THE DARK SIDE OF FLORIDA
John Cox, Jr.
#032191
photo courtesy FDOC
Full Name: John Carter Cox, Jr.
Aliases: "Snake"
Date of birth: September 12, 1948
Conviction: 1st-degree murder
County: Volusia
City: Daytona Beach
Current Location: SFRC South Unit
Partner in crime: Theodore "Ted" Bassett
Date of crime: August 12, 1978
Tentative discharge date: Life
Victim(s): James Richard Boucher, Daryl Bruce Barber
Aliases: "Snake"
Date of birth: September 12, 1948
Conviction: 1st-degree murder
County: Volusia
City: Daytona Beach
Current Location: SFRC South Unit
Partner in crime: Theodore "Ted" Bassett
Date of crime: August 12, 1978
Tentative discharge date: Life
Victim(s): James Richard Boucher, Daryl Bruce Barber
Convicted killer Theodore “Ted” Bassett, convicted of the 1978 murders of two vacationing teenagers, was born into violence. As a boy, Ted would scream with terror while watching his alcoholic stepfathers beat his mother. He was still a child when he learned he was conceived when his mother was raped.
Ted is was convicted of the murders of James Richard Boucher, 17, and Daryl Bruce Barber, 19, both from Michigan. Ted, who used the alias Earl Lee “Spider” Smith, and another man beat the teens, forced them into the trunk of a car and gassed them with carbon monoxide. The boys’ skeletal remains were found in a dense, wooded area five miles west of Daytona Beach on Indian Lake Road in December 1978. James and Daryl had gone to Daytona Beach four months earlier on vacation. They were killed on August 12, 1978.
Law enforcement testified that they went to the Volusia County Jail in December to talk to Ted, who was already in custody on charges of grand theft in connection with the youths’ car. They had just discovered the skeleton and were taken to the crime scene by John Carter “Snake” Cox, who had given investigators a statement “strongly implicating [Ted] in the deaths of the two boys. Ted talked to authorities over a period of two days.
Ted told them that he met James and Daryl on the beach in August and noticed they had some marijuana “and he planned to rip them off.” Ted volunteered to take them to a beer party and took them to meet Cox, who was at a restaurant near the boardwalk. After several other stops, Cox showed Ted a .25-caliber revolver and kept another one for himself.
One of the men put a gun in the front seat, where both boys were seated. The boys told Ted and Cox they’d do anything they wanted. The driver was told to turn down a dirt road, where the boys were robbed at gunpoint. Ted told authorities, “Well, we’ve got to kill them. They know who we are and where we hang out.” After a mile long trek through a swamp with the boys tied with their hands behind their backs, Ted refused to shoot them, so Cox thought of another way.
They got the car, put the boys in the trunk and went to Cox’s trailer where they got a garden hose, duct tape and a sponge. They drove to Indian Lake Road, forced one of the boys out of the trunk long enough to endorse his traveler’s checks and then put him back in the trunk. Ted and Cox told the boys they were going to be left there in the unlocked trunk and that they could get out after they had counted to 100.
Instead, Cox, according to Ted’s confession, locked the trunk on the boys, put a sponge in the car tailpipe to hold one end of the hose and put the other end of the hose in the trunk near the lock. One of the boys apparently figured out what was happening and kept trying to push the hose back out of the trunk. Cox got upset at that, so he got a knife out of the cark and “poked it in the opening to keep the boys’ hands away.” The trunk was then sealed with duct tape and the car was started. After about two hours, Cox and Ted opened the trunk. They took the dead boys out and laid them side by side on the deserted fire trail where they were covered with brush and a blanket.
Ted was physically abused by his stepfathers and had no male authority figures to rely on when he was growing up. His mother had bouts of depression and became suicidal. By the time Ted arrived in Daytona Beach, he was a drifter. He preyed on tourists in the Main Street area, selling them “beat dope,” substances he said were drugs but were not. He was easily dominated by others, particularly older males.
Law enforcement officials were expected to testify that Ted was afraid of Cox. Cox, a Tampa truck driver, pleaded no contest to two counts of murder and was sentenced to life in prison. Ted was convicted of first-degree murder and was sentenced to death, but later the sentence was overturned and he will now remain in prison for the rest of his life.
Ted is was convicted of the murders of James Richard Boucher, 17, and Daryl Bruce Barber, 19, both from Michigan. Ted, who used the alias Earl Lee “Spider” Smith, and another man beat the teens, forced them into the trunk of a car and gassed them with carbon monoxide. The boys’ skeletal remains were found in a dense, wooded area five miles west of Daytona Beach on Indian Lake Road in December 1978. James and Daryl had gone to Daytona Beach four months earlier on vacation. They were killed on August 12, 1978.
Law enforcement testified that they went to the Volusia County Jail in December to talk to Ted, who was already in custody on charges of grand theft in connection with the youths’ car. They had just discovered the skeleton and were taken to the crime scene by John Carter “Snake” Cox, who had given investigators a statement “strongly implicating [Ted] in the deaths of the two boys. Ted talked to authorities over a period of two days.
Ted told them that he met James and Daryl on the beach in August and noticed they had some marijuana “and he planned to rip them off.” Ted volunteered to take them to a beer party and took them to meet Cox, who was at a restaurant near the boardwalk. After several other stops, Cox showed Ted a .25-caliber revolver and kept another one for himself.
One of the men put a gun in the front seat, where both boys were seated. The boys told Ted and Cox they’d do anything they wanted. The driver was told to turn down a dirt road, where the boys were robbed at gunpoint. Ted told authorities, “Well, we’ve got to kill them. They know who we are and where we hang out.” After a mile long trek through a swamp with the boys tied with their hands behind their backs, Ted refused to shoot them, so Cox thought of another way.
They got the car, put the boys in the trunk and went to Cox’s trailer where they got a garden hose, duct tape and a sponge. They drove to Indian Lake Road, forced one of the boys out of the trunk long enough to endorse his traveler’s checks and then put him back in the trunk. Ted and Cox told the boys they were going to be left there in the unlocked trunk and that they could get out after they had counted to 100.
Instead, Cox, according to Ted’s confession, locked the trunk on the boys, put a sponge in the car tailpipe to hold one end of the hose and put the other end of the hose in the trunk near the lock. One of the boys apparently figured out what was happening and kept trying to push the hose back out of the trunk. Cox got upset at that, so he got a knife out of the cark and “poked it in the opening to keep the boys’ hands away.” The trunk was then sealed with duct tape and the car was started. After about two hours, Cox and Ted opened the trunk. They took the dead boys out and laid them side by side on the deserted fire trail where they were covered with brush and a blanket.
Ted was physically abused by his stepfathers and had no male authority figures to rely on when he was growing up. His mother had bouts of depression and became suicidal. By the time Ted arrived in Daytona Beach, he was a drifter. He preyed on tourists in the Main Street area, selling them “beat dope,” substances he said were drugs but were not. He was easily dominated by others, particularly older males.
Law enforcement officials were expected to testify that Ted was afraid of Cox. Cox, a Tampa truck driver, pleaded no contest to two counts of murder and was sentenced to life in prison. Ted was convicted of first-degree murder and was sentenced to death, but later the sentence was overturned and he will now remain in prison for the rest of his life.
