he believes in corporal punishment- his wife does not. He says the day the boys ran away was preceded by an argument where he threatened to send them to military school.

McIntosh, whose been married to Cox for about three years, says his wife also suffers from Multiple Sclerosis and seemed to call in to question whether she could have physically carried out the beatings.

As for the physical injuries to the boys- who were documented as "malnourished" when police brought them to the hospital- the defense appeared to be laying the groundwork for a case that will implicate the older son.

Attorney Marcos Garza, who is representing Jessica Cox, asked the younger child repeatedly if his big brother had ever hurt himself or others. The child vehemently denied the questions, even going so far as to cut off the attorney before he finished his questions, remarking, " I already know what you're going to say" and "the answer is no." McIntosh also recounted a story where the older son hit the younger one on the head with a remote control, causing a significant head wound that the 14-year-old seemed to attribute to Cox in earlier testimony.

The children no longer live in the Canton Hollow trailer, but stay with their grandparents who were present for Wednesday's hearing.

http://www.wbir.com/story/news/local/west-knoxville-farragut/2013/10/16/jessica-cox-in-court/2997709/