HAMPTON, Va. — The Virginia Court of Appeals has upheld the murder conviction of Cory Bigsby, affirming a 45-year prison sentence for the killing of his 4-year-old son, Codi Bigsby, whose disappearance in Hampton in 2022 sparked a multi-state search.
In a published opinion issued December 30, the court ruled there was sufficient evidence for a jury to convict Bigsby of second-degree murder and concealment of a dead body, even though Codi’s remains have never been found. Judges also rejected Bigsby’s claims that prosecutors improperly struck Black jurors and that the trial court wrongly allowed several jurors to serve.
Codi was reported missing in January 2022 after Bigsby told police the child vanished from the family’s Hampton apartment overnight. Investigators later said extensive searches turned up no trace of the boy, but a cadaver dog alerted inside the apartment. Prosecutors also pointed to testimony from one of Codi’s siblings and multiple written and spoken statements Bigsby made while incarcerated, in which he described beating the child, attempting CPR, and disposing of the body to avoid detection…