My sick ex & his new lover bundled me into a van in my underwear before slitting my throat and running me over

WITH her hands bound in duct tape, terrified Luna Cox found herself trapped in a strange house.

Her ex-partner, Jordan Mangum, 42, and his new lover, Jessica Wheeler, 36, had abducted her from her Des Moines, , home on December 2, 2023.

During the 17-hour ordeal, the 34-year-old mother was blindfolded, beaten, had her throat slashed and was repeatedly run over in a desperate attempt to kill her.

After pleading for her life, Luna was dumped outside Clark County Hospital, where she received life-saving treatment.

In June 2024, Mangum and Wheeler were jailed for 45 and 35 years respectively for attempted murder and kidnapping.

The court heard they had attacked Luna to force her to drop a case against Mangum, who had been charged two weeks earlier.

Since surviving the ordeal, Luna is focused on rebuilding her life and being the best mother she can be to her six-year-old son.

Speaking exclusively to Key Witness: The Moment, Luna, a stay-at-home mother, originally from, said: “I had no idea why he tried to kill me.

“But I’m happy with where I’m at now because had he not crossed that line, I don’t think I would have been able to ever get out of that situation.

“Some of his words still affect me today.

“And I have certain habits from walking on eggshells for so long with him that I’m trying to break them.

“But, I’m building myself up one step at a time and just going to do the best I can do because I have my son to take care of.”

Luna was 18-years-old when she first met Mangum through in 2010 and said they had a “whirlwind” romance.

She said: “I was stuck at home due to medical conditions and wasn’t able to go to school.

“My only outlet was my computer and when someone seemed like they cared about me, obviously I clung to it.

“After the first week or so, we were on phone and video calls.”

Within a year, Mangum, who was 26 at the time, flew from Iowa to Luna’s graduation in Florida where he proposed to her.

It was a “dream come true” for the teen who also agreed to fly back to Iowa to live with his family.

But a year later, she started to see his true colours.

“I thought my future was going to be perfect,” she said.

“It was like our honeymoon phase when our son was first born until I started to see that he wasn’t.

“It started with verbal and psychological abuse.

“He’d say ‘why can’t you do this right?’ and he was very jealous.”

Over their 11 year relationship, Luna described how Mangum’s behaviour only became worse.

She said: “Whenever he would get too aggravated with the game or something wasn’t going the way he wanted, I would be the outlet for his aggression.

“He would pull my hair or punch me in the ribs.

“I would end up with a few bruises here and there and a few scratches, but never enough to the point I could report him.”

During this time, the pair welcomed their son in 2019, but the abuse continued.

It wouldn’t be until 2023 that Luna began to document the abuse for her own protection, secretly recording Mangum’s outbursts with her phone.

Eventually, the recordings led to him being arrested for the first time for domestic assault the following November, after Luna had caught him choking her out and threatening to “kill her.”

The police also issued a no contact order.

Luna thought she didn’t have to worry about him trying to hurt her anymore until two weeks later on December 2, 2023.

Recalling the moment her life changed forever, Luna said: “It was 3am in the morning and Mangum had decided to break into my house.

“He worse a mask of some sort, but because of his stature and build, I knew it was him but pretended I didn’t.

“I figured he wanted to get the rest of his stuff.

“But the next thing I knew, he had stabbed my hand up against the wall with a knife and I was forced into a van.

“All I had on was a bra, a pair of pants and socks.”

Luna was tied up with rope and blindfolded as she was driven 30 minutes by Mangum and his new lover, Wheeler, to his house in Indianola before being moved to an unknown location.

There, the pair had bounded Luna’s arms, legs and face with duct tape.

“When he had finally moved me inside, I could literally move the duct tape enough so that I could see exactly where I was,” she said.

“And I started memorising what pattern the rug has, the colour, and the pattern behind the bricks.

“I also decided to make a decision that is truly unbelievable… I started to hide evidence.

“I ripped off hair and wrapping it around things and hid it.”

As hours passed, Mangum walked Luna back out to the van under the pretense that she would see her son, who was staying at Mangum’s mother’s house at the time.

But unbeknownst to Luna, she was about to have the fight of her life.

“I had no idea where they were taking me,” she said.

“I just knew I was supposed to be meeting up with my son somewhere.

“So when we had finally pulled over at the random place, I had no clue where we were at.

“But as I took off the eye cover and looked around, Mangum had come behind me and started choking me from behind.

“And I started thinking, God, don’t let this be it.”

Luna blacked out after being strangled, but when she awoke, she found herself underneath her ex’s van, with Wheeler behind the wheel.

“The next thing I know, I’m waking up underneath the van and I hear the gear shift,” she said.

“I got ran over again and then I hear the gear shift again and I rolled in the opposite direction until I was able to roll off the road.”

Thinking that her horrors were over, Mangum suddenly approached Luna with a knife and began slashing at her throat.

She said: “I assumed that he had hurt me enough at the point.

“I kept asking why he was doing what he was doing and to take me to hospital.

“I even said they could drop me off a block away.”

Mercifully, Luna’s kidnappers ditched her outside a nearby hospital where she had life-saving treatment – including stitches for the six-inch wound on her neck.

Doctors said the knife was close to hitting one of her arteries, but Luna accredited her plus-size frame and “three-chins” for the near miss.

The pair were arrested the next day and appeared at Polk County court in June 2024 where they were convicted of attempted murder and kidnapping.

Mangum also pleaded guilty to assault while participating in a felony with a dangerous weapon enhancement and domestic abuse impeding air/blood flow causing injury – and was sentenced to 45 years in prison, with 22-and-a-half years mandatory after accepting an Alford Plea.

Wheeler was sentenced to 35 years in prison, with a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 17-and-a-half years.

Luna has since tried to rebuild her life and now lives with her son and new partner she’s “smitten” with.

She said: “He can’t stop me anymore.

“I can actually live my life and focus on my son and on myself because I deserve it.

“I define myself with what I decide to do and that I need to live peacefully.”

Each week, Key Witness goes behind the headlines to speak to the people closest to some of the world’s most notorious crimes – uncovering new details and exclusive testimonials that have never been revealed before.

You can donate to Luna’s GoFundMe page here