What Alex Cox revealed days before he died and the unusual massage he gave his wife

The day after Alex Cox and Zulema Pastenes were married in Las Vegas, he offered to give her a massage.

It was Saturday, Nov. 30, 2019 in the middle of the day. Cox, a massage therapist, had never given Pastenes a massage and said they needed to go to Walmart first to buy a large plastic drop cloth commonly used for painting projects.

They purchased the item, returned to their room and he spread the cloth over the bed. Pastenes remembers lying down and quickly falling asleep.

“I was really, really (relaxed) – like when you’re trying to wake up and can’t,” Pastenes recalled. “I was thinking, ‘Why am I so relaxed and can’t wake up?’ I was in and out and could hear him talking and I was like, ‘Who is he talking to?'”

Pastenes said it sounded like Cox was chatting with somebody on the phone in the bathroom. When she was finally able to wake herself up, she asked her new husband who he had been talking to.

“He’s like, ‘Nobody. I was talking to myself,'” Pastenes said.

She took a bath and then suggested to Cox that they should watch a movie together. He was doing something on his phone and acted “super quiet.”

“Alex is usually joking and he would find a way to turn things into a joke. He was always making you laugh but he said nothing for the rest of the evening,” Pastenes said. “I asked if he was ok and he said, ‘I’m just tired.’ The fact he was quiet and said nothing – that’s so not Alex. Alex is not quiet.”

Pastenes explained the unusual events of that day to detectives from the Rexburg Police Department and Fremont County Sheriff’s Office who met with her for two hours this past April in Arizona. The interview, which you can watch in its entirety at the end of this story, was videotaped and part of several recordings, documents, videos and other files released Wednesday from the Chandler Police Department.

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The department has been investigating the death of Charles Vallow, Lori Vallow Daybell’s fourth husband who was shot and killed by Cox in July 2019. Lori married Chad Daybell four months later, weeks after Chad’s wife, Tammy Daybell, died in her sleep.

Lori’s two children, Joshua “JJ” Vallow and Tylee Ryan, were found buried on Chad’s property in June 2020. The couple is facing multiple charges in connection to JJ, Tylee and Tammy’s deaths, and police reports suggest Cox was involved. Lori has also been indicted in Arizona for conspiracy to commit murder in Charles’s death.

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The detectives met with Pastenes and her attorney Garrett Smith to follow up on earlier statements she had made to them in regards to Chad, Lori and Cox.

“At the time (of the massage), I had no question about it,” she told them. “There was not enough oil for a drop cloth (and) now I’m like, ‘Why would you necessitate a whole drop cloth all over the bed to give me a massage?’ That doesn’t make any sense to me at all … Maybe I’m just a little too crazy because of all the stuff that’s happened, but in the back of my mind I keep thinking that who was on the phone was Chad and Lori and that was supposed to be my last day.”

Pastenes doesn’t remember eating or drinking anything unusual that afternoon and said it was the only time Cox ever gave her a massage.

Read the entire story here: https://www.eastidahonews.com/2021/10...