‘Tough and tender.' Longtime advocate for Pierce County homicide victims dies
Lew Cox, a longtime advocate for victims of violent crime who was a fixture in the courthouse in Pierce County, was recently involved in a car crash and died at 85.
Cox was well known by prosecutors, law enforcement and the scores of families he helped to process grief and understand the inner workings of the judicial system, turning his own personal tragedy into a mission to assist others to heal.
His 22-year-old daughter, Carmon, was murdered in Los Angeles in 1987 while Cox was in the Philippines performing work through a ministry he started, according to his wife, Suzanne, and an online letter Cox authored in 2008.
Cox founded Tacoma-based Violent Crime Victims Services four years after his daughter was killed, giving families and friends of homicide victims a reputable advocate in someone intimately familiar with the experience of losing a loved one. He worked with over 1,000 families, including in high-profile cases such as the Green River killings, Suzanne Cox said in an interview.
The organization, which she said essentially folded about two years ago after her husband left in 2021, offered crisis intervention, peer counseling, support groups and court guidance. While Lew Cox was dedicated to Pierce County, he helped families elsewhere, including outside the United States, according to his wife.
'I don't think anybody knows more about grief counseling than Lew,' Scott Bramhall, who became a client in 1992 after his wife's brother was murdered in Tacoma, said in an interview.
Lew Cox died May 14, involved in a two-vehicle crash in the 7900 block of Valley Avenue Northwest near the Fife-Puyallup border. Suzanne Cox and Bramhall said Tuesday that all details were not yet known but that he may have suffered some type of medical event prior to the wreck and they were awaiting clarity from the Pierce County Medical Examiner's Office.
The driver of the other vehicle was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, authorities said.
Lew Cox, a graduate of Stadium High School, was frequently found in the pages of The News Tribune.
Violent Crime Victim Services was credited in 1997 with helping a mother who became a political activist after her 21-year-old son was slain. Cox provided his perspective on the relief that families felt being able to address 'Green River Killer' Gary Ridgway during Ridgway's sentencing hearing in 2003. He advocated for justice in 2004 as then-Pierce County Prosecutor Gerald Horne weighed whether to charge the Washington D.C.-area snipers with the 2002 slaying of a 21-year-old woman.
In other instances, he acted as a family spokesperson to the press, defended a prosecutor's rationale for not seeking the death penalty for the murder of an armored guard, reflected on a week spent in New York following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and described the difficulty of enduring in the aftermath of heartbreak.
'Am I over this? No. You never get over it. There's a piece of your heart that's been ripped out,' he told a News Tribune reporter in 2004. 'I loved my daughter very much; losing her was the worst pain a father can experience. But I also knew I had to resume life.'
Bramhall, a retired Puyallup police detective, said that Cox — who also served for roughly 25 years as a chaplain for the Des Moines Police Department — was an asset to prosecutors and law enforcement as a liaison between officials and crime victims' families.
'If you went to the courthouse, you would oftentimes find him there,' Bramhall said.
Pierce County deputy prosecutor Lisa Wagner recalled Cox as omnipresent in courthouse hallways and 'really, such a huge help' because he had the ability to keep close relationships with victims' families even after they had left the courthouse — ties that prosecutors and Pierce County's victim advocates don't ordinarily maintain.
Wagner, who met Cox three decades ago through her work, said he had a keen understanding of the legal system and willingly re-lived his own trauma for the sake of providing 'incalculable' aid to others.
Cox was genuinely kind and caring, Wagner said in an interview.
'You don't often run into people like that in my business,' she said.
Prosecuting Attorney Mary Robnett first crossed paths with Cox in the mid-1990s, and he was well known to the attorneys and advocates in the Prosecutor's Office, she told The News Tribune.
He had the air of a religious leader and was soft-spoken, warm and approachable, according to Robnett, who said it was comforting to have him around. Her office would pick up his phone calls or set aside time to meet with him, and he often showed up to court hearings with family members of victims, she said.
Robnett said she remembers Cox sitting in court, attending community events and appearing at law enforcement funerals. Ultimately, he wanted to be a resource for victims' families.
'He did that and he did that really well,' she said.
Suzanne Cox described her husband as 'a tough and tender kind of guy' who wasn't known to dwell. He had experienced more than one tragedy in his life. Shortly after the murder of his daughter — born from a previous marriage — his wife died, too, she said. He later lost a son.
'I just always was kind of amazed by his resiliency,' she said.
Suzanne and Lew Cox married in 1991.
He was a published author, co-writing a book titled, 'Coping with Traumatic Death: Homicide,' that sought to shepherd grieving families through loss.
He also served on a Washington state task force related to criminal sentencing as a strong proponent of not lowering punishment, testified in front of state lawmakers and took the stand in a civil court case, Suzanne Cox said. He trained therapists and chaplains, and worked as a consultant after leaving Violent Crime Victim Services.
'He cared for people. He cared for everybody that he worked with,' she said. 'He just had a real heart for victims and he had a heart to see that things would be better for them in terms of the laws.'
Lew Cox also enjoyed outside interests, namely trains, planes and automobiles, and he was a commercially rated pilot, according to his wife and Bramhall. He was an avid tennis player and church-goer who liked to dress up in suits. He also wasn't afraid to speak his mind, including when his wife cooked too much pasta or neighborhood kids were too loud.
In his youth, Lew Cox was an altar boy and later worked in a shoe store, drove trucks hauling gasoline, sugar or honey, and opened a health food shop in Federal Way that was eventually bought and turned into Marlene's Market & Deli, according to Suzanne Cox.
In the last year of his life, Lew Cox had suffered some health issues but none that were debilitating, his wife said. The day before he died, the couple had learned that he had a mass on his bladder but it wasn't known if it was cancerous.
He died on his wife's birthday, just four days before their 34th wedding anniversary.
'Lew was very dedicated,' Bramhall said. 'He would sink his teeth into a project and not let go.
'And his teeth were sunk into caring for the people who were facing a grief that no one else could help them with.'
Lew Cox is survived by his wife, two daughters, two granddaughters and one great-grandson. His family is planning on holding a funeral service in August in Federal Way, where he and his wife lived.
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