WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A man convicted in a woman’s strangulation death and arrested on suspicion of repeatedly sexually assaulting an 8-year-old girl whom he had been baby-sitting has made an initial court appearance.
Clifford Eugene Cox, 56, was booked into the Sedgwick County Jail on Monday on suspicion of child rape, aggravated criminal sodomy and aggravated indecencies with a child.
Cox pleaded guilty in 1984 to strangling 23-year-old Cathryn Kessinger, of Winfield, with a rope. Kansas Department of Corrections records show he was sentenced to life but was let out of prison on parole in 2006.
Police say the 8-year-old was among several children Cox babysat, including the girl’s three siblings and Cox’s children. The girl’s father said Cox began babysitting his daughter because the girl’s mother knew someone in Cox’s family. He said the family wasn’t aware of Cox’s criminal record and information about it is hard to find.
Cox doesn’t show up on the Kansas offender registry website because his 1984 murder conviction occurred before July 1, 1997. Crimes occurring before then don’t qualify for registration, according to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
Even if Cox was a registered offender, Kansas does not have a law banning registered offenders from living near schools, day care centers or anywhere else.
Cox had remained under parole supervision in the murder case when he was arrested Monday, said Samir Arif, spokesman for the Kansas Department of Corrections. Arif said in an email that Cox “was managed in accordance with the level and type of risk of which the Kansas Department of Corrections was aware. . The crime for which he was on parole was not a sex offense, and so he was not managed as a sex offender.”
In 2010, while still on parole for Kessinger’s murder, Cox went to court on felony drug possession and misdemeanor weapons charges. Instead of going back to prison or jail, Cox took a plea deal and was sentenced to one year of probation after the court dropped the felony charge. After eight months, Cox was granted early release from probation in that case, court records show.
It’s unclear if this arrest and conviction had any effect on his parole in the murder case.
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SEDGWICK COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a Kansas man on parole for murder for alleged child sex crimes.
Parents of an 8-year-old girl contacted police with concerns the child was being sexually assaulted by her 56-year-old baby sitter, according to Officer Charley Davidson.
The sexual assaults reportedly occurred over the past couple of years, according to Davidson.
On Monday, police booked 56-year-old Clifford Eugene Cox on requested charges of rape of a victim under the age of 14, aggravated criminal sodomy and aggravated indecent liberties with a child, according to Davidson and the Sedgwick County booking report.
Cox was on parole after serving time for a 1984 murder in Cowley County, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections.