A mother-of-three met an extraordinary death after she entered a radio competition to win her children a newly released Nintendo Wii console.

The 2007 contest had a straightforward concept: consume as much water as possible without using the restroom. The last participant remaining would claim the prize.

Twenty-eight-year-old Jennifer Strange was a fan of Morning Rave on KDND-FM. When she learned about the station’s ‘Hold Your Wee for a Wii’ event, it sounded entertaining, albeit a bit absurd. To her delight, she was selected to compete.

Kicking off at 6:45 am on January 12, 2007, the competition featured 17 contestants. Participants were initially provided with eight-ounce water bottles to drink every 15 minutes, with the quantity gradually increasing.

Strange, who consumed nearly two gallons of water, started complaining of a headache and abdominal discomfort. However, hosts Adam Cox, Steve Maney, and Patricia Sweet made light of her situation, with one quipping that she appeared pregnant due to her bloated stomach.

Jennifer secured second place and received concert tickets as a consolation prize. She called in sick to work, reporting significant discomfort, but passed away only hours later.

Her death sparked a national scandal, leading to a criminal investigation and a multi-million-dollar settlement.

Adam Cox’s involvement in Strange’s case wasn’t his last encounter with controversy. Years later, his name resurfaced in another shocking incident: his sister, Lori Vallow, was found guilty of murdering her children in a case that shocked the entire nation.

Cox wrote about the tragedy involving Strange in his self-published memoir, My Crazy Radio Life, released in 2019.

The former DJ detailed how the idea for the fateful competition came about during a half-hour brainstorming session with his boss and production manager.

Despite concerns about safety, the contest was approved by management and the station’s legal team to take place at their Sacramento studio.

During the live broadcast, Jennifer repeatedly voiced her discomfort.

‘My head hurts. They keep telling me that it’s the water… that it will tell my head to hurt and it’ll make me puke,’ she said at one stage.

Cox joked: ‘Who told you that, the intern?’

To which Sweet chimed in: ‘Somebody that wants you to lose.’

At one point, Sweet asked if it was possible to die from water poisoning.

‘Your body is 98 percent water. Why can’t you take in as much water as you want?’ replied Cox.

Sweet laughed: ‘Maybe we should’ve researched this before.’

Several listeners called in to warn the hosts of the risks, including a nurse who mentioned the potential for fatal consequences.

‘Yeah we’re aware of that,’ said Cox, with fellow host Maney adding that participants had signed safety waivers so ‘we’re not responsible’.

‘And if they get to the point where they have to throw up, then they’re going to throw up and they’re out of the contest before they die. So that’s good, right?’ continued Cox.

In another exchange, Strange told Cox she was feeling lightheaded and unsure what was wrong.

‘This is what it feels like when you’re drowning. There’s a lot of water inside you,’ said Cox.

‘Oh, it hurts,’ Strange replied.

Cox later wrote that the tone of Morning Rave was ‘playful… sometimes even sarcastic’, and, despite the concerns of callers, he and the other hosts were powerless to stop the contest.

When Strange finally bowed out after three hours, accepting Justin Timberlake tickets as second-place consolation, she told Maney, ‘I don’t think I’m ready to go home yet.’

But she drove herself home, calling in sick to work on the way.

Her colleague, Laura Rios, told NBC that Strange said her head was ‘hurting her real bad’.

‘She was crying and that was the last that anyone had heard from her.’

In his memoir, Cox said he was alerted to Strange’s death in a phone call from his boss.

‘I picked up the phone groggily said: “Hello.” Then I was about to hear words that had a catastrophic impact on my life, which will forever be engraved in my mind and soul. My boss said, “One of the contestants from the contest died today,”’ Cox wrote.

‘I couldn’t understand why or how that could’ve happened. I started crying thinking about her, one of our loyal listeners, a mom just trying to win a Wii for for her kids.

‘Thinking about that hit me like a ton of bricks.’

Cox, Sweet, Maney, and several colleagues were immediately fired after Strange’s death, and Morning Rave was pulled from the air.

They were told they were being investigated for possible criminal charges in connection with her death.

Cox later appeared on KCRA, claiming he and his colleagues had been unfairly treated. He said news crews had been camping outside his home.

‘Our reputations went from riding high on a successful morning show… to the bottom of the barrel. Almost instantly, we were considered lower than the dust of the earth,’ wrote Cox in his book.

‘[A]ny reasonable person should have realized that we as a team were just doing our job as radio entertainers and only did what the management directed.’

The Sacramento District Attorney ultimately closed its investigation into Strange’s death without filing charges against the station or its employees, including Cox.

In 2009, Strange’s family was awarded $16.5 million by a California jury in a civil case, which found the station liable for its employees’ actions.

Entercom, the station’s parent company, surrendered KDND-FM’s license, and the station went off the air in 2017.

For years, Cox struggled to find work.

‘[N]obody was going to hire a DJ with a reputation as a “killer.” I was branded with a cruel and false charge,” he wrote

Eventually, he worked for two other radio stations before becoming a professional pickleball player and coach, leading a life of relative obscurity.

That was until his sister, Lori Vallow, was thrust into the spotlight in 2019.

Lori’s saga began that July when her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, was shot dead by her brother, Alex Cox.

Alex claimed he shot Charles in self-defense after Charles attacked him with a baseball bat. But investigators later determined Alex killed Charles at Lori’s direction.

By this time, Lori was already involved with Chad Daybell, a doomsday author who would become her fifth husband.

A series of strange events followed Charles’ death.

First, Lori’s two children, Tylee Ryan, 16, and JJ Vallow, 7, vanished days apart in September.

In October, Chad Daybell’s wife of 30 years, Tammy, was found dead at home.

Lori and Chad then secretly married in Hawaii in early November – but there was no sign of JJ or Tylee at the wedding.

Tammy’s body was exhumed in December for further testing, as investigators believed her death was suspicious.

Days later, Alex Cox was found dead at his home in Arizona.

For months, Lori refused to reveal the whereabouts of her children. The case dominated national headlines, with her bizarre religious beliefs and involvement in a doomsday cult taking center stage.

In June 2020, a tragic discovery was made at Daybell’s home in Rexburg, Idaho: JJ and Tylee’s remains were found in shallow graves. JJ was wrapped in garbage bags, and Tylee had been dismembered and burned.

Both Lori and Chad were convicted of various charges in connection to the deaths of JJ, Tylee, Tammy, and Charles.

At her trial for Charles Vallow’s murder in Arizona earlier this year, Lori cross-examined her radio DJ brother, Adam Cox, who had been called as a witness. 

For almost two minutes, Lori grilled him on the last time they saw each other.

‘[The last time you saw me] were we eating my green chilli chicken enchiladas?’ asked Lori.

When Cox said he couldn’t recall, an agitated Lori pressed: ‘Isn’t that what I made every time we had a family get-together, like, 10 times a year?’

Cox again couldn’t recall the dish. The awkward exchange later became a viral meme among true crime sleuths.

He told the court he had ‘no doubt’ that Lori conspired with his brother Alex to murder Charles Vallow.

Adam Cox did not return a request to comment on this story.