CLEVELAND (Court TV) — A woman who admitted to beating and stabbing her boyfriend to death offered an apology as she was sentenced to prison on Wednesday.
Dy’mond Vaden appears in court for her sentencing on March 11, 2026. (Court TV)
Dy’mond Vaden pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, felonious assault and offenses against a human corpse in the death of her on-again-off-again boyfriend, George Cox Jr. Cox was reported missing in November 2024 before his body was found in May 2025, bound and decomposing, in the Huron River.
Vaden admitted, when pressed by Judge Richard Bell, to stabbing Cox in the abdomen and watching as he bled out on Oct. 18, 2024. Instead of calling 911, Vaden admitted to using Google to search, “What are the chances to survive in real life if you get stabbed in the abdomen multiple times.”
“Everything was just happening so fast,” Vaden said in court. “We were fighting to try to save him. I did everything I can to try to save him, I just didn’t call the police and I regret that.”
Instead of calling the police, Vaden said she waited until Cox died and then called friends to help dispose of the body. Cox was found bound with marine rope and wrapped in a sheet when he was found by kayakers approximately seven months after his murder.
“We didn’t even have the opportunity to properly bury him because his body was so decomposed,” Cox’s father, George Cox Sr., said in court. Cox handed a photo showing his son’s decomposing body to the judge. “That’s what I had to see, Judge. It’s so hurtful I can’t even describe it. That’s something I’m gonna have to live with for the rest of my life. We had to cremate him because I couldn’t put him in the ground looking like that.”
Cleveland Police Detective Kevin Callahan spoke at Wednesday’s sentencing, saying it was the first time in his 30-year career that he had felt compelled to speak in court. “With Dy’mond Vaden, Your Honor, don’t be fooled,” he said. “She is well-spoken, polite, intelligent and presents herself well. What you’re looking at, your honor, is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” Callahan called Vaden a “master manipulator” who lacks “any resemblance of a moral compass.”
Prosecutors pointed to a text Vaden sent her new boyfriend on the day Cox’s body was found as evidence of her lack of remorse. “You gonna be missing next,” Vaden wrote. “She knew exactly what was done to George Cox Jr. and that text message in and of itself shows she had no remorse for what she had done,” Prosecutor Carson Strang said.
Judge Bell asked Vaden directly about the text; she responded that she merely meant to show concern for her boyfriend, who hadn’t been responding to her that day.
Vaden was initially charged with murder, but changed her plea as part of an agreement with prosecutors. Judge Bell sentenced her in line with the agreement, sending her to prison for a minimum of 19.7 years and a maximum of 25.2 years.
