Texas Remains Identified As Missing Woman Kelli Cox
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DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Nineteen years after she disappeared, authorities in Denton now finally know what happened to University of North Texas student Kelli Ann Cox. Human remains were recovered last week from a remote site in Brazoria County, near Houston, and forensic specialists confirmed through dental records that the bones belonged to the North Texas woman.
Cox disappeared in July 1997 after she was unable to get into her parked car after a school field trip to the city jail. She walked across the street to call her boyfriend from a gas station payphone. She purchased a drink and then vanished without a trace.
Convicted kidnapper William Reece had told authorities where to dig. Reece began talking with police after DNA tied him to a cold case out of Oklahoma City, where another woman had been abducted and murdered at about the same time that Cox had disappeared. A gas station receipt from 1997 put Reece in the DFW area during that time frame.
Jan Bynum is Cox's mother. She does not remember when she first tied a yellow ribbon around a tree in front of her Farmers Branch home. But, one just like it has been there since shortly after Cox disappeared. It was tied there in hopes that Cox would one day come home.
"I wait every day," Bynum said. "Is the doorbell going to ring? Is the phone going to ring?"
Bynum said that Monday's confirmation of the remains belonging to Cox brings both relief and fresh grief. "I know she's gone. I know she's in God's arms. I know she's not hurting. I know she's been at rest all these years," the mom said. "But then, I have other things I have to deal with. I haven't had to deal with emotions."
"It was hard. I didn't think it was going to be so hard," Bynum added with tears swelling up in her eyes. "It's still the finality of it, the absolute finality of it."
The toddler that Cox left behind is now an adult, struggling with her own grief. The family still has many questions. "I want to know the circumstances under which it happened," stated Bynum, "not that it's going to change anything. I do want to know. Maybe getting those answers, like I've said, can help someone else."
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