"I didn't know my Superman was everyone else's Superman"

Maria Cox never could sleep well knowing that her husband was patrolling one of King County's most dangerous neighborhoods.

To help his wife relax, Steve Cox bought her a police scanner, which she placed on the pillow next to her in bed. Each night, while she was in bed and her husband was on patrol as a King County sheriff's deputy, Maria listened to the scratchy police chatter, drawing comfort whenever she heard Steve's call sign and voice.

"He had a mission: He wanted White Center to come into being a decent area," Maria said Thursday. "He loved everybody; he didn't care about race, religion or anything."

Last Friday, Maria didn't have the scanner charged. It was one of the rare occasions that she went to bed inside their Normandy Park home without hearing her husband's distant voice from his patrol post in White Center.

She didn't hear the scanner crackling with the news that her husband had been fatally shot.

Steve Cox, a nine-year King County Sheriff's Office veteran, died early Saturday morning from the two gunshot wounds he received inside a White Center home. Cox, 46, leaves behind his wife of five years and 1-year-old Bronson, the Guatemalan boy they adopted eight months ago.

Cox was investigating the shooting of a motorist at a White Center house party early Saturday and interviewing partygoers individually in an upstairs bedroom. He was shot twice in the head while questioning Raymond O. Porter, 23. Porter exchanged gunfire with two other deputies before he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head, the sheriff's office said.

Cox was leading the investigation because he had an in-depth knowledge of White Center — he had grown up in a nearby neighborhood — and knew some of the people who might be involved, according to the sheriff's office.

As news of Cox's death spread through White Center, friends, strangers and even people he'd once arrested stopped by the White Center Sheriff & Community Service Center with flowers and notes. Earlier this week about 200 people gathered at the site for a candlelight vigil and prayer service.

Maria, 51, said she knew her husband was well-liked in White Center but had no idea how many people knew him.

"I thought his heart was only mine. He didn't talk too much about his work," she said. "I didn't know my Superman was everyone else's Superman."

Though Cox was also a well-known community leader as president of the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council, he was simply a husband and father when he stepped through the front door of the couple's suburban cottage.

In recent months, Maria said, she had seen a change in her husband. She believes fatherhood altered Cox's serious nature.

The change was almost instantaneous, she said. Maria recalled traveling to Guatemala and Cox lying on the floor of their hotel lobby for hours playing with Bronson, shortly after they had picked up the baby boy. She said they adopted a baby from Latin America because she's originally from Colombia.

"He was so proud of that baby," Maria said.

Though the baby brought out Cox's "softer side," fatherhood never altered the deputy's goal of improving White Center, his wife said.

Cox grew up in the Shorewood neighborhood southwest of White Center. He played basketball at Evergreen High School, then attended Central Washington University and got a law degree from Willamette University in Salem, Ore.

By the mid-1990s, Cox was working as a deputy prosecuting attorney on high-profile murder and gang cases in Pasco. It was his love of animals — Cox raised small dogs — that helped bring the couple together.

The first time Maria saw Cox more than a decade ago was at a gym. She commented to her personal trainer about his good looks but didn't think he was interested in her.

Undeterred, when Maria found out that he raised small dogs, she told him she wanted to come see a litter when it was born. They started dating shortly after.

Recently, Maria said, she was encouraging her husband to leave law enforcement and return to law. But he loved his job and didn't ever want to retire.

"I was pushing because I was afraid something like this would happen," Maria said. "I told him to go back to being a lawyer so he'd be safe."

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com