The title of my,
memoir is gonna be Blood and Ink,
because that really kinda summarizes my whole family.
Mike Cox was the reporter's reporter.
You could say ink ran in his veins.
Writing about cops and crime on the police
beat has been his lifelong pursuit.
Cox comes from a family where storytelling is
a way of life, a tradition passed down
through generations
to him.
His parents met covering the murder trial of
a contract killer.
I tell people that I am, literally the
the product of 2 of man's more singular
acts, one of them being murder.
In 1943,
a hit man was accused of the brutal
murder of a doctor and his wife
while their 2 year old daughter hid in
a closet.
The crime and trial unfolded in Littlefield,
near Lubbock, in the lower Texas Panhandle.
The old joke about the Panhandle is that
there's nothing between,
the North Pole and and
the Texas Panhandle but a barbed wire fence.
On a change of venue,
the trial was moved to Sweetwater,
located west of Abilene.
Mike's future parents, Bill Cox and Betty Wilkie,
were rival reporters.
Betty scooped Bill by getting an exclusive jail
cell interview with the accused contract killer.
Bill protested to the district judge and received
equal access.
A romance blossomed, and the couple eloped aboard
a private airplane owned by the newspaper where
Bill worked.
And it was, an old,
open cockpit airplane. Even though this was 1947,
it was sort of a glorified prop duster.
And my mother always told me that, my
dad had brought along a newspaper that had
a big page 1
story about him with his byline,
and
proudly showed it to my mother. Well, when
they got over Paladiro Canyon, they got in
some air turbulence,
and my mother got nauseated and barfed all
over his,
front page
byline.
Storytelling and journalism were ingrained in Mike Cox's
DNA.
His father and grandfather were both veteran Texas
newspapermen,
magazine writers, and book authors.
His maternal grandfather, L. A. Wilkie, launched his
career during the tumultuous days of the Mexican
Revolution,
founding a newspaper in 1914.
Cox grew up captivated by his grandfather's vivid
recollections of the colorful figures he encountered, especially
the Texas Rangers.
This early influence shaped Cox's literary journey, leading
him to author 4 volumes on the history
of the Rangers,
North America's oldest law enforcement agency in continuous
service.
As a senior in high school and editor
of the school paper, Cox sold his first
story to a true crime magazine.
Around the same time, he wrote a teenage
news column for the Austin American Statesman,
making a famously
flawed prediction that the Beatles would never outlast
Sonny and Cher.
I can relate. I made a similar misjudgment
during a guest appearance on a high school
radio show called
Teen Beat on KPLT
14:90
AM,
but that's another story.
Besides writing the teen column, 17 year old
Cox was working in production
at The Statesman.
In August 1966,
his instinct for journalism
sharpened when he heard a broadcast by a
popular teen radio station
that a sniper was on top of the
University of Texas tower.
The first bulletin that somebody was shooting from
the UT tower,
put on a snap on tie and white
shirt and or white shirt and snap on
tie and rushed to the UT campus.
Cox got within the 4 block range of
rifle fire from 25 year old Charles Whitman,
who picked off students and pedestrians
for 96 minutes.
Whitman's shooting spree, which killed 15 people,
including an unborn child,
and injured 31 others,
ended when 2 Austin police officers stormed the
observation deck platform
and shot him to death.
Cox was on the trail of a story
that would then become known as the deadliest
mass shooting by a lone gunman
in US history.
I got back in my
car and and drove back to the newsroom.
And, of course, it was just in in
chaos. And,
I got assigned to,
help a friend of mine, another reporter who
was only a couple of years older than
I was, maybe 3 years older. And the,
I guess the city editor told us to
try to find where Whitman lived. We already
had the name. It hadn't been released to
the public, but, the police reporter had gotten
the name. And so, my friend and I
rushed to the, to Whitman's
residence,
hoping that we could, you know, do the
standard sort of thing of interviewing the neighbors.
And when we got there,
discovered that he had moved from that address.
Unfazed,
Cox persuaded a telephone operator to divulge Whitman's
new address,
a testament to his budding tenacity
as a reporter.
And so, you know, back then, of course,
all you had to do was dial 0
to speak to a phone operator.
So I dialed 0
and got a, an operator, a woman, woman
operator.
And one of the first times I used
whatever sweet talking ability I have,
I said, hey, I know y'all aren't supposed
to do this, but a good buddy of
mine
lives here in town, and I I just
came in for the earlier today, and I'd
really like to get together with him. And,
his name is Charlie Charles Whitman.
The name had not been released.
And so the operator said, well, okay. And
so she looked looked him up and gave
me his righteous address. And so,
with that, we were able to,
rush to his house in South Austin.
The police hadn't gotten there because they didn't
have any reason to go there at that
time. They did not know that
Whitman's,
the dead body of Whitman's wife was just
right inside his back door. Before his rampage
from the University of Texas Tower,
Charles Whitman had already committed 2 murders,
stabbing both his wife and mother to death
in their respective apartments.
For Mike Cox, it was his first encounter
with a mass murder,
one of many to follow.
In 1970,
Cox joined the Austin American Statesman as a
police beat reporter,
where he broke the story of notorious serial
killer
Henry Lee Lucas.
Over the years, he would cover hundreds of
crime scenes, each more grisly than the last.
15 years later, Cox transitioned to a new
role, becoming the chief of media relations for
the Texas Department of Public Safety
which oversees state troopers and the legendary
Texas Rangers.
During his time at DPS, he bore witness
to even more murder and mayhem,
with some of the state's darkest moments unfolding
before him.
I met Mike while covering several high profile
cases:
the Luby's cafeteria massacre,
the 51 day Branch Davidian cult siege,
and the standoff with Republic of Texas separatists
in the rugged mountains outside Fort Davis.
You know, Mike, the thing that always struck
me covering this murders, everything else is
just how monstrous
people can become in the things they do.
It really kinda goes back to why
by the time
I left the DPS
and during that period of time at the
DPS, I had been deeply involved in the,
mass murder at Luby's cafeteria in Killeen. I
I walked among
the 20 plus
bodies, only an hour or so after they
died,
and that stuck with me to this day.
And then I I helped count body bags
at,
Mount Carmel after the David Koresh,
situation.
And then, again, I think I counted up
one time, I I was the spokesman
in
13 cases where a trooper or a DPS
officer,
was killed in the line of duty, including
1 Texas Ranger.
So I had just, you know, by the
time I left
the DPS in 2000,
I really
it was pretty murdered out.
Cox, as he puts it, had grown martyred
out after years of covering grisly crimes.
However, his wife's fondness for true crime television
shows, especially Dateline,
rekindled his passion for the subject.
They set a regular date night to watch
the show.
What began as a lighthearted joke about the
popularity of true crime shows
eventually inspired Cox's latest book,
Getting Away with Murder,
Learning from Dateline and Other True Crime Shows.
So it just occurred to me, you know,
I ought to do kind of a fun
little tongue in cheek book discussing
stupid ways that, that people end up getting
caught for murdering somebody and frame it in
the context of,
of, those that these were pro tips.
And, of course, early in the book, I
make a
a declaration that I ran by my lawyer.
And that is that,
of course, I had no intention of actually
trying to
assist anyone in getting away
with murder.
This was written as a tongue in cheek,
you know, spoof in a way.
There have been several instances where life has
eerily imitated art, with killers using true crime
shows as a blueprint for planning their murders.
But they got caught.
I begin to notice this as a reporter.
Most
criminals, most murderers
are just plain dumb. I doubt very seriously
if many murderers spend much time watching Dateline
or other shows or reading true crime books.
There are still so many people out there
who apparently believe
that you can type into your computer how
to get away with murder
and that somehow that will not be seen
when they start looking at your history. You
know what I mean? Yes. So there's a
lot of stupidity out there. Or you shop
for the murder weapons.
Yeah. Yeah. What's that ideal murder weapon? You
know, how long does it take a body
to decay? You know what I mean? Just,
you know,
on and on and on. You do have
some funny tongue in cheek stuff. 1 about
to,
feed your your victim to an alligator. But
then you warn that a hungry,
angry alligator
might decide you look tastier than your intended
victim. That's right. You know, it's got to
be careful. And, there are just, you know,
endless ways that you can do get in
trouble, you know, trying to,
trying to kill somebody or trying to dispose
of the body. And did you see a
case in Dateline or somewhere where somebody did
do that or tried to do that? Yes.
I think there was one in Florida
where somebody
ostensibly went, duck hunting with a friend and
never returned.
And I think that, the theory was that
person ended up,
supporting an alligator's
diet.
You know, as you said, I try to
think of other funny things. I mean, you
know,
some people,
are very faithful in keeping their diaries, but
I said that,
you know, best not to write down in
your diary, your your the steps you went
through to,
kill your wife and collect her insurance money.
And then,
there are the ultimate
way to get away with murder, as I
point out in the book, is don't do
it. You know, I mean, you're not gonna
never get caught for murder if you don't
don't, don't kill somebody. And the other absolute
is that if you do kill somebody,
don't tell anybody.
You know, people seem to seem to forget
that jail cell phone or that jail
in prison phone calls are, you know, automatically,
recorded.
They
they seem to think somehow that it's smart
or beneficial for them to tell their cellmate,
brag to their cellmate about what they did.
I mean, you know,
stupidity is
a key factor in many people getting
getting caught. The cellmate is a criminal who's
always ready to
snitch you out to get their sentence reduced.
So Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
You got a section of the book called
Devil's Dictionary of True Crime Shows Speak.
And it's
all the cliches
like
a quiet, well mannered young man, the loner
who kept to himself,
provide closure to the family.
Yeah. I think I'd have to call that
my favorite
favorite part of the of the book. You
know, I've as a long time writer, I
have always,
tried to, issue cliches in my writing and
and,
I
can spot the cliche fairly well. But, so,
in this case, you know, I knew a
lot of them. I picked up more in
watching,
Dateline and others.
You know, I say things like the line,
quote, He swept her off her feet, right
into a shallow grave, that is. And,
she was finally leaving him this time. Unfortunately,
she waited too long. I've always loved what
Ambrose Bierce did with his Devil's Dictionary, you
know, well more than a century ago.
And of course, the absolute classic is she
lit up the room. You know, every
every
that is said of almost every,
woman who is is is murdered.
But as I say, if you light up
the room, very often time, eternal darkness
follows. But who are these writers that regurgitate?
And these shows are full of it. And,
you know, you and David Simon who've who
wrote Homicide and all, you don't find that
in those?
Well, you know, another fascinating thing that I've
noticed
in watching Dateline and The Elk,
and that is that cops
have fallen back
on these cliches. And I think part of
it is that the
whoever's interviewing them is is basically feeding them
the line like,
you know, the the interviewer will say, well,
that must have broken the case wide open.
And and, you know, sure enough, the cop
will come back and say, oh, yeah. That,
you know, that that broke the case wide
open. And, you know, you just hear that
almost in every
every show,
and and there's, of course, many, many more
that you hear. Well, you got another section
that's that's amusing here. And true crime show
snacks to die for. Yeah. Like 45 caliber
Devil Days. Do you did you have a
favorite,
snack on here? Car bomb
salsa.
Well, I,
my cousin, is the one that I think
had the idea for offering some, recipes. And
then we all all of us came up
with funny names
and then worked backwards. You know what I
mean? I I think I came up with
car bomb salsa.
I think that one comes from my wife,
Beverly,
and then,
Ditto for the 45
caliber a.
I will give credit to my cousin,
and I think it's the best name in
the in the section, and that was
FBI Scream.
That was
that was hers.
And,
you know, I think that's pretty
pretty darn funny. Yeah. Well, you've got another
section called, you may be a true crime
addict
if, which reminds me the old stand up
routine, you may be a redneck if. Yep.
Yep. Yep. That's certainly,
that's certainly informed by Jeff Jeff Foxworthy, who,
you know, I greatly admire. I guess he's
not performing that much anymore, but that was
one of his absolute
classic riffs was, you may be a redneck
if. And so, yeah,
I started
looking for things online, and then I started
thinking, you know, of other things
that just popped into my head as, hopefully,
humorous. Yeah. One of them, you fantasized
about how you'd get away with the perfect
murder. Or
5 minutes before daylight starts your dog or
cat sitting expectantly
on your recliner waiting for you.
Yeah. That's right. And our, that's kind of
where our
our dog is. I mean, she's,
she's very used to
sitting with us,
as we're watching
watching Dateline. It should either be in my
wife's chair or my easy chair.
You know, another thing too, just overall, I
mean,
God knows there's so many horrible,
deadly, serious things going on in the world.
And, it's, you know, obviously well documented that
laughter and and, even a chuckle produces,
feel good heartburns like,
dopamine.
So if there's ever a time
Texas and the nation and the world itself
is
needful of,
some humor,
I I I don't know when it would
be. I mean, you know, they just, you
know, from politics
to Mideast wars to climate change to Mhmm.
Whatever. We need something to laugh about. In
his book,
Cox shares his list of the 10 must
read true crime books
that are impossible to put down.
Truman Capote's In Cold Blood
takes the top spot.
That book came out in 1965
just as I was, you know, beginning to
my interest in true crime was really beginning
to take off.
And I remember buying that book at a,
a long since vanished,
bookstore that was right across from the, University
of Texas on Guadalupe.
And man, I mean, it was it it
it was just,
brilliantly written. I mean, I I could I
could not I didn't wanna put it down.
I mean, you know, name your cliche and
it it,
it connects to how I reacted to that
book. I've got a good friend who felt
the same way about it, and he said
that he
recently reread it for the first time since
1950s,
65 or 66.
And he said he found
a whole new layer of nuance to it,
that he had missed the first time. And
so I God knows I've got so many
books that I want to read, I don't
know if I'll ever reread it. But, that
certainly says a lot about a book that
you can read it once and then come
back and read it, you know, a lifetime
later, practically,
and still get new stuff out of it.
When it comes to true crime consumption,
millions of Americans are repeat offenders.
Women make up the largest percentage of televised
true crime viewers.
And Cox says Taylor Swift is Dateline's most
famous fan.
The singer songwriter revealed that
nobody, No Crime, a country song in her
2020
album Evermore,
was inspired by Dateline.
Cox says watching Dateline made his wife more
cautious
about the evil things that can happen.
I think women are able to identify with
that more so
than a man. And I think also from
some of the stuff that I read, and
I think I use it in the book,
is that some women watch these shows,
with a with a mind of
toward,
you know, learning from them in in ways
that they can stay safe. You know, I
mean, they they learn, you know, don't have
a fight with your husband and walk out
at 3 o'clock in the morning and start
walking down a lonely road, you know.
I mean, stuff like that.
And then I I just think there's something,
I mean, you know,
the the interest in true crime goes back
really to
about the time that movable type was invented,
if not even farther back, you know? Because
people just seem to have a fascination
about,
you know,
why would somebody want to kill somebody else?
And how did they get caught? You know,
how did,
the police finally figure out who done it?
And, you know, on a lower level, it's
kind of, you know, like the old,
very popular board game Clue, you know? Was
it,
was it missus White with the rope or
or,
in the kitchen with the with the
chandelier
or the candlestick holder?
For many, you know, it sort of becomes
a a parlor game.
Mike Cox's lifelong
immersion in crime as a reporter, author, and
spokesperson for the Texas DPS
gave him a rare perspective on the subject.
His latest book, How to Get Away with
Murder, Learning from Dateline and Other True Crime
Shows,
isn't just a reflection on the dark side
of human nature.
It's a funny dive into the fascinating
intersection of real crime and the media that
chronicles it.
After decades of covering murder and mayhem, it's
clear that Mike Cox isn't just reporting the
story.
He's still living it,
one case at a time.