Indiana State Sentinel, September 18, 1861. NOTE: In 2003, Treva Bean shared several items related to this incident with the INMONROE rootsweb list. In those items, dated in 1907 and 1914, respectively, Mr. Cox is identified specifically as John B. Cox and the details are rather dissimilar from the telling of the story in 1861. In 1850, John B. Cox, age 20 and a resident of Benton Twp., Monroe County, was enumerated in the household of William and Nancy Cox, ages 50 and 46, respectively. In 1860, John B. Cox, age 30 and a resident of Benton Twp., Monroe County, Indiana, was noted as head of a household that included Hannah Cox, age 29, Mariah F. Cox, age 6, Nancy E. Cox, age 4, Lydia V. Cox, age 2, and John M. Helton, age 12. William Cox was enumerated in the adjacent household. HORRIBLE MURDER By a private dispatch we learn the particulars of a horrible murder, or series of murders, committed near Bloomington last night. The victims were a Mr. Cox, his wife and four children. The circumstances, as far as learned, are substantially the following: Mr. Cox and wife were awakened shortly after midnight by screaming in the direction of their son's house but a short distance from their own. Starting out to ascertain the cause of the alarm, in the darkness they stumbled over their son's body that was dreadfully mangled about the throat, though not quite dead. Lying near they found the wife and a little girl three years old with their throats cut and both quite dead. Two other children, the oldest twelve years, both with their throats cut, were discovered a short distance from the first, though in these latter there were some symptoms of animation. Neither the father nor the children can survive. Two men, strongly suspicioned of the bloody deed, have been arrested and confined in jail. The suspected persons have hitherto borne good characters. -Lafayette Courier