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Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show and tell you a little bit more about one of our favorite things ever, Audible. Oh, audible.com or that app. The app is great, and I'm on the app constantly. Listening to Audible helps your imagination soar.
No.
There's more to imagine when you listen. And I'll tell you something that has set both Jimmy and I's imagination soaring. And that is the Lewis and Clark journals. We're both really into these right now. And as an Audible member, you can choose one title a month to keep from the entire catalog, including the latest bestsellers, the newest releases. New members can try Audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash smalltownmurder or text
smalltownmurder to 500-500. That's audible.com slash smalltownmurder or text smalltownmurder to 500-500. Now back to the show. Music
Hey, everybody. Just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you a little bit about Angie. Oh, Angie.com. A-N-G-I.com. Absolutely. Angie. Good stuff. Angie's List is now Angie, the nation's largest home services marketplace, and they're here to help homeowners get all their jobs done well.
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And now back to the show.
This week, in Pleasant Grove, Arkansas, rage and murder bubble under the surface until a flood of violence is unleashed on an unsuspecting family in town, turning it into one of the largest murder sprees in American history. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yeah!
Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrogallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you so much for joining us today on our 501st episode. 501. 501. And we figured since 500 was an express, we'd make 501 kind of like the regular 500 and make it a banger.
And it certainly is. Yes, it's a hoof. It's a case. It's slightly more well known than ones that we normally do. But it's it's in our wheelhouse completely. So anybody else that did it before? It's ours. Damn it. We're claiming it. So stepped on the wrong grass. It's don't step on our on our lawn. Not cool. No, I'm just kidding. It's a it's a crazy case. And everybody's.
Should be aware of it because it's wild, but we'll get into all of that quickly. ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com is where you get your tickets, where you get your merchandise. Get your tickets right now for September 20th, Minneapolis. You are up next. This will be our biggest show ever if you guys sell this out. You'll beat Chicago as our biggest show ever. So please-
Somebody post a picture of the venue. It's beautiful. Unbelievable. It's the state theater. It's absolutely a beautiful venue. It's way too nice for us. Let's get in there and foul it up with dick jokes, everybody. It's going to be so fun. And the next night we're at the Pabst, which has a few tickets left in Milwaukee. So get in there right now if you want them because they're going to be gone pretty quickly here. Get those. Shut up and give me murder.com. Also go to Patreon, patreon.com.
slash crime in sports is where you get everything. That is P-A-T-R-E-O-N, by the way. I've had people go, how do you spell that?
There you go. Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports. All your bonus stuff. Anybody $5 a month or above, you get everything. You could either have a cup of coffee. It's $5. What are you going to get with that? A cup of coffee or hundreds of bonus episodes you've never heard before and new ones every other week. This week, which you're going to get for Crime and Sports, which will I have access to that, Jimmy? Oh, you bet, James. You bet your ass you'll have access to that. We're going to talk about industrial disasters. It has nothing to do with sports. It's literally people...
People sitting in a boardroom and then, you know, the whole things happen at work. Molten steel floods in and incinerates everybody and stuff like that. Crazy stuff like that. And then for small town murder, we're going to talk about a weird one. The cannibal cop who I guess wanted to be a cannibal, we think, and never really accomplished his goal, sort of.
It's a weird case, but yeah, it's one of those things. Should it be criminal to want to do this sort of thing? It's a very weird thing. We'll talk all about it. Patreon.com slash crime in sports. And you get a shout out at the end of the show. That said, let's get right to the disclaimer here. It's a comedy show. It's also a terrible murder show. Those two things can intermingle. That's the deal here. Yes, it's all true. Nothing's made up for comic effect or anything like that. It'd be really weird if you made up
a comedy murder for just for fun. Hey, why'd you write that? There's way easier comedy subjects to do. So none of this is made up. It's all very, very true. We are going to make jokes because that's the way it's easier to get through this sort of weird stuff. And also a lot of the stuff is jokes about, you know, small towns. We're all from some small town that we can make fun of. That's fine. We can have a roast. Can't we do that? We make fun of murderers.
We make fun of an inept police force that lets a murderer go free to kill more people. Stuff like that. That's what we make fun of. But what we do not make fun of is we never make fun of the victims or the victims' families. Why is that, James? Because we're assholes. But? But we're not scumbags. I think that pretty much shows you exactly what we got going on here. And if you think that true crime and comedy maybe should never, ever intermingle, maybe we're not for you. But maybe we are. I think maybe it's a little more tasteful than you thought it was.
tasteful and tasteless at the same time. I think we balance that lovely. We really do. So there you go. That sounds good to you. Mid-taste. You're going to have a wild ride here. If you think they should never go together, then I don't know what to tell you. But for the rest of you right now, I think it's time to sit back. Let's all clear the lungs. And let's all shout.
Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody. Let's go on a trip, shall we? All right. We're going to Arkansas. Yeah. Oh, boy. Yeah. It's a place. That's about the excitement level that most people, even if you're from Arkansas, you're not like, go to Arkansas. Yeah. It's not a vacation spot, really. Although they do have a lot of springs there.
There are lakes and shit. Pleasant Grove, Arkansas, we're going to. It is just outside of Dover, Arkansas.
which is another place nobody's ever heard of. It's the nearest place that people go. It's near here is Russellville, which is really nowhere near here. You're getting worse and worse. It's so further away from where anywhere I know. That's what I mean. It's really out there. Pleasant Grove, Arkansas. It's in northwestern Arkansas. It is about an hour and 50 to Little Rock. So nowhere near there. About two and a half hours to Memphis.
If you want to go over there. And about an hour and 50 minutes to Pocahontas, Arkansas, our last Arkansas episode, episode 458, the murder video shocker. That was crazy shit. That's the one where the recording of the whole, that was wild. With the knife. It's unbelievable that a place can be two hours and two and a half hours to the closest places that are god-awful places. That are, yeah, also awful.
Horrific places. Yeah, you get there. Well, how far do I go somewhere I want to be? How about that? A lot farther. A lot farther. You got an airline ticket because you're going to need one. This is in Stone County, Arkansas, area code 870. It was originally called Red Stripe. A little bit of history here. Originally called Red Stripe. And then they were like, well, there's a beer with a really annoying commercial. So let's not. Let's change it.
So it was an independence county until if there's ever been a commercial, by the way, that makes you not want to use the product. That's the one. No, Red Stripe. Definitely. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. They're like, I washed my feet in it and then put it in a bottle like that. That's the commercial. It's so strange.
It's such a strange thing. It's carbonated pedicure water. Have a sip. And then I think Red Bull ruined it because that became the red thing. That's another one, yeah. Red Stripe killed Red Dog and then Red Bull killed Red Stripe. I really think that's what happened. There can only be one red.
Yeah. And Killian's Red just never got off the ground because of it. It's all over with. They were too far behind. Couldn't do it. So that was originally Independence County, then Stone County. When they created it, they made it there. Now, Red Stripe, I guess they put the post office there and everything. There was some iron ore in the soil, which is why they called it Red Stripe. They think that it had redness in the soil. Yeah.
They established a post office in 1912. Great. Mabel Estes Blair is the postmaster. Now, the problem is it's not called Red Stripe now because they had to change it because of bad publicity.
From what? From murder. That's why. Is that the first one? Yeah, I don't know how they didn't change it again after what we're going to talk about happened. This town, just every time somebody does something nuts, just change the name. You know what I mean? Yeah, you can't have a murder and then have a town called Red Stripe like a drag. Well, that's like we dragged them. Plus, I think it's like on the wire when you have bad heroin. You have to just change the name and put a new color cap on it. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Can't call it that pandemic anymore. Now it's WMD. That's what happens. So it was the Connie Franklin murder case. Quickly, we've got to go over this case here. It began in the spring of 1929 when Connie Franklin – Connie's a man, by the way, Connie Franklin – was allegedly murdered near St. James and Red Stripe by four men –
From the local area here. Apparently, he arrived in St. James and started seeing a young woman in the town. Oh, boy. This guy. And four guys found the couple at some point and beat the shit out of them and raped the woman. Oh, my. And tortured and killed him and burned his corpse.
Connie Franklin. Was she too young? Was she somebody else? Somebody's... No. I think they were just drunk hillbillies out on the town and were like, oh, let's do that. Yeah, I think it was just a random thing. That's horrible. The problem is when the case goes to trial...
In the middle of the trial, a man claiming to be Connie Franklin walks into the courtroom and says, I'm Connie Franklin. And back then, he couldn't just look up his driver's license photo on the computer. Yeah, you could pretend. You said he's Connie Franklin. I guess that's Connie Franklin. So they found the people not guilty. See?
They didn't kill him. He's right there. Yeah. And everybody said, what about the body that they found? It must have been someone else. That's literally what they said. They said either. But a lot of people who are not dumb said it was probably an imposter, maybe a friend of the guys on trial and a trick by the defense. Some people say that it really was Connie Franklin and that the defendants were framed. Others who are real idiots say that it was obviously the ghost of Connie Franklin that came into the courtroom. Yeah.
And literally made himself known and like took his hat off and the whole deal and everyone was, you know. Why are those the three options? Those are the options. Framed, imposter, or ghost. Which one do you think it is? Just go with imposter. Occam's razor here.
Yeah. Then that Connie Franklin, the fake Connie Franklin, died of appendicitis three years later. He deserved it. He deserved it. And then the next year, 1930, they said, what about Pleasant Grove? That sounds good, doesn't it? We got to really, from drag mark of dead body, we got to change it to something real pleasant. What about Pleasant Grove? It's a grove. It's pleasant. Let's do it.
So, makes sense. Reviews of this town. These are for Dover, which is the, quote, bigger town next door. Dover has 1,200 people, by the way. And that's the big town next door. That's the metropolis. Yeah. Dover, here's five stars. Dover, a quintessential small town, offers a unique, close-knit community experience.
Yikes. I don't know if I like that. It says, in Dover, everyone knows your name, creating a warm, familial atmosphere. Community events from local fairs to seasonal festivals are the heart of social life.
Wow. It also says, surrounded by nature's tranquility, Dover promotes a peaceful, slower-paced lifestyle. Its serene landscapes offer a respite from the hustle of urban life, ideal for leisurely walks and quiet reflection. It is two hours from urban life, though. That's the thing. And it says, despite its size, Dover boasts essential amenities with a Dollar General and harps. Oh, well, there's a Dollar General. I guess we're all set then. Jeez.
Living here means embracing a simpler, more grounded way of life. Yeah. I mean, slow is fine. I think that's what they're saying. You can't be fucking impossible. You can't stand still, man. Get out of the way. I don't want to have to drive two hours to go to the grocery store. That's too much. That's too much. Like, it's quaint to be out there, but I live in the woods, but it's also two minutes from the store. You know what I mean? I can't.
You can get a handmade PB&J two blocks away. Right there, yeah, a quarter mile. Here's five stars. The town of Dover is a small, quaint town in Arkansas. Everyone knows everyone, and the town is amazingly safe. Now maybe, but not when we're going to talk about it. The schools are great, and the teachers are very much involved in the students' academics. That's the only thing I expect them to be involved in. Right.
It's better than like it's really involved in their social lives. It's good. They always hang out. I was half expecting to say in their lives. That's not that's not positive. The nightlife is not great. But as a small town in Arkansas, that's to be expected. Yeah. There's a dollar general is the big store. And three stars. Finally, more establishments could be opened in Dover to give it more of a real town feel a real town feel.
I want to be a real town. I go to Russellville for basically all of my business and shopping. Like I said, that is nowhere near here. That's a 40 minute drive, I think, or something of that nature. People in Pleasant Grove, 335 here. Very small. They break it down. And when we get to the racial breakdown, there's one black person and they say one guy. It's literally one dude.
Or lady, I don't know. They don't say who he is. They're not like, you know, Fred fucking Thompson. Here he is. Fred Parker. There he is, everybody.
So, yeah, it's 73.1% female. I don't know how the hell that worked out. That's incredible. Males live in some rough lifestyles and dying young is the only thing I can think of there. That's like 250 women. That's awesome. If you're a single guy, it is time to party here. You bet. Or you're running high. I was going to say, except those, I don't know if you're really interested in what's left after that, you know?
Even if you're interested in what's left, you're going to get tired, man. That's a lot of... Oof. Going out. This one going out. Let me be. Median age is 51 here, which is well over the national average, which is like 37. There is 0% zero to four-year-olds. So there's no children under four in the entire town. None. Family here, only 20% married. And 0.0 are single with children.
So this place is fucking great. It's so strange. Um, it is except for one black guy and two Hispanic people, all white, white people. Obviously it's, you know, middle of nowhere in Arkansas religion in this town. 48% are religious and 27% of the people here are, are, uh, Baptist obviously. So as we know, Baptists are the Catholics of the South, everywhere there. Uh,
The unemployment rate here is a little bit higher than normal, and the median household income is lower than normal. Here it is $42,083 a year for median household income. The average is over $69,000 in the country. So that's not great. Cost of living, though, is low.
Oh? Yeah, and everywhere else, 100 is the average. Here, the cost of living would be 73 out of 100, so not bad. Median home cost, 125,200 bucks. Wow. Very low, yeah. That's awesome. It is the middle of nowhere, and everything here comes with some land, too. There's no quarter-acre lots or anything like that. You're going to need it because you've got to see what's coming, the bomb shelters and stuff. Maybe you can put up your own Dollar General. We'll see.
And maybe if you are, maybe you'll need this. The Pleasant Grove, Arkansas Real Estate Report. The average two-bedroom rental here goes for about $710. I don't know how many rentals there are in a town this small, but if you can find one, cheap. Here's a three-bedroom, two-bath, 1,712-square-foot house. It's on 1.97 acres.
Terrific. But the smallest lot you can find here. It looks like it's going to be outside looks like shit and inside looks like it's going to be like terrifying with the ceilings falling down. Yeah. Instead, it all looks like a sauna. It's just like cedar. It's all wood. Just wood everywhere. As floor to ceiling, everything's wood walls fucking. And it's that like light wood. So it's like really bright in there. Like all the pictures are like, wow. Yeah.
It is everything. All the same wood. The whole place. So if you want to live in a hamster cage, this is the house for you. 230,000 bucks for that one. Not bad. Not terrible. Two acres is pretty good. That's a good size land block of land. Here is a four bedroom, two bath, 1738 square feet on three and a half acres. So not bad. This one inside all wood again. It's all wood. I don't know what's going on in here.
Well, drywall warps in this fucking community. Is it like hamsters? Are people just peeing on the floor and it soaks up the smell? Is that what's happening? I don't know what's going on here, but this is $234,000. It's kind of similar, just a little bit more land for an extra five grand.
Then here's a three bedroom, two bath, 2,688 square foot house. It's on 13 acres. So lots of land. It's a pretty nice house actually inside. Still a lot of wood. There's a Creek in the backyard, which is nice. Nice Creek. It looks like you go fishing in there. No driveway. It's all dirt though. It looks like,
It's going to be a mess in the winter or the rain. It's going to be all sloppy and muddy. But it's $399,900. Incredibly affordable. For 13 acres and a house and a decent house. Did you say how much the second one was? The second one, $234,900. Okay, yeah. Just saying, yeah, extra five grand in the first one. Things to do in this town.
Here it is, the Downtown Fall Festival and Chili Cook-Off. You bet. That's right. Fart your way around downtown, around the Dollar General here. It's filled with a fun-filled street festival held each fall season. Start off the day by joining us in the morning for our breakfast buffet. I'm not eating chili for breakfast.
That's going to be a long day. It's eggs with chili on it. That's a long day. That's like when you see people having mixed drinks at the airport at 7 a.m. You're like, dude, by 2 o'clock, you're going to be having a bad day. Or a nap, wherever you're going. A long fucking nap here. So they say you'll have a chili cook-off pie and cake contest. Yes, and fresh selections from the farmer's market. They also have a tour de pumpkin bike ride.
This isn't in October, by the way. This isn't a Halloween thing. I think it's in July. They said fall festival, didn't they? Fall festival, yeah, I guess. But it's not in October, though. I think it may be September or some shit. I guess it's the same thing. So a fun run, a car show, all sorts of shit. A children's costume contest.
And then also go to the Taste of the Valley in Russellville. This is nearby, quote, nearby Russellville. It's a wonderful event, they say, located at the Russellville Depot. It's the train station. Come on down for that. Includes numerous restaurants in our area. Well, you could go to them anytime. You don't need a festival for that. Along with musical entertainment from six local bands.
Who we will not name because you won't know who they are anyway. They don't name them. So that means always top-notch entertainment when they just tell you music. Wow. As we know, if it just says comedy, that's not good. It's not good. It's not good. You're going to be mad. If they paid a guy $100, they'd put his name on the fucking thing. You know what I mean? Or her, whatever.
Yeah, if they've got money invested in this, they're telling you all about it. They're giving you the credits. Oh, she was on Conan. Great. You know what I mean? Or whatever the fuck. I don't know what matters there. I don't know. The event is scheduled for April 30th, and it costs $25 per person. Jesus. Which seems steep for a- That is steep, yeah. A little bit. But you can sample many different types of food, including American, Italian, and Mexican. Oh, and- Very-
They're really stretching the limits, too, of what anybody, you know, pushing you outside your comfort zone and your boundaries. Have you ever had pizza? No.
Everything from pizza to tacos and hamburgers. They call this lasagna. You ever had it? Like, I mean, that's, wow, this is exotic. It's not like they're doing, like, you know, some Bangladeshi food or some shit. Nothing Peruvian around here. Nothing like that at all. And it said, music provided by the local bands will be a wonderful accompaniment. I bet it will, I'm sure. Yeah.
crime rate in this town, what we are interested in, what we have come to talk about. Property crime is right at average, which there's nobody here.
How the hell are people doing anything to each other? I guess they're just average Americans, James. I guess so. Usually these small towns, if you all know each other, it's hard to steal from somebody you know. They know who you are, so they tell on you. Violent crime, though, murder, rape, robbery, and of course assault, the Mount Rushmore of crime is just below the average. It's pretty close, though. So I don't know what's going on here, but they need to chill out. Yeah.
Figure it out, because, yeah, this is not good. This is dangerous for the population. And it's, like, pretty around there and stuff like that, so you have a nice idyllic outdoor atmosphere. Yeah. There's 200-something people there, 300 people there. Let's not screw it up. You're fucking priding yourself. Oh.
That said, let's talk about some murder here. Okay. Let's talk about a guy first off. Let's talk about a gentleman here. His name is, and it's funny because, of course, he's going to go by the thing that makes it the funniest, Ronald Gene Simmons. And he goes by Gene. I would, too. It's only because his tongue is a foot long. Other than that, it's very...
So, yeah, Ronald Gene Simmons. Gene Simmons here. Born July 15th, 1940. Well, everybody asks. Any relation? I was going to say, I love... Yeah, he's my brother. I'm Gene and that's my brother Gene. You fucking dork. That's why I live in this shithouse in the middle of nowhere, Arkansas. Because my brother's one of the most famous rock stars who's ever lived. Yeah, great. Yes, as a matter of fact, that's...
That's why. Our parents had eight children named Saul Jean. I should have learned to play the bass. What do you want from me? You played the bass, right? Wasn't that him? I don't know. He played a guitar. I know that. I should have just bought some platform shoes and painted my face and walked around next to him, for Christ's sake. Yeah, just pretend. It would have been fine. Could have made more money than I'm doing now. So he's born July 15th, 1940. He's from Chicago originally. Originally from Chicago. His parents, he's not going to be there for long, though. His parents are Loretta and William.
which remember those names because they'll come up later. Simmons here, he, his father, before he was one, his father died of a stroke.
Died of it. Died of a stroke very early on. So very, very quick. His mother, as in the 40s you had to do if you were a single mother, found a new husband very quickly and had to. They ended up moving to Arkansas where they lived in Hector, Arkansas for a long time. The guy she married was a civil engineer, so he did okay. Had a stable life here.
They moved to Arkansas, and he has another sibling, too, and then he'll have a step-sibling or half-sibling here with the mother and the stepfather. Gene is never really a standout in much. He's mediocre grades. I mean, we can relate to that. Yeah.
You know what I mean? By the time he was 10, though, everybody thought he was a dick, which is pretty funny for a 10-year-old. He's a dick. He's a bully. Not even in the family likes him. Like, nobody likes him. He would taunt and beat up his sister and his half-brother. Gene. Just be a dick. He even tortured the family cat. Oh, boy.
That's the kind of guy we're dealing with here. He's 10 when he's doing this. He's beating up any kids around him. He's torturing cats. He's not a good kid. Not a good kid at all. So as his and he gets worse and worse to his stepfather as you know, Gene gets worse and worse.
beats up his sisters and things beats up his sister tortures a cat his stepfather was like well I gotta back then it was like you were shirking your responsibility if you didn't beat the living shit out of your kid for doing stuff like that in 1950 like oh how about you beat the cat beat him 10 times worse that's what you do so he beat him with a belt and also a rubber hose he would beat him with because he just wouldn't
comply and listen with anything. Gene's got problems here. His sister-in-law later on said Gene never liked his stepfather. Actually, he didn't like anybody. Anything that went wrong was always somebody else's fault.
That's the story of Gene's life. That's everything for Gene. Blaming everybody for the bad things he's doing and the bad things in his life. Yep, and doesn't like anybody. Everybody's a bad person. Everybody's a piece of shit. Not even the family likes him. By 1957, I believe his junior year or sophomore year, because I think he got held back because he didn't give a shit, he drops out of high school. Okay.
Drops out of high school. He's done there. So there's not much you can do in 1957. You can work on cars or something if you're not a high school graduate. But a high school diploma meant something to people.
people. Yeah. But you could still not graduate and fall into a fold of some sort of trade and you could excel and make plenty of money. You could do fine. Well, he decides, since he's kind of rudderless here and his family doesn't even like him, so it's not like he's got a
strong home base here. No nepotistic background, yeah. No, so he joins the Navy. Okay, yeah. You can do that. Which seems like a decent thing for a kid in his position. So he just joins the Navy. He'll be in the Navy until 1962, as we'll talk about. Then he's going to join another branch of the armed forces, which is odd. You don't see that very often. No. In 1960, while in the Navy, he meets a girl.
Oh, a lucky, lucky young lady here, obviously. She's a nurse. Cat-torturing fucking... Cat-torturing sister-beaten-catch this guy is. Oh, yeah. He meets her at a USO dance.
which is very old school. That's old school. Yeah. I mean, I didn't do those anymore. You don't hear about anybody meeting at a USO dance past like 1944. That's when people met at a USO dance. Yeah. 60 seems too late. That's Greece is set in 59. Seems like too late for a USO dance. Right. But they're, they're big, they're big,
that they wear their dress whites to now, you bring a date. You don't go to meet somebody there. You don't go to find someone to dance with there. Well, he meets Rebecca Ulibarri.
U-L-I-B-A-R-R-I. Ulibarri. She sounds hot as shit. Her name's Becky. She's a very attractive young lady. She's 19 when they meet, and she's a year younger or a year older than him. So the sister-in-law later said he met her at a USO dance. She was living there with my sister, and they used to go to the dances for something to do. That's where the boys are. You know what I mean? Wow.
So that was it. And the guys would go there because that's where the local girls were. So they'd hang out. So while stationed, he met her while he was stationed in Bremerton, Washington. She's from Colorado. Her whole family's from Colorado, Becky. They met at the USO dance and then she went back to Colorado. And so they kept up a mail correspondence for a couple of months until he proposed to her through the mail. Wow.
Via USPS. She got a letter and was like, I'm engaged. Looking for a ring in the envelope. Nope, no ring. He's sitting around waiting for the check yes box. Dude, that is a long wait. Yeah. Like to propose to somebody, that's a pretty big fucking meatball to hang over the plate. You know what I mean? Yeah, you got overnight delivery now.
They didn't have that then. No, not at all. You couldn't. Yeah. FedEx and make sure they sign certified. Really? Seriously. Make sure she gets it. Imagine it got lost in the mail and you're waiting a week and she just sends a letter back. Hi, I'm bored. My mom's a bitch. And you're like, what the fuck? I thought you were. Hope this letter finds you well. Yeah. God damn it.
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Now back to the show.
But no, they get married that year, 1960. So they met, had a male correspondence, and got married all within a year. Incredible. He moves fast, this guy. No kidding. Gene Simmons moves fast. He wants to rock and roll all night, James. And party every day. Not fucking around, this guy. So they get married. Becky's younger sister said she was swept off her feet. He kept assuring her that he would always take care of her.
Okay. Which is in 1960 exactly what a young lady wanted to hear for the most part. Or, you know, that's what a guy thought they wanted to hear anyway. That's what they'd say. They said it anyway. They said it anyway. That's what I'm going to tell you. Now, immediately Gene starts to show some strange colors here. Some dicky sides? As if, you know, you didn't expect that to happen because he, you know, tortured animals and beat up smaller children. That's a bad sign for the future. But he...
He tells her to please quit wearing makeup and please wear your hair pulled back so you don't look attractive or available. That's the worst look I can think of. That's exactly. Look like you're going to the gym. Look like a Mennonite, please. Yeah, that's what he said. Look like you're from a religious sect. I'd like you to. That way guys will just go, oh, no, she's part of whatever they are. So that's how they do it. Now, they were going to end up having seven children, these two.
That's a hot look to him, evidently. He loves it. Yeah, no makeup and all about it. They have number one, 1961. So she gets knocked up pretty much right when they get married. 1961, they have Ronald Gene Jr. And they call him Little Gene.
Little Jean. Little Jean are there. 1963, they're going to have a daughter named Sheila. She's got her own tale here, her own story coming up that's pretty interesting. 1964, they have a son named William, named after...
His dead father. Yeah. That is William II, by the way. Not a junior, but the second. So they have a junior and a second in their first three children they have. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's how that works. You can name a second. He is so proud of himself. Yeah, and his family. Absolutely. In 1963, he joins the Air Force. Okay. He got out of the Navy in 62, and I think he was like...
His adult life, he's always been in the military and he didn't really know what to do or where to go. So he's like, I'll just join the military again. That seemed to work. That's interesting. He could have gone and be an officer in the Navy, right? Something. I don't know. I don't know how it was working out in the Navy or what. But the problem is joining any military branch in 1963 is not great timing in this country. That's questionable, yeah. You're going to end up in a bad place. Okay.
He joins the Air Force. He serves at bases in Virginia, in California, in the UK. So he's all over the place. He did a year's duty in Vietnam from 67 to 68. So he's a NAM veteran too. But he's a clerk. He's an office guy. He wasn't out on the front line shooting anybody. He survived, certainly. He's a paperwork guy because he'll end up being a master sergeant also, which they kind of more of a –
I think office for the most part. Yeah, I don't think there's a master sergeant screaming charge. Probably. Maybe. I'm not sure. I don't know how that works, but I don't think so. And also the Air Force, too, is a different thing. They weren't really. You're flying over. You're not really, you know. That's the napalm droppers, not breathers. They're not saying, go get in the patties. That's not happening with the Air Force generally. If you're in the patties, you fucked something up bad. They kicked you out of the helicopter. You should be well above the patties. That's the problem. Yeah.
So his last station, as we'll talk about later on, he's going to end up in New Mexico. But quickly here, like I said, he's a clerk in Vietnam. When he left for Vietnam, so Becky stays home and lives with her parents while he goes to Vietnam. So he's going to send her money because he's getting paid and she has no money. He sends her $15 a month.
What is she supposed to do with that? That's in the late 60s. That's still not a ton of money. You know what I mean? It's just not. I mean, even it's probably about $120 a month. That doesn't pay rent. No, and she's got three kids is the other thing, living with her parents. I don't know. She doesn't have to pay rent, but other than that, I mean, you can't.
That buys stationery and stamps to get letters to Vietnam. To all these letter writing for proposals. So he becomes a master sergeant in the Air Force. In the Air Force, he is awarded a Bronze Star, the Republic of Vietnam Cross for his service as an airman, and the Air Force Ribbon for excellent marksmanship.
Oh, he's a great shot. He's a great shot. Absolutely. And they have all together, like I said, seven children. I'll run them down for you. Gene Jr., 1961, he's born. Sheila, 1963. William, 1964. Loretta, 1970. Oh, after Grandma. After Grandma. So those two kids were boom and boom right there. Grandma, Grandpa, Grandma there. Eddie in 1973. Eddie.
And Mary Ann in 1976. Mary Ann with an I, by the way. And then 1979, they're seventh. They ran out of names, so they're just like, fuck it, Rebecca again. Becky. Becky Jr.,
So they have took seven kids to get anything to a nod to mom, to a nod. Well, maybe Sheila was her choice. Maybe that's all we can imagine because I don't know of any other Sheila's in this story. Yeah. Everybody else is sort of named after someone except for Sheila. So Becky Jr. There, 1979. So that's a from 61 to 79 is a long stretch to have kids. And she spent nine years pregnant. Fuck. Fuck.
Seven years. Seven years. And it's crazy. The oldest kid was 18 when the youngest was born. No shit. Yeah. That's wild, isn't it? You were done. So they perpetually have small children. Always. Always. So that's very weird. So he, in the Air Force, he does well. Like his superiors give him high marks and all of his like, you know, all of his evaluations are very good. Yeah.
He gets promotions like they like and they liked his skill and his aggressiveness. I guess he's very aggressive, they say, which... Yeah, very military. That's why a lot of times when people back then especially were fuck-ups and cut-ups and everything, they would send them to the military to straighten them out. Maybe if we can...
you know, make, put that energy in the right direction. He'll channel it in the right way. He'll, you know, figures their life out and some people it works for. And then some people it's the opposite of what they need. So it depends. So, um, when he came back from Vietnam, the family and he all moved to San Francisco, which is not what you're, where you expected this story to ever end up. I don't think then England, uh,
So this whole family has been in England at some point. Then they end up in a small town in New Mexico. They go from San Francisco to England to small town in New Mexico, which is.
That's some fish out of water shit. You can't get any more different than those three places. Yeah, that's diverse from one place to the next for sure. No shit. So 1979, he retires from the Air Force. Done. So he did a career in the Air Force here. He's home with a brand new baby. Yeah, and he's got a brand new baby. Absolutely. That's the other thing. And an 18-year-old. A kid graduating high school and a kid shitting their pants. That's rough. It's an interesting choice because it feels like
You locked her down for 18 years, and it feels like it's almost over. I think choice is an interesting choice, the way you put that. I think that's one way to put it. I don't know if it was much of a choice as just if he humped on his wife and now they have a kid. So I don't know how careful they are. So 1979, retired. They're going to stay in New Mexico. Okay.
And he is going to work on some non-military jobs, as we'll talk about here. Then he's going to end up going back to Holloman, which was the Air Force base he worked at in New Mexico, and work as a civilian there as well. He got a civilian job there. Because all these bases have civilian and non-civilian employees. So he becomes a civilian employee. There you go. And he
At home, he is military dad, by the way. Really? Yes, and not in all good ways. No. The children are not allowed to hang out with people after school. He's always shouting and yelling. It's a very stressful house in there. Later on, a friend of Gene Jr. said, why didn't a teacher or somebody say, this is not normal human behavior? Yeah.
Human. Not even fatherly or parental. Human. Wow. She said, you wonder how in the world could people know there had been a problem in the family and somehow it got by everyone? And then she said, we're so busy with life, with making a buck, that somehow we don't see the signs. Everybody knew, huh? Everybody knew. Oh, everybody knew what a nut he was. He's well known around Cloudcroft, New Mexico. Yikes. Ever been there?
No, I'm aware of very many places in New Mexico. Looking to retire there? Retire in Cloudcroft, New Mexico. He was somebody that people were scared of. A friend of his daughter said he had a beer in his hand all the time. He had one little room that he would stay in all the time. It was dark and seemed spooky and it stunk.
That's the beer farts. He just sat in this room drinking and farting beer. And then when the daughter comes in, oh, God, he can't smell his beer farts in there. He's been basking in them for the whole time. That's just what it smells like to him. Yeah, that's what the room smells like. So that's what he does. He sits in this room and broods and has other people do shit.
The kids are responsible to keep the house perfect. Really? Oh yeah, the kids have to do shit. Rebecca has to do shit, Becky, but not him. He's beer drinking. And back then too, by the way, in 1980...
To have like a Vietnam vet dad that had a beer attached to his hand all the time was completely normal and common. I mean, that was just my dad had a beer attached to his hand at all time. And he didn't. It still does. He has a he has koozie collection to make sure they're in his back pocket. It happens upon a beer. I'm telling you. And he's not even like an alcoholic. No. And he doesn't sit in a stinky room or anything. I want to keep that cold.
That's right. What would you call him, Jimmy? He's just a fucking Italian biker, James. That's it. There you go. With a beer attached at all times. What do you expect from the man? What do you expect from the man, James? What the perspective that put in. That was great. That was worth five years of therapy there.
So Gene also likes to beat the shit out of Becky, his wife. Really? He loves to beat the hell out of Becky. Then if the children would try to intervene, he'd beat the shit out of them too. They try to stop it. That's how bad it gets. They try to stop it because there's a lot of them too. And Gene Jr. is in late teens, 18 years old. He's like, hey, quit fucking
popping mom in the face and then he'll go okay you want some and then he beats him up so and goes on down the line I'm sure smacks this one six bodyguards that he beats the fuck out of yeah he's he rules with an iron fist this guy here this one woman here Adeline shower shower she said that one time Jean almost killed Jean jr. when Jean jr. tried to intervene in a beating of Becky and
And this lady said Gene Jr. was bright and loyal but could never get along with his father. He was very supportive of his mother and loved his brothers and sisters very much. He said the father kept the wife Becky so isolated. She was a lovely woman. He was always an abusive man.
I just don't. I can't understand it. No. And here's the thing that that kind of puts it into perspective. I think this is Edith, one of her relatives. She says, quote, Becky was not stupid, but she was insecure. OK. Ronald made her believe things were her fault and that she deserved what she got. She was a classic battered woman.
Oh, she and like a lot of kids were in 1960 when they're going to USO dances when they're 19. Very naive. She was very naive. She had very little experience in the world or with boys or anything like that. So easy to talk into feeling guilt. Yes, absolutely. They didn't know much better back then. And there wasn't you know, there wasn't the Internet. There wasn't social media. We're like, oh, yeah, I don't have to take that shit. I saw a meme. That's not how it worked back then. You were just like, I guess this is what happens.
And if her friends told her boo on the subject, she's got to be like, you don't understand. Exactly. You don't get it. And it's sad, you know. So anyway, he exerts quite a bit of control over everyone around the whole family. He does not allow Becky, his wife, not his young daughter. He does not allow Becky to keep postage stamps in the house.
Because then she might be able to zip off a letter and mail it to someone, God forbid. And ask for help. The mail. Have you ever heard anybody monitoring the mail? Well, somebody who's correspondence with this person, you know what I mean? Yeah. That's how he got her. That's true. So if he could get her that way, there's mail trollop. Mail whore. Listen here, mail whore. Postage harlot.
That's all you are. Delivery tramp. That's it. Ridiculous. Carousel tramp.
You partial slut. I don't like it. So he also read all the letters and cards written by his family and then decided whether they were allowed to be mailed or not. So you had to put whatever you wanted to mail, and you'd have to run it by dad first, like put it on dad's pile, and he would have a censor board. Editor-in-chief of the family announcements going in the mail. The family news. Wow.
He was like the censorship board in a dictatorship country. Like you had to turn that in first. All the family mail, he always would do this wherever they lived, would come to a post office box and then he would get it and decide what everybody was allowed to have. And he would read everything first. And then you were allowed to have it if he, like you're in prison. He went through it and it didn't have a nail file in it. Yeah, this is awful. So yeah, if he didn't think the letter should get to the person, he just threw it out.
I don't understand why you'd live like that. That seems like an awful lot of work. It seems like way too much. It would be easier to just not have anybody around. Yeah, why'd you do this? I think he likes to have people to control. He digs it. And I don't know if that's partly if he was in charge of any people in the military. He maybe liked that.
way that they were you know blindly obedient because you know that's their job they're getting paid for that that's the job they signed up for an oath for that i was just born man this didn't fall out of becky's fucking vagina you know what i mean that's what these poor kids did so by 1981 now sheila is 16 years old in this ballpark 16 almost 17 here
And Becky's family learned some – thought something was a little weird between the relationship between Gene and Sheila. Gene Sr., not Gene Jr. Oh, all right. And Sheila. One of them – this is Uncle Abe here, Abe Ulibarri. This is Becky's brother. And Uncle Abe, he's going to keep popping up in this story with some comments. Yeah.
I like Uncle Abe. He's just funny. He's just an observer and just has some shit to say. Yes, exactly. And he's one of those guys who seems like he's probably a man of few words. And if you ask him something, he's going to give you a sentence that's worth something for it. So they said, well, how'd you know something was weird? And he said, quote, we caught him fondling the girl.
Yikes. The girl. We saw it. The family caught him a fondling. Oh, my God. So that's one way to put it. Uh-huh. Yeah. And Sheila here ends up becoming pregnant. With dad's daughter? Baby? With dad's baby. Uh-huh.
Yikes. How horrible is this? He's molesting his teenage daughter to the point of impregnating her. Oh, my God. That is, I don't know, nauseating is the good way to put it. Infuriating. Well, yeah, but they're not even there yet. No. Where are they? There's only one place they could go. That's why. No, they're still in New Mexico. They're in New Mexico? Wow. Yeah, which is actually, I think, that's on the flag in New Mexico. Yeah.
It was like a flip book of knocking your daughter up and then her giving birth to your grandson baby. Oh, boy. So, yeah, she becomes pregnant. She tells several classmates that her father had sexually assaulted her. Oh, boy. The friends tell the parents. The parents tell the teachers. The teachers tell the school administrators who then finally get around to somebody calling the fucking sheriff's office. That is far too many phone calls. That is.
That's how far up the line it went before anyone went, police involved in this at all? Otherwise, it was just a gossip circle until they got to that, which is insane to me.
Now, Gene Jr. called the New Mexico Department of Human Services to report this, too, which good for him for pre-internet finding a that that's who he should talk to and then be finding their phone number and actually calling them. That's pretty impressive for, you know, a 19 year old kid. That's not bad. I wouldn't have it. I would have been like, I don't.
Like, I don't even know who to call. Who the fuck do I call? How old is she? 17? 16? 17? Good Christ, man. Which is horrifying here. Now, the district attorney, Steve Sanders, and he'll come up a few times, too. He had put together, he got all these pieces of information from people, and he said it was all hearsay and couldn't be used in court.
It was a bunch of people saying this person told me that this person told her that she said that. So that's fine for, you know, to get the lay of the land. And that's not a good way to put that. Nope. That's fine, too. I'm going to reword that. That's fine to understand how everything's happening, but it's not fine if you need to actually prosecute somebody in court. You need more than hearsay. Right.
So Sheila's best friend here, her name is also Sheila. Sheila and Sheila. The Sheila and Sheila connection here. She said that she was the one who turned him in. Sheila takes credit for this. Apparently multiple people did, but I don't know if hers was the one that got people's attention or what. But she said that she and Sheila were best friends in high school. And in 1981, as soon as she learned that Sheila Simmons was pregnant...
She said that she, quote, knew who the father was because she knew that that was the only... She didn't have any boyfriends. She was just being molested by her father.
So she knew that Sheila was not allowed to date, which she wasn't allowed to date. Yeah. She's got a boyfriend. Because that's his private stash. Yeah, no dipping into that. So she said, this is Sheila, the friend, said this happened the last two weeks of high school. Her dad wouldn't let her come to school, but the school let her graduate anyway. She was a straight A student.
Poor Sheila. That's fucking awful. Unbelievable. She said that she learned after she learned that Sheila was seven months pregnant and she and her mother went to the district attorney. That's Sheila. The friend went to the and her mother went to the district district attorney and they filed charges.
And the friend Sheila said, that's what made me the maddest is we tried to put him away and we'll find out what happened. No, no, they try. Well, not well. Here is Uncle Abe again. And this is maybe the...
The most obvious yet poignant yet, you know, ridiculous sentence that I would hope that would never have to be said in the world. But for some reason it happened. So let's get it out. Yeah. He said, quote, this is he's saying things started going downhill from here for the whole family. He said, quote, getting the daughter pregnant started all the bad things clicking.
Generally, yeah, that'll happen. Knocking up your own daughter will start a shitstorm from a coming. It's crazy. Holy fuck. That's so weird. Who would have thought? Who would have thunk it? That's not good for just general balance of the universe. For family ties. Wow.
Uncle Abe went on to say about Jean, he started secluding my sister and kept her from us. He didn't want anything to do with our family. He'd get violent. Yeah, because you've got to keep her away from the family so you can keep control of her, and that's what he does. She's horrified. She's terrified of what he's capable of doing. And she's embarrassed of him, too. And she's embarrassed that she's got a black eye, and she's embarrassed after all that shit. So Uncle Abe said that after Jean died,
impregnated Sheila that things have got even worse, obviously. Gene was working as a civil employee at Holloman Air Force Base and then the district attorney, Stephen Sanders, starts getting in his shit here. Sniffing around, yeah. Sanders subpoenaed Sheila to appear before a grand jury.
And she didn't show up. But for a scared, this is terrifying, a scared, abused, pregnant 17-year-old girl, now she's got a grand jury summons. That's horrible for her. Something tells me she didn't get that summons. Something tells me it wasn't in the mail. Yeah, in the mail. You've got to serve this one in person. This is a...
Hand to hand right here. That's a big one. That's your biggie. So she didn't show up at first. And then she finally appeared only after the D.A. He threatened to issue an arrest warrant for her. Oh, which is. Yeah, I haven't been through enough.
I'm seven months pregnant with my father's baby. Now haul me into jail? Come on. You're going to arrest me over this. That's fucking crazy, this poor kid. I mean, talk about between a rock and a hard spot. This is fucking brutal. So she shows up. She told grand jurors that her father had committed incest on three occasions. Good.
She, Sanders said she testified for two hours. She was obviously pregnant. She broke down and cried. She said she didn't want her father to go to prison. This poor kid, this poor kid, man. She's so, so damaged, this poor thing. This poor kid. So much damage. They file three counts of incest charges, which seems like, is it not statutory rape also? I guess if she was 16, 16 might be the age of consent there though.
That's gross. That's disgusting. So, wow. This is where they charge and the sheriff's deputies finally drive out to arrest Gene Jr.,
After all, or Gene Senior, not Gene Junior. That would be a travesty of justice. Travesty of justice. It's a terrible, horrible thing. I just wanted to stop him from beating my mom and fucking my sister. I didn't even do anything. Get in. Get in. They go to arrest Gene Senior. They get there. They knock on the door. They look in. The house is completely empty. Gone. He moved? Everybody's gone. Fucking like they never had been there.
Not a stitch of anything in the fucking house. Oh, my. No forwarding address disappeared off the face of the earth. Yeah. They didn't leave a note on the door or anything. If you're looking for me with handcuffs, I'll be at this town. So is there going to be a case now? I guess you can't, right? They pieced it together. They have the charges, but he took off, so they don't know what to do. Sheila, meanwhile, gives birth to a daughter named Sylvia Gale.
So there's that. They're gone in the wind. They're looking to arrest him still. July 1982, Sanders, the DA, runs into Gene Jr. Okay, this is July 82. Sanders was giving a guest lecture to a political science class at the Alamogordo branch of the New Mexico State University.
We're in Alamogordo? Yes, near there. It's Cloudcroft. Yikes, yeah. I think that's the closest big place is Alamogordo. Oh, boy. That says something. So a student asked a question about a case against the mayor of Alamogordo, Frank Carr, who was convicted of molesting 20 children. 20! 20!
How the fuck do we not know this shit? What is going on in New Mexico? Another reason to hate this place. Wow. I didn't realize that everybody's a diddler here also. Christ almighty, New Mexico. The mayor got 20. 20 of the kids. That's a small town. That could be half the town for Christ's sake. Half the kids. After the lecture...
A student appeared and approached Sanders in the hall and said, hi, I'm Ronald Gene Simmons Jr. And then said, you're a son of a bitch motherfucker for trying to prosecute my father. What? Gene Jr. called the cop, called the state on his dad.
Yeah. Sometime. What do you want to happen? Sometime between then and now, apparently he has changed his mind. He said that scared away my father. You you drove my father away. OK. He said that if the chart and Gene Jr. is trying to like broker a deal here, he said if the charges are dropped, my dad said that he and Sheila will come back to New Mexico and agree to counseling.
We love relationship counseling. What are you talking? You don't need counseling. You know, jail. This guy's fucking diddling his kid. Fuck this. So Sanders said he considered the suggestion and said, what's your hope of getting a father whose daughter won't even testify against him? He's like, how am I going to get this guy? Meaning you, if you're the prosecutor, what's your hope of that? Like the the victim won't testify against him.
Like, how are you going to how are you going to do what are your charges going to be when that doesn't happen? So August 10th, 1982, the charges are dropped. Oh, my God. They're drunk because they have no way of they don't know where he is and they don't think that they could actually prosecute a case against him. So they have to drop the charges. He says that they're conditionally dropped, though, meaning they could be reinstated at a later date if they're.
If it's warranted, which Jesus Christ, it should be. I would say it feels always warranted to put this guy in jail. So Cloudcroft School Superintendent Wesley Lane said it's it irritated us that something couldn't be done about it. However, the social service people did what they could, which was nothing, apparently. So, yeah, Sanders ended up being a lawyer in private practice and a director of the New Mexico Coalition for the Prevention of Child Abuse.
which seems like a good thing. He said he felt frustrated by the system and noting that the former mayor Carr was released after serving less than two years in prison for molesting 20 kids in a position of power like that. So he got so frustrated, he decided that this would be his life's work because he's tired of seeing it.
He got like six weeks per kid. Yeah. He's knee deep in kid fuckers, this Sanders guy. And he's like, I can't deal with this shit anymore. Wow. So where did they all go? This empty house. Yeah. They all moved to Ward, Arkansas, where one goes when you're wanted for fucking your daughter.
Ward, Arkansas. You have named like nine places in Arkansas. I've never heard of a single one of them. No. This is near Little Rock. It's like outside of Little Rock. Ward. I've heard of that place. Ward. Ward. So Simmons Jean Sr. works from October 81 to January 82 at a Veterans Administration hospital. Yeah.
Which is crazy. He has a fucking active warrant in another state, yet you can get a job with the federal government. The VA, man. That's how little computers there were back then and how not connected they were. How little they were utilizing the capability of these things.
Oh, yeah. They were like, ah, fuck it. We don't care. We'll just... We use it for the calculator. Yeah. So we don't have to do math no more. They got solitaire on there. I'll tell you, it's better than with real cards. I just like it much better. I like when you win, it goes... You don't have to shuffle. Yeah.
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Gets back, keeps going back to the military stuff. That's what he feels comfortable with. If anybody should be aware that they have employed a child molester, it's certainly the military. I would hope so. I would hope at least they would keep records and hand them back and forth. But no.
There's an active warrant for a man who impregnated his own daughter, underage daughter. I mean, the sentence impregnated his daughter should be bad enough. That should be bad. We should go right there. I'm not hiring that guy. That's on the no hire pile, I think, right? And then...
Underage. It makes it so much worse. Let's have him in a place where lots of teenagers come in. Yeah, right. Exactly. I think that's the best place we can put him at the recruiting office. Troubled ones that are younger than 18. Oh, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And kids with bad homes sometimes and stuff like that. Yeah, the ones that make the best victims.
for people like that. So after a little bit, they live in ward for a little while. Then after a little bit, they find they're going to move out to the middle of nowhere. Ward is too close to little rock, too close to everything. So he needs to move out the middle of fucking nowhere, which is in pleasant Grove outside of Russellville, which is outside of, I'm sorry, outside of Dover, which is outside of Russellville, which is outside of nowhere. Um,
So that's where we are right now. They buy a, they find a large acreage property here. The acreage is big. The house, not so much. Um, they take up residence on a 13 acre tract of land, 13 acres. They have, which is pretty big. It's a lot. The area is known. I guess this area is known. This land and a couple other right by it is known as mockingbird Hill. That's what it's called. Mockingbird Hill. The, uh,
we'll call it, is constructed of two old trailers that are fucking welded together into one...
medium-sized trailer it's not a double wide it's this no from this double wide and this is from this double wide we put them together and they're both old trailers too they said they're old mobile homes so he took two old shitty trailers and welded them together and he and at this point because two will move out him his wife and at least five kids are gonna live here and then another kid's gonna end up joining the fray too because one of the grandkids is gonna come live with them as well yeah
So this is a mess, we'll say. It's a 13.7-acre farm is where they are. Wow. He built additions all around it as well, little things and little weird out sheds and shit. There's a garden, there's chickens, geese, cats, dogs, the whole deal. Lots of things for him to abuse. It's perfect. Yeah. This place, the kids have to keep everything mowed and everything like that, but otherwise...
It's a fucking mess. Yeah. There's abandoned cars and like engines hanging from trees and garbage. It's a child molester's paradise. You look at this and go, what is this fucking trash? If you looked at it, this is some serious trash here. People drive by and say, what, that guy impregnate his daughter or something? Yeah. People fuck their kids in there. Look at that guy.
The wild, wonderful whites of West Virginia would look at this setup and go, this is just sad when people fall so low. They would. They'd go, it's just sad here. Yeah. Even Sue Bob with her arrested titties there. Yeah. The hot one. Yeah, she got arrested. She had the best ones. Best ones, according to her and all the gentlemen of West Virginia. Her daughter's got some good hoots, too, by the way. Oh, my God. Now, next up is...
He's going to build a wall around his family. Now, when you hear that, because I kept reading in all these different articles when I was first looking at the case that he built a wall around his family, built a wall around his family.
I thought it was in a figurative way, not in like a China way. You know what I mean? Yeah, he's isolating him. Turns out I was wrong. He built a 13 acre fence. He built a physical wall, not around the whole property, just around his trailer. So now it's a 13 acre property with walled off. And it looks like it like a military barracks in there. It's got he built a cinder block wall that's 10 feet high in spots. Oh, boy. Around his trailers.
There's barbed wire on top of it. Yes. It's like he's holding prisoners in there. He built a prison. He built a prison and no trespassing signs everywhere all over the place. As if the 10 foot high cinder block wall with razor wire on top didn't
tip you off that maybe this isn't a welcoming environment. It feels like they don't want us in there. Also, no trespassing in case you get over my razor wire. Obviously, I'm keeping this stuff in, but also don't come in it either. Please, unless you're the bird man of Alcatraz, don't come in. So he, yeah, a high wall of stacked concrete blocks and a locked gate and a ton of no trespassing signs. So that's how he rolls. And you think a guy like this, he's like, you know what? Also, water and sewer is for suckers.
What's he doing? Water and sewer service for fucking losers and suckers and people who are just going to be, you know. Sucking off the tea to the government. That's it. I don't want to. I want to be separate from everybody. So instead, he collected rainwater. Yep. For drinking and everything and let the bathroom plumbing deteriorate so much that his family had to use outhouses after a while because it just fell all apart, didn't fix anything. So now they have to shit outside.
So now we have a family in the 1980s. This is... No plumbing. Yeah, picture 1985. Season one of Stranger Things. They're all shitting in their yard. Would that be weird to you? That's bizarre. It's strange. It's very odd. So...
And IROC-Z exists. You know what I mean? Oh, my God. The Pontiac Firebird is all the rage. There's big hair everywhere. Back to the futures in the theaters. What the fuck are we doing? This guy's flushing underneath his trailer. This is wild stuff. So he also could afford it because they made money. He made money, and there's not a real lot of bills here.
But he also refused to allow a telephone to be put in his home either. No home phone. No home phone. So you're behind center block walls with barbed wire on top with no phone shitting in the yard.
You live in a fire hazard. You're going to need fire departments one day. Tough shit. Yell real loud. I don't know what to tell you. Oh, my God. And this is just ridiculous. So he still has electricity. He keeps that. That's the only modern amenity is electricity. TV's got to be on. Got to have the TV, but no water. We don't need that. So...
Inside the house is also a fortress. His bedroom is his main fortress. It locks from the inside, the bedroom, so he can lock himself in. And he has curtains that when you move them, there are custom-made shelves that were filled with canned goods.
Beans and rice. He's also a survivalist guy, too, because he thinks, you know, if all this comes to an end, we can just live here like we've been living because it's shit anyway. He's living like the apocalypse has happened already. Right. That's the problem. It's not like he's prepared for it. Yes. It's one thing to prepare for the apocalypse.
You don't probably have to because it'll probably be something so big and out of your control that to think you have control enough to survive on canned goods, you're probably out of your fucking mind. You probably can't prepare for whatever's going to happen. No, but even if you could, let's say you can and you do, good for you. You don't have to live like it already happened. That's... You don't need that shit. Well, the...
I don't know, James, because if you if apocalypse happens and now you have to adapt to it. That's true. If I'm already living this way, get the ball rolling is what you're saying. Yeah. Get the ball rolling. Live like shit. And then when, you know, people start coming up with skin sloughing off their face from some radiatory meltdown, you're going to go, I'm fine in here. I don't need you. My skin's already sloughed. And it's already looks like that. It's just from living in here. That's just my diet. Oh.
Oh, my God. So apparently a family friend, a friend of Becky, not a family friend, just a friend of Becky said, if you gave the kids something to do, they never talk back. No, because they know consequences here. And he said he always had them digging or doing something for him. So they're in the yard doing yard work all the time, these kids. And I mean, some of the kids like are, you know, under 10 at this point. So that's interesting. Yeah.
He then got a job in a pickle factory. Which one? Which one am I boycotting now? I don't know. Probably some off-pickle brand. They sell at the dollar store in Dover. Nothing good. It's not plastic or anything. It says pickles on it. That's it. Yeah, it's just pickles. It says packles, actually. You don't know what the hell that is, even. You got to look in the jar. I guess that's pickles.
Pickles we packed. We packed up pickles. This is in the town of Atkins, another place I've never heard of outside of Russellville. How have you done it, James? How have you done this? We've found every town we've never heard of here. You've never done a state that I didn't know at least one of the places nearby? No, I don't either. This is crazy. Usually one of us will know a lot of the towns. I don't know shit. And I've driven back and forth because if you drive across the country on the 40, I've driven through Arkansas like seven times.
Yeah. I've never seen fucking exit signs for these places. I don't know anything. Yeah.
My stepbrother lived there. I know a lot of places in Arkansas. Never heard of a single one of these. And I told you this off air, but driving through moving east years and years ago in 2000, 2000, 2001, around there, we got off with the U-Haul trailer and everything. We got off the highway and right around this area. It was outside, short of Little Rock a little bit.
and got off the highway to get McDonald's real quick in the drive-thru. And in the parking lot, in the middle of the day, there was just multiple pickup trucks full of people just sitting in the back staring at us.
They went to the McDonald's to, and these were adults. These weren't teenagers. They went to the McDonald's in the middle of the day to sit in the back of a pickup truck and stare at outsiders. I was like, this place is fucking weird. We're eating in the car. They coordinate that meetup on a CB radio. Yep.
I ate burgers as I drove that day. I was like, I'm not even parking. Fuck this place. This is weird as shit. And also stopped for gas there one time and had a, like a cricket grasshopper. Oh, apocalypse. A plague. Like people. It's frightening. People. After you got gas, like people would run into the store covered in them, like swatting them off. Oh God. They're all over everything. It was disgusting. Yeah.
Those are grasshoppers. It's crazy. You had to put your windshield wipers on when you left to get them off the... It was gross. And they act like that only happens every, like, 50 years, but I've seen it, like...
I'm alive only 43, and I've heard of it at least 20 times. Oh, I asked about it, and he said it's always like this. The guy behind the counter said it's always like this. This was in the middle of nowhere, and there was one guy in the back playing the lone arcade game they had there. And I'm like, what's his fucking story? Eating an ice cream. He hangs out here.
Yeah, this is day out. He left his house to go to the gas station to play an old arcade game because it was like a shit was a Qbert or something. I'm like, what is happening? So Russell Senior here, he then in 1984, a pickle factory to vinegary for him. He doesn't want to smell it all the time. So he goes to work full time at the mini mart convenience store in Russellville.
He is really running down the line of jobs. He'll just work wherever he ends up dropping to part time in that job in January 1985 when he took a second job at the Woodline Motor Freight Company.
And he's not like he's hauling anything. He's an accounts receivable clerk. Yeah. Cause he does. He has a long history of clerical work. You can probably type. So you can get a job back then. If you know how to file shit and type you're in back then. So he is weird to everybody.
Is that right? The people who run the gas station, the Bowles Marketing Gas down the road from his house, Alan Bowles said, quote, he'd come in here to buy a paper or cigarettes, but he'd never say a word to anybody.
He'd never say shit, just rude as fuck. The most innocuous two things to buy, and you still stand out buying them. Yes. They said you'd never forget the guy later on, he says, because he never would talk to you. Everybody else, it's a very small area. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody knows everybody. Hey, how you doing, Alan? I'm pretty good, Bob. That's good. Just even in that much, and he'd just go, meh, meh, meh, and leave. What an asshole. Drop $1.87 and walk. Yeah. Now, Sheila...
Somehow. Okay. Sheila, everybody says the reason they moved to Pleasant Grove and got away from Ward because Sheila was going to college and Sheila met a boy in college named Dennis McNulty and Gene Senior didn't like that. So he moved the whole family to a trailer in the middle of nowhere and built a wall around it essentially to keep Sheila away from this Dennis guy.
Oh, and he took Sheila with her. Oh, fuck. Yeah. Yeah. Sheila, you're coming too. But somehow Sheila ends up getting around this and getting out and marrying Dennis McNulty and getting the fuck out of here. Oh, boy. And by somehow, by the way, he's like nine, almost 10 years older than her. So this looks like it's going to be bad because if that's her father, who the fuck is she going to find?
Turns out Dennis is a nice guy. Great. She found like a decent guy who's not an abuser, didn't beat the shit out of her, didn't molest anybody, just actually a nice guy who's trying to help her. Sure. Especially he's got to be a nice guy because he's willing to- Bring that baby? Yeah.
Yeah, they changed the name to Sheila McNulty and everything. He adopts that baby, and that is his wife's incest baby. Right. You know what I mean? Molestation baby. And he's like, I'll raise it as my own. I'll raise her. I don't care. No judgments from this guy. No, oh, you must be trash. None of that shit. So-
Very good. I'm happy for Sheila. That's the only way out of here. Yeah, because it's not her fault, and that's the shitty part. No, not at all. She's a child. This shit's not their fault, and then they suffer from it based on outside society. That's fucked. Well, yeah. And also, usually those people tend to pick terrible people because they're fucking pickers fucked up from being raised horribly. Really, mediocre guys should be like, especially if they're hot. Yeah.
Mediocre guys should be like, thank God for this little nugget of despair. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to land her. She would never like me. She'd look right past me.
Maybe that's Dennis's game. I don't know. So 1985, Sheila and Dennis have another baby. They have a baby of their own named Michael. So now there's another baby in the mix here. We got Sheila's daughter and we got Michael and there you go. So for work, Jean is still working at Woodline Motor Freight. By the way, three-year-old Barbara Simmons, who is Jean Jr.'s daughter from his defunct marriage...
ends up moving in to the house. Jesus. They're going to take control. Why would you knowing? Knowing. Well aware. This guy molested your little sister. You're going to go, here, watch my daughter for me, please. Never once. Never once. No. He's like, well, I mean, she's safe until she starts, you know, fucking developing anyway. 13, 14 years. Yeah, you know.
No, fuck that. I'm never going to see that man, ever. Yeah, I don't know what the line is. No. I don't know when he started with her. I don't want this, but I do know that he started with her. That kid's never going to see a picture of that guy, ever. I didn't have a dad. They end up...
nope oh no my dad died from a stroke when i was less than one i just tell my dad's story that's it you heard of jesus real similar similar stuff yeah mom's a virgin it's crazy weird so anyway here we are and so there you go she moves into the house um so there's a another baby in the house now good god sister-in-law edith sees the weirdness here she said she knew that
He hated her, obviously. Gene Sr. hates everybody outside the family. But she said she didn't care. She was going to visit her sister. So she's going and visits her sister. She spends the night over there with Becky during Easter of 1985. So she comes in, sleeps over. She said she was not prepared for what the home was like when she got there. How could you prepare for this? Yeah.
Some weird stuff to tough to walk up to barbed wire and brick. Yeah. Some survivalist compound in the middle of nowhere. This is fucking past walk past a cinder block and barbed wire to find two mismatched trailers welded together. Yeah.
And then say, come on in. We're serving dinner. You don't really need an address. You go get on this road, drive a little bit. When you see a 10-foot retaining wall with barbed wire on the outside of it, that's going to be us. It's not hard to find. Holler, because knocking will do you no good. It's no good. We ain't going to listen. We'll probably fire shots out there at you.
So when she made the visit, yeah, not prepared for this, she said the trailer had bedrooms added on to it, but there was not a lot of furniture and everything was like old and shitty, like they got it off the side of the road that somebody else was throwing out. No stereo, no television. Yeah. It was like living 100 years ago. In the 80s, people had stereos and televisions and shit. Yeah, big wooden furniture with all that shit sitting on it.
To bathe the family, and we saw this in American Hollow when they do this, but those people lived, they didn't even have money to do, they didn't have money for water. And they're miles away from anything. Yeah, well, these people are miles away from anything, too. Really? But the family had to heat well water on the stove and pour it into the tub. Oh, boy.
Oh, boy. Which takes a long time, obviously. Edith offered to remove the water-filled garbage can used to fill the toilets outside the outhouses and repair the toilet outside.
But her sister begged her not to, saying that that would make Gene lose his temper. If you fixed our toilet, it would make Gene lose his temper. If our toilet operates right, he's going to be mad. Gene really likes it when we shit outside. Like, what? He likes it when we shit broken. That's how scared of her she is, though. Or scared of him that this poor woman is. She's like, he'll be mad if you fucking fix our toilet. So, needless to say, this house is crazy. He runs it like a boot camp. Yeah.
The children would have to haul five gallon containers of water up to the house. And they said he would just spend time just hang out in his stinky bedroom drinking beer, occasionally coming out to yell at his family and give them orders. Shout some shit at them. What the hell, man? Becky was not allowed out of the house without him except to do laundry. She knew how to drive but wasn't allowed to do so. No.
No, because they said back in the day she never got a driver's license. The family was like, how come you don't have a driver's license? And she was like, wasn't allowed. The kids weren't permitted to go to church or to socialize outside of being at school, although sometimes they would lie to him and sneak out and do shit. And the four that were school-aged were not allowed to walk to the bus. He had to drive them to the bus stop and watch them get on the bus to make sure they were going. When they returned, he had them do chores until dark and
And a lot of them were just busy work, like with prisoners. Like he'd make them carry piles of firewood or rocks or dirt from the road at the bottom of the driveway up to the house. Just make them move things. Yeah, move that pile of rocks over to there, make another pile of rocks. So he's working, like we said, woodline motor freight, and he meets a lady there who he takes a shine to. Oh.
She is a former teenage beauty queen and mother of a three-year-old son, and at the time, 25-year-old Kathy Kendrick is her name. Yeah, she's totally going to be into you. The prettiest girl in town is going to be into the hillbilly who lives in the fucking prison house, prison trailer. And beats the shit out of his whole family. And fucks his daughter to the point of pregnancy. He apparently really likes her, though, and he was infatuated. He does.
He asked her out. She rejected him. Oh, yeah. Repeatedly. Balls. Oh, repeated advances. Repeated. Repeated. He would not give up to the point where she filed sexual harassment complaints at work against him. Oh, in the in the 80s. So he was happy about that. You had to like fucking, you know, lift up a girl's skirt and try to stick something in her butthole to get sexual harassment in the 80s. So that's what he's doing. Yeah.
She's a secretary. Yeah. He sends her flowers, notes, gifts. Oh, boy. She doesn't want any of it. And then even after a while when he stops, then he starts up again. He even showed up at her front door sometimes in the morning.
They thought people thought that he was following her around. Also, he reportedly even persisted after she told him that she got married. I'm married now. I have a husband. So do I. I have a wife and a daughter I have sex with. Of course, I got a lot of people I like eventually because of these multiple sexual harassment things against him and the fact that she doesn't like him. He.
He quits his job. He quits. He's like, this is bullshit. It's torture to be around her. She won't. Yeah. He tells his boss, Joyce Butts is her name. D-U-T-T-S. Yeah. To quote, take this job and shove it. That's what he told her. Quote, unquote. That movie just came out. Spitting song lyrics out at her. I'm going to live the life of a country song right now. Take this job and shove it.
Holy shit. So the end of 86 is when that happens. He leaves there. They are shoving their job. Gene gets a job at Sinclair Mini Mart.
The one with the green dino. The dinosaur, exactly. Everybody's seen those. He gets a job there, which seems like he would think that's below him, but he doesn't fucking care. I don't think anything's below this guy. He's actually doing the mini-mart shit, though, not the books. No, no, no. He works at the mini-mart. He's got a little vest on, a little dinosaur on, and a thing that says Gene. He's got a green dino on his shirt. Him and a two-year-old. It says Genor on his fucking name tag there.
Old Gene Dean. Old Gene Dean. So he wouldn't let, by the way, he's weird with his other kids too. His daughter Loretta is 17 now. She is not permitted to learn to drive.
OK, it's like part Alabama, part Iran here. I don't understand what he's doing. So very cyclical, though. It's a this is a white trash cycle that you got to fucking control and everybody. He's yep. He does not permit his wife to drive unless he's with her.
He has to be in the car if she's driving. She can't drive by herself. And when he would leave the house riding his motorcycle, because that was his main form of transportation. He owns a motorcycle. Of course he does. I'm sure it's one he put together at a parts he found somewhere. It's a Honda Davidson. It's probably perfect and meticulously maintained. Oh, it's beautiful. I bet he's got like it's showroom condition. I bet that's the only thing he has probably that's like that.
So he would take off on his motorcycle. He would take the car keys with him so nobody could go anywhere. What? Because then he's out, so he wouldn't know where they would be. So, yeah, no sneaking off here.
People said he was like a drill sergeant with the kids. Teenagers were not allowed to take part in after school activities. Loretta would try to date, but she'd have to hide it from her father and wasn't really allowed to go out. So dating was kind of hard. Linda, a friend of the family, said that it's a friend of Loretta's friends. A mother of Loretta's friends said that Gene wouldn't let Loretta go to football games and do the things teenagers do.
Oh, boy. Loretta told her friends she wanted to become a model, and she, you know, that's what she wanted. And sometimes she would be able to sneak out
While her dad was in a drunken sleep off in his room there and stay at her friend's house, the Mayhew's house, or sometimes go to a football game or go on a date or something like that. So Loretta would rebel. Teenage things, yeah. Yeah, because then there's enough other distractions around where she can do that. Her friend Jennifer said Loretta always said she couldn't wait until she graduated, couldn't wait to get out. She didn't want to be around her father anymore. Right.
Don't blame her. They said that the other kids, because this friend of Loretta has younger siblings that know the other Simmons kids. Mm-hmm.
They said they were friends of the other younger Simmons kids and that the twins sometimes spent. This family had twins sometimes spent the night at their house at the Simmons house. Yeah. With 11 year old Marianne. But they said they never saw the father. So this would be like, yeah, sneak in the room and stay there. He'll be in his room.
So the mother of all these friends said that the children showed them their hideouts on the farm. These were dugouts and creek banks where they would hide when their father was looking for them. Oh, they had hidey holes. Yeah. For their bodies, for their bodies to hide from dad. Like, wow, that's crazy. Um,
They said that whenever friends would stop by of Loretta's, they said he would never say a word, Gene Sr. He would lie on the couch and drink his beer. And by that time, they'd gotten a television because he'd be watching the TV news and he would look pissed off that anybody was there.
A friend of Loretta's said they just tiptoed around him. Whenever he wasn't around, they would act like normal people. When he was around, her mom's main concern was keeping the kids quiet. He was the keeper in his kingdom. The look he gave you in his house was, when are you leaving? It was creepy.
So in summer of 1987, he starts to lose some control of the family here. They're just getting out of his control. And Gene Jr., Sheila, and William, going by Billy, all married and living in different areas around the state, raising their own kids. They all got the fuck out of there. I guess Simmons, they said ever since Sheila left and got married, he has just been in a deep depression and a funk since then. Didn't like that.
Oh boy. Um, Dennis McNulty, Sheila's husband McNulty, by the way, like Jimmy McNulty from the wire, same spelling and two characters together. Dennis Wise and Jimmy McNulty. We're mashing them together. He knew what had, he know, knew where the baby came from. He knows that this guy molested his wife. And Dennis threatened to hurt Jean senior. If he ever touched her again, he said, Oh, you don't want to fucking. Yeah. Good. Yeah. That's I mean, Dennis is not, he's a straight up cat. Dennis is all right. Um,
Um, so Sylvia, that is Sheila's Sheila and Jean juniors or Jean seniors daughter, um, was treated by Dennis as his own child. There was no, any of that bullshit at all. That's I'm dad. So after losing control of Sheila, he became more controlling over his wife and younger children. No one could go anywhere or do anything. He's still monitoring the mail. Um,
Everything like that. He would read his wife's letters. So Gene Jr. got his mom a secret post office box so she could communicate with him without him knowing.
Without senior knowing. But Gene Jr. was pissed that they tried to prosecute him. Yes. So what's his deal? I don't understand it. He's a real hot and cold. He's an abused boy is what he is, yeah. Exactly. He doesn't know what he wants. And maybe now that he's out of the house and with a wife that hopefully is from a normal environment, she's like, hey, help your mom. None of that shit's real. None of that shit's right. You should certainly try to help. Insanity. So Becky starts bucking here.
Gets tired of this shit. Becky starts defying him. And after the summer of 87, she gets her ears pierced. Oh, my God. A 40-something-year-old woman getting her ears pierced. God forbid. That's a big fuck you. And she got a haircut for herself the way she wanted it. Oh, my goodness. Suck it. Suck that, Gene Sr. She's going to vote next. Wow. And her daughters, yeah, really, she's going to take advantage of all sorts of things. Yeah.
She's going to be like voting, owning property, opening a bank account. Hang your nails. Watch out. Wow. And then began taking seriously the suggestions that William's been making, Billy, the son, that she should leave Gene Sr. You should leave him. This is fucking crazy. She sent a letter to Sheila and Dennis. This is a birthday letter to Dennis and Sheila. Becky wrote, I've been a prisoner long enough.
That's what she said in this letter. I've been a prisoner long enough. He's mistreated us all long enough, so I don't feel any pity for him, and being alone is what he deserves. Yeah. Yeah. Then she wrote a letter to Bill and his wife and son. The son, by the way, is William III. He goes by Trey, the baby. So she says, Dear Bill Renata, who is Bill's wife, and Trey.
Loretta may be staying in town Friday night, so I'll have her mail this. I've been thinking of all of you and said Bill and I know you are right. All of you, I've been thinking of all you said. I'm sorry. Bill and I know you're right. I don't want to live the rest of my life with Dad, but I'm still trying to figure out how to start. What if I couldn't find a job for some time?
Jesus, that's the concern? That's so sad. You have to remember I've never had a job since I've been married or before that either. In other words, I've never had a job ever. That's what that means. Yeah, it's a better way to put it. Now I have to start somewhere. I know I have to start somewhere. Sorry, some of this is misspelled because it's the actual letter. And because she's been in a house in a prison and not been writing? She said I know is I-N-O-W, as I know. So that's why. Oh.
I'm a little confused here. So I had to start somewhere. It would all be so much easier if it was just me, but I have three kids. Apparently didn't count Loretta. Those are the small kids. Also by then. So if you want to do any checking by telephone, go ahead and check, and we can talk about it when you come. I've decided if I borrow from Mom that I would have to send her to you. I'm still all very confused, but...
But like I said, I do know I don't want to stay with dad, but don't want him getting more than he deserves.
Yet sometimes I feel God is telling me to be more patient. More patient? How much more patient can you be? He impregnated your daughter. Wow. Right now I'll just say do some checking and then it will help make my decision. I would like for Loretta to move with you after she turns 18. She wants to go to college and she can get a job too. I don't think San Antonio is the place for her. They were talking about moving there. They were saying, I guess, that's...
Jean Jr. was living in San Antonio and that was how that worked there. Let's see. Little Jean, referring to Jean Jr. and Wilma are back together but they want to try it out and try to come get Barbara. That's the daughter that's living with them, the baby. I'm sure enjoying Barbara. She is a sweet, lovable, polite little girl. She is a good girl and we love her and enjoy her so much. She always has us laughing.
I'm so proud of Trey. The last time you came, Dad wanted to know how come you didn't stay long enough to see him too. Well, because you're a scumbag, that's why. Because they wanted out of here. Now that little Jean and Wilma are back together, I wish they could move from San Antonio. Barbara needs both her parents. They've both been through so much. I hope it works out. I love them both. Wilma wrote me a letter telling me she loves little Jean very much and she must...
She and she must. She went back to him and I'm sure she has been hurt deeply. I want to see all my children happy. I've remembered a lot of what you said, Bill. I'm a prisoner here and the kids are too. I know when I get out, I might need help. Dad has had me like a prisoner that the freedom might be hard for me to take.
So she's scared. I don't know what to do when I'm out there. I've been under lock and key since 1961. I don't know. Yeah, this is going to be like a person literally leaving prison. Yeah. I've got to get re-acclimated to society. They're going to have to put me in Bisbee, Arizona. There's a lot of people who've been in prison for 25 years who don't want to leave prison. Right. Because they don't know how to do it. They say, I don't want to leave. Yeah. I don't know what the fuck to do out there. I know what to do in here. So that's fucking sad, man. Yet I don't know...
Yet I know it would be great having my children visit me any time. Having a telephone. Yeesh. Having a telephone is what she's excited. Having this poor woman going shopping if I want or just going to church. You know. She's not wanting a lot. Yeah. She's not like, I can't wait to go down to the docks and wait for the fleet to come in. I'm going to fuck 100 sailors. She's like, I'd like to go to church if I feel like it.
You know, maybe go to the store if I want. She has the dreams of like a 56 year old person that can't wait till they're 62 to retire. Yeah, that's exactly what it is during the day or a boring 15 year old who can't wait to get their driver's license. They just don't want to do very much. I don't want to put any burden on my children. And I think it's best while or before I get out before I get out too old. I think she's trying to say get out before I'm too old.
I want out, but it's the beginning. Once I get a job in place, then I can handle it with the mental support of my children. I can do it. It was hard to talk in front of little Gene. He had been having it so hard and his problems were deeply in my mind. I felt sorry for him. I was so afraid that he might go back and do something.
Okay. You are lucky, Bill. You have a very good wife. She had led you the right way and that is toward God. She is very pretty too. That's good. I've always thanked God for sending you a good wife. I'm thankful for Dennis too. Give my darling Trey a lot of hugs and kisses for me. I love you all very much. Barbara gets bored if I take too long to write, so I hope I made sense in this letter. She's got a
A toddler hanging off her arm. That's why the misspellings and stuff. Hope Loretta can mail this Friday or Saturday on her way home. Love you very much. And she said, P.S., you all look so nice when you came. Loretta had a great time. Renata, she talked a lot about it with Renata. Okay. So it's a four-page letter, and it's obviously very, very sad. Now, Loretta starts bucking, too, though.
That's the other thing back to Loretta writes a letter to her friend and said, I could tell you I'm doing OK, but I'd be lying. I haven't left the house or seen anyone since school was out. Oh, what if I could? I would if I could. I can't go on anymore pretending to be strong. And she said that she wished that her friend could come so she wouldn't be alone.
Go stay here. Yikes. Kids are still well behaved, though. A employee of the Sears Roebuck store, Sears in Russellville, said Simmons visited the store with his kids, Loretta, Eddie, who's 14, Marianne, 11, and Rebecca, 8 at that point. And she said he never did have much to say and his kids didn't talk much. They never smiled. So they just walked around.
Loretta was well-groomed, neat, and clean, and that's what the vice principal said. There's nothing to indicate there were any problems at home at all. She was a member of the last year's Valentine Queen's Court, and a yearbook picture showed her as a pretty dark-haired girl with long black hair, nice eyes. One friend said she's a good, real quiet girl, cute and good at math.
Okay. So there you go. And Mary Ann, they said, is a rather quiet, well-behaved kid. They're not allowed to attend a lot of functions, really, or anything like that is the problem, which is weird. But they're always at the bus on time, clean, orderly, homework done, no bruises or burns on them. Nothing to indicate there's any problems. They're just kids. Brainwashed. No.
That's a rainwater cleans you well there. No records, Arkansas rainwater. So you've heard of Iris spring take Arkansas rainwater, no records of disciplinary actions against the kids. Their attendance is near perfect. Yeah. They don't want to fucking be home. I'd rather be at school. I'll be there. Don't worry. Yeah. It's very, very fucking strange that they could have attended such a small school for so long and nobody noticed anything about them. It's not, it's not strange. Uh,
I guess. When you're militant in a life like that, you know what to do. Yeah, I guess so. And that guy's probably saying things like, what we do here is our business, right?
You don't let on that anything goes on here. Oh, yeah. Oh, everybody knows to shut the fuck up early here. This is like the CIA, I think. So Uncle Abe said he secluded her. He cut her off from all of us. And now he's gone crazy. He censored her mail. He wouldn't let her have a telephone. And he'd stand there if she ever made any calls from somewhere else. Wow.
October 87 is when he tells the kids, I need you to dig a big pit for a new outhouse. Big old giant pit. As big a hole as you can build. As big a hole as you can build. About seven feet long and three feet wide, four feet wide, pretty deep. Just a big old outhouse shit pit is what I need right now. Here comes Christmas season 1987. Okay. This is when it all hits the fan.
December 18th, 1987, Gene Sr. suddenly quits the mini-mart, throws the dinosaur vest on the ground, and he's had it. Tells his boss that the hours and the pay suck, and he's done. It's a mini-mart. What do you expect, dude? That's what you thought. Now, the family at this point, son William here, he's married to Renata. William's 23, Renata's 21. They have a son who was born one month after Sheila's last baby.
So Sheila's got a baby who's 21 months, and William and Renata have a baby, William Jr., who is 20 months. So there you go. A grocery delivery man saw Gene Sr. the Monday before Christmas and said, he told me his grandkids were coming to visit. He sounded like a happy grandfather. Yeah.
which is odd because he doesn't talk to many people. Right. He won't even say hello to the guy who sells him cigarettes as paper, so it's odd that he would even get that personal with this guy. Now, December 22nd, it's the last day of school before they go on Christmas break. Yeah, Christmas break. Yeah. So Mary Ann told a friend that she didn't want Christmas vacation to begin.
Which is very weird for a kid. That's the most exciting thing is Christmas break. Her friend Angie said she kept saying she didn't want to go home. I couldn't figure out why she would want to stay at school. It was Christmas. Yeah. What the fuck? The school bus driver who dropped the kids off that day, all the small kids here. This is Benny Tiny Huggins. How much do you want to bet he weighs four bills, Tiny? And he's a great hugger. Yeah.
He's a great hugger. Tiny the bus driver. Something tells me he's a bigger fella. He dropped them off.
And he said, Eddie 14. He dropped off Loretta. Eddie, it was 17. Eddie 14. Marianne 11. Rebecca 8 at their driveway between 340 and 345 p.m. He said they were all smiling when I dropped them off because there are two days a year when I let the kids off my bus, turn around in their seats, and they visit with each other. That's the last day of school and the day before Christmas vacation. Okay. They can sit backwards if they want today.
Yep. He said that, yeah, he doesn't mind. Fuck it. He said the kids, he watched them scoot under the locked gate of the dirt driveway. That's how they got in. They didn't have keys to get in the locked driveway. They had to scoot under a gate. And he said they were still smiling when he pulled away. Okay. December 23rd, the next day, 1987 here. This is fucking nuts. Okay. All the kids are home that day. Yeah.
And he tells all the kids that he wants to give them gifts. I have gifts for you kids. And they're like, what the fuck? Okay. And he goes, I have gifts for all of you, but I'm going to give them to you one at a time. I don't want it to be a big thing. So I'm going to come in your rooms and I'm going to give you your gifts one at a time. So, you know, wait for me here. You guys can come in and do that. So, yeah.
That's what he's doing. He says, Loretta, you're the first to get your gift. Okay? He brings her, goes into her room here. He takes a small piece of rope and strangles her. That's your gift. Merry Christmas. Drags her outside. Oh, God. And holds her underwater in the rain barrel where they get their water and strangles and drowns her. Oh, boy. At the same time. Then the other kids march in one at a time.
And they're all killed the same way. Wow. Strangled to death. Okay? Okay. So now he's killed Eddie, Mary Ann, Rebecca... And Loretta. And Loretta. Four kids. Strangles them all. Oh, boy. All right. They think that possibly he did this because they were the least likely to put up any resistance...
And probably he thought that they would, if he starts killing mom, there'd probably be chaos in the house. They'll be running around. Can't keep track of all four of them. One will run to a neighbor's house or something. Who knows? So probably took about seven to 10 minutes to kill these kids. They said, you know, it may have been a struggle, but we don't know because their air supply was cut off. So who the fuck knows what kind of struggle they have. So then he moves to his bedroom.
Where the wife is. Where Becky's in there. He just walks in and shoots her twice in the head. Okay. That's it. Twice in the head. Then Gene Jr. is there as well because he's visiting for the holidays and he's there waiting for his wife. Remember, they're going to get together with his wife and get the daughter, so he's there with his daughter. So he heard that.
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So he walks in and shoots Gene Jr. four times in the head and once in the stomach. Good Lord. Kills him. They said the son probably was shot last and struggled because a bloody handprint was found on the wall inside the house, believed to be Gene Jr.'s. So he took it the hardest. Okay. So now he's killed the whole family. Now what? Killed them all. He's killed the whole family here. He's got seven children.
People that he's killed. He killed Gene's baby also. Oh, Jesus Christ. So he's killed five kids, his wife and a son and his oldest son here. So he takes them. And luckily for him, he's got a nice pre-dug grave in the backyard that he had the kids dig their own fucking grave. Oh, boy. He throws them in there. Ronald Jr. in socks and underwear. And then the rest of the children kind of in no way.
discernible order. He puts a sheet of corrugated tin on the ground above it, on top of it in the pit there. Cause he's, this is no, this is Becky Loretta, Marianne, Rebecca, Eddie, little Jean and little Barbara, the three-year-old. So, um, this is a two foot deep grave covered with the metal and it's about 40 yards from the house. He, wow. Um,
He takes the bodies and he soaks them in kerosene, not to set them on fire because he thinks that it would stop smell from coming out of the ground and prevent animals from being attracted to it if he soaks everything in kerosene. He doesn't want anybody to...
Be eaten by an animal. Doesn't want anybody to be eaten by a fucking animal. He also takes the three-year-old and puts the three-year-old Barbara in a plastic garbage bag and puts her in the trunk of one of the abandoned cars on the property. What is that about? Don't know. So what to do now? Yeah. By the way. Has the party just begun?
They're saying they had the whole family. There's a fucking tree up with tinsel on it. There's wrapped presents under the tree. There's fucking socks hung by the mantle with care. It's fucking Christmas, man. And he's just sitting in the living room with Rudolph playing. And this is crazy. Just sitting there. Open all the gifts. Woohoo, they're all mine now. Is this what it's for? Is he selfish? I don't know what's going on. Wild.
So he sits home with all these dead people, stacked them all in the grave and just sits there. It's all bloody and everything like that. Christmas Eve, the next day, he stops for $3 worth of gas and a pack of cigarettes at the convenience store a mile from his house when he won't talk to people. And Jean Brown, who owns a store with her husband, said he didn't say nothing when he came in, just asked for cigarettes and paid for his gas.
He was also seen at Sears in Russellville on Christmas Eve, and he'll be seen at Sears again the day after Christmas. This guy loves Sears. Loves Sears. Each day he asked whether the gifts he ordered by mail had arrived yet. You got my gifts that I ordered? The lady at the convenience store said, you don't forget things like that, the way he wasn't friendly. He never spoke at all.
You always remember a jerk around here. Always. So now he's waiting for his family to come. And William here, William Renata and little 20-month-old William Jr. are coming over next. They're expected. So he sits there. He had cleaned up a little bit, got the bodies out of the house and everything like that. First arrived is his son and his wife.
Right.
And I guess they sat down at the dining room table and he pulled out a gun and shot William twice in the head and then shot Renata five times in the head and once in the back of the neck and once in the throat. Good Lord. He really destroyed her. Holy shit. She must have not been dying. That is fucked up that he did that. And then he takes their baby son and strangles him.
And places him in a green garbage bag, taped it shut, and put it in the trunk of a different abandoned car in the yard. What is that about? I don't know. The babies go in different places. More people are expected, though. Don't worry. He kicks back. Oh, boy. He leaves these bodies around because he's got no more room in the hole now. So a few hours later, here, more people come. Now it's Sheila and Dennis. Oh.
And little Sylvia, who is his daughter, obviously, and little Michael, who's 21 months old. So apparently, Jesus Christ, apparently Sheila comes in first carrying the 21 month old and holding the hand of Sylvia while Dennis is still getting shit out of the trunk. There's presents. He's going to bring those in. Okay.
Um, she put the children down and went into the dining room. And at that point she sees the bodies of her brother and sister-in-law. So he shoots her six times in the head. What the shit? Jean senior shoot Sheila six times in the head. Dennis, here's six fucking gunshots from inside comes running into the house.
And he walks right in the door. As soon as he gets in the door, one shot in the head killed him dead. He falls down at the door. Sylvia is still around here. The six year old. She runs into a bedroom. She takes off into a bedroom. She's in a fortress. Yeah. So he finds her, though. Gene Senior tracks her down and strangles her and then strangles the baby to good God, man.
Another baby. His body, again, in a garbage bag hidden in the trunk of a car. So all of the corpses in the house, all of the dead bodies in the house are covered with coats. He put coats over them. Except for Sheila, who was like laid out on a bed covered by his wife's best tablecloth. Like she was in like some sort of like ceremony. Like she's special. Everybody else was just in coats.
She gets this tablecloth, like a special thing. I don't know what's up with that either. Special shrine laying in state. Because Sheila is the thing he really is interested in. And that's from that. So yeah, like a lying in state, exactly how they did it. So he left the, like I said, the two grandsons in the abandoned cars at the end of the house there. Now,
You've killed everybody now. Everything. He has killed- You destroyed your whole life. 14 people in his family. His entire family. His whole family is gone. Babies, daughters, everybody. So after that, he goes to get a beer at the bar. Really? He goes to have a murder beer. He goes out in public. Yep, goes out in public to have a fucking beer. Hmm.
Then gets back to the house and spends the evening and the next day just drinking beer, watching TV with a house littered with corpses. Oh, my. He steps over them and just goes about his business for the next couple days. What the hell?
Okay. Then it gets weird. Yeah. Yeah. Hasn't got weird yet. No. Now it's going to get real fucking crazy because now he goes, well, now he's, now it's going to, yeah, I've killed my whole family. Nobody can judge me for what I'm going to do now. It's all. Yeah. I've done the worst things I could possibly do. There's no way I'm going to get away with this. How are you going to hide 14 dead bodies? He can't do that. Right. How are you the only one that survived? So he goes, well, fuck it, I guess.
December 28th comes around. He leaves the house, grabs his son's brown Toyota Corolla and takes off. Okay. Um, so before he leaves though, he shuts off the electricity at the main box outside his house. Fucking flips the switch. So no electricity in there. It'd be cold in there. He stops at Walmart.
Now, and purchases, he's got a gun, but he purchases a second gun at Walmart right now. So he's got his gun he already had. It's a 22. I believe it's a 22 with a long barrel. Now he stops and gets a short barrel 22 at Walmart. All right. Then stops at the Delta service station on the I-40 highway.
He asks to use the phone to call the law office of the unfortunately named Richard Peel. You don't want to be Dick Peel. That's his lawyer? That's no. Well, that's what you think because you think, well, I'm going to need a lawyer probably. So he calls up Dick Peel, Dick Peel's office. Just calls though quickly. He's on the phone for like three seconds and hangs up. So that's weird, right? It'll make sense in a second.
He heads right over there from the gas station to the Richard Peale law offices. It's 1015 a.m. He walks in armed with two 22 caliber revolvers, one with an eight and a half inch barrel, the other with a two inch barrel. Both guns are loaded with hollow point shells and he's wearing a cowboy hat.
He's put a cowboy hat on because now he's going to do his thing. Draw down on somebody. Well, he walks in and you know who the secretary slash receptionist is? No. Kathy Kendrick. Who the hell's? Oh, no. The love of his life that did not want to. From the gas station again. Unrequited from the woodland motor freight.
Oh, my God. That's why he called just to see if she would answer the phone. She's at the office. Click goes over there. Oh, boy. Walks up to her and just empties one of the guns in her fucking head at the desk. Oh, my God. Bop, bop, bop, bop. Repeatedly shot her point blank in the head at her desk and then just leaves.
Okay. Just walks out. That's it. Came there for her and that was it. Leaves. Brenda Hefner was a legal secretary who was working in the back. She said, when I suddenly heard a gun.
At first she thought it was some kids playing with toys they've gotten for Christmas. All kids get explosive toys for Christmas. Well, in the South, everybody gets a cap gun. Yeah, that's true. Cap guns. Everybody's got a cap gun. That's true. Shit, I had a cap gun, so I get it. Then she said, all of a sudden we heard two shots and Kathy screamed. So they said the two women opened a file drawer and took cover behind it because they didn't know if this was someone coming in to kill everybody or what. Those file drawers are thick.
Yeah, all sorts of documents in them. Poor Kathy. They're not helping her, though. Jesus. They said he just kept shooting and kept shooting. It was at least six times. I figure he unloaded the gun. Yeah, he just emptied it on her. So a bullet, by the way, afterwards was still lodged in the area over her desk as well. There were still bullets there.
A client who was in the office at the time watched it all happen. She was sitting there. Imagine that. She was sitting there in the outer office with Kathy. She said that Gene didn't talk to her or harm her, just ignored her like she didn't exist. There was a target. Focused on Kathy. There's a reason to be here. Shot her. He said then that this woman, according to Hefner, the woman ran to our door and started yelling, he shot her, he shot her. Right.
She said there was blood coming out of her head. It was real dark red blood, not like you'd expect to get from a cut because it's brain blood. It's so much. It hasn't had a chance to hit the oxygen yet, so it's darker still. It's not blood like that. It's bright red. It was coming out of the back of her head. She was breathing. She had trouble breathing, but she was breathing. I thought he was going to kill everybody in the room. We didn't know why he was there.
And yeah. And now this lady, this Hefter lady said she's like traumatized and afraid to leave her house after it. She said there might be someone crazy out there anywhere. Yeah. Yeah. This is random violence. Not random, but anybody, anybody's capable of sliding someone in their, in their life somewhere. And who knows if today's the day that they come for retribution. You never know. Yeah. Who knows? You can't remember every time you shit on somebody.
So that's 1015. 1025 a.m., he shows up at another place. The Taylor Oil Company. What's that about? He arrives there. It's on West Main Street where there is an off-duty Russellville fireman, 33-year-old Jim Chaffin there. C-H-A-F-F-I-N goes by J.D. Chaffin. He's a father of four, 33 years old, firefighter.
Gene just walks up to him, shoots him in the face several times. Does he know him? We can't figure it out. That's what I mean. He used to work there, I guess. So I guess he knew him from there. I don't know. And there's also Rusty Taylor, who he shoots as well and wounds him, but he doesn't kill him. But he kills J.D. Chaffin. So that's 16. What the fuck is going on?
Wow. The one lady there, Julie Mooney, she was starting the second hour of her first day at the office. She just got she got there at nine. Yeah. And by 1030, there's your people being shot. Yeah.
Fuck me. She was in an adjoining warehouse returning from the bathroom when she heard the shots. She thought it was some kind of joke, she said, until she opened the door and saw Chaffin lying in a pool of blood and saw a .22 revolver aimed point blank at her forehead. She opened the door and he had a gun pointed. She said that he fired and she felt the bullet as it went through her hair. He missed her head. It went through her hair.
Good Christ. Thank God for 1986 hair. Fucking fluffy hair. He got his skull under there. It was just Aquanet. He missed and shot her right in the Aquanet. Yeah. So she said that she dove behind some crates. I just screamed no and went down. She said, I believe that he thought he hit me and that's why he left.
He just had a look in his eye like a mad dog. And when he looked at Jim on the floor and Jim was bleeding profusely, he showed no emotion or anything. He just turned around and pointed the gun at me and shot.
She said, I thought of my kids immediately. I have a boy, eight, and a girl, 15. And of course, I thought of my husband, and I thought, am I dying? And my head felt warm, so I felt it. And I looked down, expecting to see blood on my hand, but there was no blood. She thought she got shot in the head. She said he was wearing a cowboy hat, black leather jacket, and had this horrid grin on his face.
She said he had the hat pulled down to his eyebrows. And they said he almost always wore a hat like this because he's bald and he liked to wear a hat. But he later on, he'll now ditch the cowboy hat and he'll put a white baseball cap on. Oh, got to blend in. Got to blend in. At 1040 now, 15 minutes later, he shows up at the Sinclair mini mart. Oh, no, Gene.
Yep, he drives around, drives through downtown Dover there and all that kind of thing. And he shows up, and one of the—David Saylor, who's the manager, or Saylor, he's 38. He said he was drinking coffee in the back when here comes Gene Jr., who walks up to the cash register where—or senior, sorry—where 46-year-old Roberta Woolery is working. And he pulls a pistol out and fires twice at her. Oh, boy.
Point blank. He said his first thought was it was a joke. The sailor guy is like, why does everybody think that? No one says it's real. It's hilarious to pretend to shoot people out of nowhere. He said, yeah, I thought it was a joke. And he said when he realized it wasn't, he grabbed a chair and threw it at Gene because that's all he had. He said, quote, that's when he shot me. Yeah.
Yeah, a friend who was in the store at the time ducked behind the aisle of groceries and started throwing cans of Coke at him, which is not a bad weapon. Yeah, but it's not going to work, man. It's a pretty fucking good weapon. If you get hit with cans of Coke, that shit hurts. You connect, it'll hurt, yeah. This drove him off. Really? Yeah, he's going to...
If you're in the Coke aisle, you have an unlimited supply of Coke cans. You could just be chucking those. A hell of Coke cans. You can't get close enough to the guy to get over there to shoot him. Guy hit me with the Pepsi clear. I had to skate. It's fucking him out. It was new Coke, man. This is, you know, 87. He hit me with that new Coke. It's terrible. So this drove him off. He took off. He ran out after that. And then he goes to at 1050 a.m. He shows up at Woodline Motor Freight.
Yeah, he got back in his car, drove around the corner down Airport Road to Woodline Motor Freight, where he had worked. And there he walked up to his former supervisor, whom he told to take this job and shove it. Right. Joyce butts and fucking shoots her. Jesus Christ. This guy has made a mental note.
For the last 20 years. Yeah. Of everybody that pissed him off. He had a falling down day. Yeah. Hardcore. Except his family too. Just going to clear it all up. At least in falling down, he just wanted to get to the birthday party to see his kid. This is like, I've killed all my kids. I don't have a birthday party to get to. There's no Christmas. Yeah. Then there was another woman there who he said, quote, I've done what I've come to do. That's what he said. Like, don't worry. I'm not going to hurt you. I've done what I've done to do.
The trucking company president, Robert Wood, said he entered the guy. Gene entered the office through a side door near the desk formerly used by Simmons's ex supervisor, Joyce Butts. He spotted Butts across the room, walked up to where she sat, passing several other people in the process, walked right by him, pulled out a gun and fired twice.
Then as the employees scattered behind desks, the guy said that he walked right past me into a glassed-in inner office, one of those glassed-in you can see with the conference tables. And the guy said he just had such a calm demeanor. He was just real calm about it, like he just dropped off a package and he was leaving now. Now the inner office clerk was sitting at the desk holding her face in her hands trying to pretend it wasn't happening. He goes up and puts a gun to her head, says, Stand up. Uh-huh.
And then when she did, he just dropped the gun to his side and put it down. Why does he want her up? He then offered one of his guns to her. He gave her a gun. He said, here, take this. And she didn't want to take it. She was terrified and frozen. She wouldn't take it. Maybe he's going to say, now draw. Who the fuck knows? He's dressed like a cowboy. Who knows? So he then put the gun down on the desk beside her and said, here you go.
Then he turned his back to her and the gun. She could have picked it up and emptied it on her on him, walked into the outer office, got her cigarettes that she had on her desk over there and walked back in. He then told her, I've come what I came to do. It's all over now. I've gotten everybody who hurt me. That's what he said. All over with. The babies were hurting him. Obviously, 20 month old kids were hurting him.
And he said, I have no intention of hurting me, hurting you. Don't worry. He said, quote, you're the only one who didn't hurt me.
Oh, boy. The secretary, this lady was apparently nice to him when he worked there, and it saved her fucking life. Holy. Saved her life. Every job I've ever had, whoever's the weirdest, most unstable, most capable of fucking mass murder, I'm so fucking nice to them. Every time, they love me. They hate everybody. They love me because I will be the guy alive telling this fucking story going, he just came in and shot everybody, walked up to me, was like, you're cool, bro. It's cool. And we had a cigarette together, and then he left. What's up with smoke?
That's what happened. I want to be that guy telling the story, not the guy on the ground. So he then told her, call the police, please. Yeah. Yeah. He's going to wait here for him. He's done. While she was talking to the police dispatcher, he's standing in the outer office, just hanging out there. Yeah. The police chief, Herb Johnston, said, I came in and saw him standing in the inner office. I motioned for him to come out, and he finally did.
He said, come here. And he did. Come here. He said he came to the inner office and said, what do you want? I don't know. You just shot people. What do you think? Probably. Yeah. And he said, I want to talk to you and I want your gun. He said, we did this maybe twice. And finally, he just handed me his gun.
He was armed the whole time. The whole time. He had one gun. He put the other one on the table, but he had the gun in his hand, and they didn't shoot him. They had him. The cop said, come here, and he did, and walked towards him with the gun. Yeah, and they let him do that, then he handed it to him. Okay. Now, Joyce Butts survives. Really? And I just can only pray that she will fall in love with Dick Peel.
Then if she wanted to be, she could be Mrs. Dick Butts Peel, which would be the greatest name that's ever happened in the history of the world. Really need that. I need that to happen.
So, yeah, I wounded her. Again, the Julie Money, who was at the other place, she said the things that stood out to me were the whites of his eyes and the whites of his teeth. He looked like a mad dog staring at me. Smiling with wide eyes. Dude, that's frightening. Terrifying. While you're shooting people? Yeah. They take possession of his guns, an H&R .22 with a three-inch barrel and a Ruger .22 with a nine-and-a-half-inch barrel. Mm-hmm.
And they marched him to a jail cell. Sheriff Boland. Now this guy. Wow. He said that he hadn't spoken a word since he takes him in. He just lies in his cell bunk with his face into the wall. Just done. He said he doesn't appear excited at all. He just sits there and doesn't talk. Total silence.
So they try to talk to him, though. They try to talk to him. You gotta ask him what the fuck, man. By the way, they only know about him shooting in these offices. They have no idea what's in his house. They have not heard. They don't know. How could they know? Nobody ever goes there. I got a story for them, James. Whew, boy. Yeah, so...
He said my investigators would ask him how we could contact his family. Yeah. And his bottom lip would quiver. Yeah. And he'd say, why don't you start praying? Yeah. So he said, we've moved on to something else and it would stop. But then when we came back to his family, his lip would quiver. Hmm.
So they were like, what the fuck's up with that? And they go, where's your family, bub? And he just wouldn't say anything. So they go, let's go to his house and check on his family. You know, we don't know what's going on. We haven't heard from anybody. So there's no phone to call. So this is still the 28th Monday. This is still this day. What a day. What a fucking day. The sheriff goes over. Sheriff James Bolin crawled through a window into the living room. Yeah.
And right away, he's on one side of him is what he described as a plump Christmas tree decorated with tinsel and bulbs and nicely wrapped gifts with big bows on them still under the tree sitting there. But on the other side of him was corpses and lots of them all over the fucking place. And he said lying beside the Christmas tree was the body of a young woman. Once he got inside, he checked the body for a pulse. And obviously they've been dead for days.
Looked off into the dining room and found another body. He looked some more, found a third body, then a fourth. Walked to the door and unlocked it, let the deputies in. They searched the rest of the house. They found Sylvia down in the bedroom there. So five bodies in the living room. Sylvia, Dennis, William, and Renata, all of those people.
He then confirmed by all this that these aren't the people who live here. Yeah. Who the fuck are these people? And where are the people who live in this fucking house? There should be four kids. There's not so many ages. Yeah. And a wife. Where are those people? Where's the 40 something year old lady? This is a 20 something year old lady. What's going on? So he's like, what the fuck? So he's like,
He suspected more, and then finally they found the rest of the bodies out back when they spread out and said, well, search out back and see what happens. So they search, and then when they search further, that's when they find the bodies of the two babies stuffed into the plastic bags in trunks of cars.
Wow. The Jim Bolin said the bodies found in the grave is about three feet wide, seven foot long, four and a half feet deep, and were piled one on top of another inside the abandoned cars. Each inside each trunk was a trash bag tied closed inside. One was Michael McNulty and the other was Trey Williams son. So the at first the sheriff said he has, quote, no earthly idea how the grandchildren were killed.
He said, I feel that anything's possible. They could have been put in that car alive. They don't think so. After the autopsy, they know he's probably strangled. So altogether, he's killed 16 people. And I think there's 19 total with the wounded. So 19 victims, 16 people. At the time, it was the second worst overall mass murder in America.
Really? Tied with, or I'm sorry, just after Charles Whitman, the Texas sniper. The fucking clock tower guy. Clock tower guy with the brain tumor. Good God.
Yeah. So it's Jean, Rebecca, Barbara, Loretta, Eddie, Marianne, Becky, Billy, Renata, Trey. Those are all the Simmonses. Sheila and Dennis McNulty. Little Sylvia. Poor little Sylvia. Jesus, that kid never had a chance. Poor kid. Little Michael. And then Kathy, Kendrick, and JD. Not in his family. He was just a ticking time bomb. There had to be.
You had to know. Nobody knew. That's the thing. And now let's get to Sheriff Obvious over here. Yeah. He says, quote, it seems like he had some kind of feeling against the people he worked with.
You think dipshit going around to every job shooting people? You think maybe that's what it was? We've noticed that all these places are on his W-2. What? Yes. Wow. He must have been a real asshole to have as an employee. He seems he has a vendetta. That is the most obvious thing. He said, and after this, he said...
After he killed his family, he probably figured, why not go all the way? Yeah. He sat there for days stewing, going, I've done this. I'm going to jail forever. I may as well rectify some other situations. Might as well dot some I's and cross some T's and get this over with. Get out my number two. The sheriff said, the great unanswered question is why. What causes a person to wipe out his family and go on another shooting spree of people he's known? Yeah.
He said, we're receiving reports that the women in the family were going to leave. That would have blown the lid off the whole deal. Maybe that's it. Should have been blown off a long time ago, but all right. Whole deal. Yeah, I would say. January 31st, 1987. So this is like, or I'm sorry, December 31st, 1987. So it's like two days later. There is what they're wondering if is possibly a copycat killer in America.
It's a guy named Driesman. I'm sorry, Robert Driesman. People described him as a recluse and a loner. Shot his parents, his sister, and her three children with a shotgun and then blew his own brains out. Robert. Right then. That could have just been normal holiday shit, though. That shit happens in the holidays. They said, though, the thought crossed our mind that this might be a copycat crime patterned after the Arkansas slayings.
They said it's possible, anything's possible, but we have no hard information that that actually happened. Now...
The weird part about this is they say these type of explosive, I'm killing everybody killings. Usually that guy shoots himself. Right. What the fuck is that about? He usually doesn't surrender to a secretary and then fucking have her call the police and then quietly go to jail. That's not usually what happens in these situations. They usually go out in a blaze of glory, shoot themselves, or they try to get the cops to shoot them. Right. You know, they take a couple shots at the cops and get them to do it. So in court,
They say that he appears, Gene Sr.'s almost catatonic when he's charged here with two counts of capital murder and four counts of attempted capital murder for the downtown shootings. They're going to charge him with those first because they have tons of witnesses for those. We'll worry about the others later. We'll worry about those later, but they have these. He's held without bond, obviously. Let's let him out. That'd be good. Let him wander around a while. Let him go home. No.
Wow. Clean up the bodies. The prosecutor here says it was a cruel and senseless act that was committed and the death penalty would certainly be justified. He killed a lot of people. That's a lot. This guy goes on to say that he had some grievances with some of these other people and some ill feelings. But in my opinion, the true motive was basically...
Interesting. So that he could kill Dennis and Sheila and he had prepared to kill all these people in preparation for Dennis and Sheila. Like the sniper in D.C. Yes. And that makes sense when you read a letter that he sent to them that we'll get to in a few minutes. That's what he's mad about. It really is. That's why Sheila was later. Yeah. Not Sheila. Sylvia was laid out special. Sheila was laid out special. No, no. Sylvia was laid out. The daughter was.
The daughter, the six-year-old, was laid out special with the tablecloth and all that kind of shit. Oh, boy. So he's sent to a mental hospital for an evaluation because he won't talk. He's catatonic. And what he did was bat shit. So they send him there to talk to him. They said they'll be able to file more charges as we pull this thing together. They say that his refusal to talk to the police does not concern them, though, because it's going to be hard for him to maintain a silence for 30 days in a mental institution. Yeah.
I feel like this guy could pull it off probably. Maybe. Now, here's some reactions. Here's Sheriff Obvious here. He says, I've been in law enforcement since 1968, and this is the worst I've seen. He said, I hope so. I would hope as I mean. Were you at the University of Texas when that guy was there? Because otherwise it would be the worst anybody's ever seen, you fucking idiot. He said, you do not get used to this. No shit. Again.
an employee of the school district near Dover said it's pretty quiet and peaceable here. Something like this happens, it'll just tear this community apart. They're just not ready for something like this. They'll rename this joint. You don't understand. We did it once before. How do they not rename it after this? Yeah, you got to call it Red Stripe now. Back to Red Stripe. Fuck it. So a family friend said that they know for a fact that he made this kid's
dig their own grave, basically, here. She said he worked his children hard. He never did any work. He took a more dictatorial position. The DA Sanders from New Mexico that couldn't get him on the molesting. What's he got to say? Again, these people are pretty obvious. I cannot help but wonder if the mass murder is connected to the deviance Simmons displayed while he was here. You think it's connected, possibly? Maybe? Maybe.
You fucking idiot. But wonder if maybe because he's a sexual pervert that maybe that is the catalyst for this. He killed everybody now. So her sister, Becky's sister, said that, you know, she didn't want to leave him. And that's why this whole thing happened. She said about the kids, they were good kids. They loved her beyond belief. They came to see her for Christmas. Not him. They were a beautiful family.
They were coming, let's go support mom through Christmas here. She said she thought the son, Gene Jr., may have threatened to take his mother with him to San Antonio where he worked to get her away. And maybe that's what caused part of this whole thing. But, yeah. And also the family was worried that he might have been sexually abusing the other children. Right. Right. Right.
Usually molesters don't just molest one kid. They generally tend to move on to another if there's no punishment for doing it the first fucking time. Especially, yeah, and especially if you move to the middle of fucking nowhere and wall yourself in.
One of the relatives here said that he never let us see the family. Little Gene was the one who told us all about it. Last Thanksgiving, he told us all about it. We all suspected it since the very beginning, but Becky kept it all hidden because she was so ashamed, meaning the abuse and everything like that. A family friend said, what can you know or what can you do when you know people are being abused and they do not want to come forward? I wish I knew.
That's hard. Yeah, you can't reach into a person's head and pluck the info out. She said, yesterday I was hysterical. Today I'm angry. I'm angry at the fact that abusive men can get away with it. He is in jail now, and he'll go to prison. The school bus driver. He got away with the abuse, though, for a long, long time. Oh, he tortured these people. I'm saying now he's not getting away with shit, though, which is good. Hucky Bear, what did he have to say? He said that everybody said he was a weirdo.
They're saying this because he was a loner. If you waved at him, he'd just turn his head. We left him alone, generally. I didn't like him. That's it. And one of the neighbors said that perhaps, this is the craziest theory, perhaps Gene Sr. cared too much. Okay. I've had enough of whatever else you've got to say. OJ just loved Nicole too much. Remember? That's what he said. What a sick thing to say. He said, might have believed he was protecting his children by killing them. No.
From what? His penis? What the fuck are you protecting them from? One part of me wants to string him up. He went off the deep, but maybe he was protecting them. He did take the time to bury them in a hole they dug. He just threw them in a hole. Is that person okay? I know he wouldn't have done it in their right mind. That's a neighbor, Mrs. Collins. Mrs. Collins, are you all right? Good God. You might be dead by now, but still.
January 1st, 1988. An article by this blowhard. This is the town's blowhard asshole. Look at this guy. Oh, boy. I'm cool guy. Thomas Garrett. Why does Thomas Garrett get his picture in the paper? Because he does an editorial. Yeah, he does an editorial thing. And this is from January 1st, 88. Mind you, this is like three days after this man's been caught.
This is his article. He says, and what should, because he talks about all this, he's done this and, you know, there has to be consequences. And what should those consequences be? Unfortunately, whatever is done to Ronald Gene Simmons won't be enough to pay for his hideous crimes. Executing him by firing squad in downtown Russellville at high noon would be justice. He wants to do it. Yeah, actually just executing him would be justice. But the greater likelihood is that Ronald Gene Simmons will escape true justice and
He will be examined at the state hospital with taxpayers paying the bill. He will remain incarcerated, being housed and fed and cared for with taxpayers again paying the bill. Well, do you want people to be locked up or not? We have to pay for food for people or else we're starving them. We also pay for the execution, man. And that's crazy, too. How much money that costs. So, yeah, I'm down.
He said he will go to trial with taxpayers paying the bill once more, but this time the taxpayers will pay to defend him as well as prosecute him. Then he'll likely go to prison, and guess who will foot the bill there? Garrett, you're a cheap fuck. Wow.
And even if he's given the death sentence, thanks to an apparently ceaseless number of appeals, the odds are in favor of Ronald Gene Simmons most likely spending the rest of his life in prison with you and I paying for his upkeep.
The other option is for him to have a job and be in fucking society, man. Yeah. What are you talking about? Yeah. Unless everybody has a nest egg of millions of dollars to house themselves. That argument is often made by people that have no alternative fucking plan. What else are we going to do, man? That's the problem. We can complain about it. That's the system we set up. What do you want? What do you want? He said, as far as I'm concerned, that's an injustice to his 16 victims and to society as a whole.
Yeah, nobody disagrees with that. That's the equivalent of that fucking law guy saying this doesn't happen around here much. This don't happen around here. In the wake of Ronald Gene Simmons' killing spree, one psychiatrist said the unusual pattern of a family annihilator was broken in this instance because the killer didn't complete the circle. He didn't commit suicide. Perhaps Ronald Gene Simmons should be given the chance to complete the circle.
What the fuck is going on? Who are you? Small town dipshit fucking editorializer. Wishing he killed himself? All right. Yeah. Or maybe we should let him kill himself. But underneath, after all this bad news, there is good news in the newspaper. Right beneath that article.
We'd like to say congratulations to this blonde lady, Eden Allen. She is the bride-to-be of Dale Cowart. Their wedding date will be February 6, 1988. And the above couple have registered their bridal requirements with us. True value. True value hardware store. 1340 Highway 62. Look at her. Blonde hair, big 80s, pretty. Buy me a ratchet set.
get this lovely couple a claw hammer oh my god that is the funniest shit i've ever seen congratulations on your wedding here's a wheelbarrow yeah look at that that's gonna be right we got you some spackle what do you think big tub of it just a tub of spackle what do you think here's a gross of fucking framing nails you're gonna love it now
It's where you're wed and so he got you a gross. You can build a whole house with that. Build her a house, motherfucker. Oh my God, that's amazing. Right in the newspaper. She's all smiley. It's a registered address.
That's amazing. I had to put that in there. So open and shut case. We can march him right to the electric chair. Right. Easy. I mean, it should be. But well, no woman here. And the prosecution says that evidence from the killings at the Simmons house present something of a problem for them.
Why? There's no living witnesses, and he's given no statement. Right. So they say the physical evidence here, the weapons used were all .22 calibers, and they said...
that's the problem of tracing the bullets. They said it's tough to recover a 22 caliber projectile that has any value in ballistics tests because it's so small. If anything gets dinged at all, it's fucked. And he's using hollow points that fucking fragment. Yeah. That's the other thing is that on top of that, they're running into problems trying to interview friends of some of the young victims as well because nobody knows anything. Yeah.
They don't have any. The sheriff said it's extremely difficult to get information from even these children's friends. The man is still alive. You're going to have fear that that man may be released. They're all terrified of him, too. He's there. He can come over and shoot them. Oh, shit.
So the sheriff said that the investigation's also been slowed by the reclusive nature of him, who doesn't have any friends or even really casual acquaintances after living here for five years. He said, I feel there's a lot more information out there if I can gather it and put it together. But we're having a problem running across relatives or people who really knew him even. Right. They can't even. Yeah, they're getting nothing from people.
So the first trial comes up. This is just for Jim Chaffin and Kathy Kendrick. Those two murders. This is nothing. None of the family. They have witnesses and they know what happened here. They present obvious evidence of people going. He came in and shot that guy and I watched him do it. Eyeball witnesses are pretty damning. It's rough. It's real rough. Yeah. And so the verdict comes in in less than an hour and a half. Wow. Yeah.
That's just enough time to fill out the forms. Get it fast. And he is found guilty of capital murder and five counts of attempted capital murder as well for all the people he wounded. And, you know, even the lady he pointed the gun at, the one he shot through the head, all that stuff. They heard arguments whether to sentence him to death or life in prison without parole. Okay. Now, defense attorney.
Said he's asking the jury for mercy. He said one thing is certain. Ronald Gene Simmons is going to die in prison. So the only question is whether it's by our hand or some act of providence or our hand or by some act of providence or by a merciful God.
So, I mean, who knows? Another defense attorney said they urged him not to ask for the death penalty, but he felt duty bound not to oppose him because he wants the death penalty. Gene, he said he wanted the death sentence. He feels like he deserves it.
He asked for it from the lady that he gave the gun to. Yeah. Well, here he reads a statement in court. Anything the last thing to say for yourself here before I sentence you? And he goes, sure do. Got a lot to say. Oh, he said, I, Ronald Gene Simmons, senior, want it to be known that it is my wish and my desire that absolutely no action be taken by anybody to be to be taken to appeal or in any way change this sentence.
It is further respectfully requested that the sentence be carried out expeditiously. I want no action that will delay, deny, defer, or denounce this very correct and proper death sentence if it's given to me. My attorneys have repeatedly counseled me to appeal. However, that is not what I want. I believe now and have always have believed in the death penalty. To those who oppose the death penalty, I say in my particular case, anything short of death would be cruel and unusual punishment."
I want to die. Kill me or else fuck you. Or else you're a dick. He said, I'm of sound mind and body and have been seen by a psychoanalyst who can verify that I'm capable of making a clear and rational decision. I've given clear and careful thought and consideration, so there's nothing that will cause me to change my mind. I only ask for what I deserve. Let the torture and suffering in me end. Please allow me the right to be at peace.
Somebody shoot me now is what he's begging for. The judge says, I mean, you got it, chief. You, sir, may fuck off death penalty plus 147 years. Okay. Just in case. Yeah. Still faces a second trial of 14 other murders. Oh.
Which is a lot. So June 10th, 1988 comes around. This asshole has nothing else to write about but fucking this case. Yeah. The same guy, Thomas Garrett, this dipshit. He says, unless the courts act faster than courts are accustomed to acting, it's likely Ronald Gene Simmons will become eligible for Social Security before he walks death rows last mile. Yes. If you're in prison, you don't get Social Security. No, I think he's just saying he'll be over 65.
He said, yes, friends, church groups and death penalty opponents have stepped in to block the execution of a man who truly deserves to die, even though we ask that no one interfere with his date with death. We should consider that last wish and grant it. What a noble man. Are you also against pedophiles, sir? Yeah, he's a real he's a real fucking, you know.
virtue signaling asshole over here. I don't like it when people kill 16 people. Wow. You're so original, you fat fuck. So...
February 1989 is the trial for his family. And I mean, there's not much to be done here. What could he say? I left and someone else came over and killed 14 people in my family. And that triggered me to go on a killing spree of my own. They showed me how to do it. I was so lost. I didn't know what to do. Especially they found out that he was drinking beer and hanging out and going to the store, going to Sears. Going to the bar.
The bar and the Sears. Um, so he's found guilty of 14 counts of capital murder in the debts of his family. That is a lot. Um,
They said they offered a possible motive here. This is the DA during sentencing offering a possible motive presenting an undated note that was discovered in a safe deposit box at a Russellville bank after he was arrested, his safe deposit box. The letters seem to indicate a very strange relationship between him and his daughter, Sheila, in his mind anyway.
They said the letter showed it was very weird. He said, quote, this is to Sheila, quote, if you're trying to hurt me, then you should be very proud of yourself because you've done a very good job of it. You have destroyed me. I do not want D, meaning Dennis, her husband, to set foot on my property. He turned you against me. You want me out of your life? I will be out of your life. I will see you in hell.
So they're trying to at least put a motive on it and said, maybe this is part of it. The judge ruled the letter admissible. Now it gets crazy. He said it's invisible and the prosecutor read it. And so fucking Simmons shoves his lawyer out of the way and socks the prosecutor in the face. Fucking blasted him right in the grill. One last act.
Pops him in the face and then unsuccessfully tries to get the deputy's gun from his holster after that. He wrestles the deputy for his gun. He was going to do it. He was going to fucking kill everyone and save a bullet for himself, I think. Oh, boy. That's what he was going to do. Officers rushed him out of the courtroom and chained him up and everything else. They said, you, sir, may fuck off. Death penalty all around for you. More death penalty. He again waives all his rights to appeal. Mm-hmm.
While on death row, he has to be separated from the other prisoners because they constantly threatened his life. Yeah. Not why you'd think, which would be he killed kids and fucked his daughter. That's not why. The death row people are mad. There's this death row. I mean, there's no judge. Regular prison. Yeah, he did this to kids. It's death row. We're all horrible, murdering pieces of shit. So, yeah.
We had to do the most crazy shit to get here. They're mad at him because they believe that him not appealing damages their chances of beating their own death sentence. Yeah, you're fucking it up for us, dude. Yeah, you got to do this. March 1st, 1989, he's found competent to waive his rights to appeal the second conviction. However, there's a filing...
Right.
So 1989, they try to do this. There's another death row inmate here trying to do that. And he contends the U.S. Constitution mandates appellate review of a trial in a capital case, which I think now they do. It's automatic. Yeah, it's right now. But it wasn't then. He's asking the U.S. Supreme Court to halt Simmons' execution while the Supreme, while the court considers an appeal of the Arkansas Supreme Court's decision not to review the conviction.
So that's what he's going for here. Simmons is scheduled to be killed here in 1989. And they say this is the Whitmore petition says there are important constitutional issues, including the requirement of constitution of a constitutionally mandated appellate review in any capital case. And petitioner Whitmore intends to seek a writ to the United States Supreme Court to review this question.
So they dismiss that. The judges vote 7-2, the Supreme Court, to throw out the appeal. Twelve hours to go for his execution. He's literally eating his last meal when ongoing legal proceedings prevent the execution from being carried out. Wow.
He was watching TV and eating his last meal, and they were like, nope, we're not going to execute you. He's like, what the fuck? Why not? I hope they took the tray away from him. Come on. Let me finish that at least. Still got the ice cream to go.
So 1990, this Louis J. Franz, a Catholic priest, again, he's a guy who counsels the inmates at the Department of Corrections in Arkansas. He again petitions the Supreme Court of Arkansas for permission to proceed as Simmons's next friend, which is an illegal term. That means you can file something for him. Oh, got it.
and to prosecute and appeal on his behalf. The court ended up finding that Franz did not have standing as next friend because he had not alleged facts showing that he had ever met Simmons, much less that he had a close relationship with him. I'm Catholic. I just don't want people to die, man. Come on. I just don't like that. I'm everybody's next friend. I'm basically everybody's last friend. That's what it is. That's exactly who he is. Everybody's next and last and only friend at this point.
So 1990, Bill Clinton signs the execution warrant because he was governor of Arkansas. This is pre-president. Family wants to talk to him. Becky's family wants to talk to Gene before he gets killed. Yeah.
Uh-huh. Manuel, who I believe is a brother here... Yes, that's Becky's brother... Said, I think it would take a big pressure off of us knowing what the motive behind it was. I know at one time he really loved his children and he loved my sister, but that all changed toward the later years. Obviously, yeah. Yeah. Dennis McNulty... He's got to be fucking pissed, this guy. This is a relative of Dennis McNulty, obviously. They say that, you know...
They're mad that they're going to execute him. They don't have any reason because he's been so uncooperative. So they don't know why. They're like, what the fuck? Why? They said he's occasionally written to relatives but refers to the slayings only as the tragedy, quote unquote. It's got a word. It's got a name. That's what he says. Yep. Never admitting it or saying he's guilty or remorseful. What a dirtbag. Yeah. Patrick McNulty, who is Dennis' father, said – Incredibly Irish.
incredibly Irish. He said, cheers to y'all. And he took a shot and he passed out in his pile of his own vomit. No, he actually said in a way, I don't want him to die. He's the only link left to his family. When he dies, that link will be gone forever. Yeah. The whole thing's over. Uh, so he's going to get executed this time. It looks like last meal, Jimmy, what does he do? Last meal. He almost gets it right. And then ruins it. Okay. Yeah.
An eight ounce filet mignon. Not bad. Okay. Small one. Good choice. Well done. Oh, you son of a bitch. Why would you do that? Give him chuck steak. He won't know the difference. It's skirt. Fucking anything. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. That's some fucking tacos. What are you doing? Well done. Two raw medium onions and two raw tomatoes sliced.
What for? Tomatoes and onions just to eat. A lot of people like just slices of onions on the side. I don't get that. Six bread rolls, six slices of cheese, one banana, and two cans of 7-Up. What do you bet he made steak sandwiches? He took those six bread rolls and six slices. Yeah, he made sandwiches out of it. Out of filet? You son of a bitch. What a fucking weird... Yeah, onions and tomatoes. Maybe he made a little weird sandwich. Yeah.
and two cans of 7-Up. Have some caffeine, for Christ's sake. They said he was very specific about what he wanted for his last meal, unlike the guy who they just executed, John Edward Swindler. That's a great name to be executed. Swindler. Who said he didn't care and just give him whatever. He was a guy who killed a Fort Smith police officer in 1976. Yeah.
Simmons also directed that his personal property begin into a relative who lives in Arkansas. They refused to identify the relative, saying that it might cause that person undue problems. Yeah. His last words. He refused, by the way, all visitors, including legal counsel, clergy, anybody. Nobody's coming to see sat alone and watch TV and ate his fucking last meal. Like he wanted.
Like he wanted the whole, that's all he's ever wanted. This is a peaceful day watching TV and eating a steak sandwich. Unfortunately, at the end of it, there's a needle for him. Well, fuck him. He deserves it. So his last words were quote, justice delayed. Finally be done is justifiable homicide. That's what he said. So don't feel bad. I deserve this is what he said. Yeah.
And lethal injection comes in. He is dead at 9.02 p.m. here in 1990. And no family members claimed the body because, you know, he killed everybody. So he was buried in a pauper's plot at the Lincoln Memorial Lawn in Varner. Where the fucking prisoner's cemetery. Yeah, that's it. Pauper's lot, man. Yeah.
Ten years later, 1997, there's an article about how the title is Christmas Stirs Memories of Murder.
And it's talking about anybody around them and in their family and everything. There's in the cemetery in Colorado, which is where Becky went, because that's where her family was, there's a black granite monument that marks the grave with the ashes of five of the 16 people, that immediate family. The inscription reads, In memory of those killed in Pope County in December 1987, and lists all 14 family members. Whew.
And that's very sad. They said every time Christmas comes around, it's kind of a bummer because, you know, this whole thing is there. There's a book that comes out called Zero at the Bone. The true story of the Ronald Gene Simmons Christmas Massacre by Paul Williams and Bryce Marshall. It's only available like in old hardcovers. It never even made it to paperback. So, I mean, it's.
You can get it for like $3, but you're going to have to wait for it to come. There's no Kindle version or anything. How weird is that? Mass murder fucking always touches Colorado, man. It's always around there somewhere. Somebody was born there. She's from there. Fucking Aurora was there. Columbine's there. God, it's so sad. That's a lot. So 2001, somebody made a Holidays of Horror song.
What? With lyrics about this particular night. Okay. Macabre. Macabre is the name of the band or poem or poet or whatever. Everybody loves rhyming. It said, Simmons went crazy. Murdered 16. 14 of them family. He killed them for the holidays. It's like a holiday song. Yeah. Merry Christmas. He gunned down his family. His bullets were their presents. Dead relatives all around. This is a very happy song. I bet it's an upbeat tune. Yeah.
Happy New Year. One they won't be here to see. It's the holiday of horror because of Ronald Gene Simmons. He built a wall around his trailer home so the neighbors would leave him alone. That's the first thing that's rhymed yet. Yeah, everything. It's the worst rhymes I've ever heard. And he didn't want them to see how he abused his family. Merry Christmas. Who wrote this? Fred Durst? Yeah, that's what it sounds like. Jesus Christ. That or a new kid on the block or somebody like that. So bad.
Merry Christmas. He gunned his family down. His bullets were their presents. Dead relatives all around. That must be the chorus. That's a nice chorus. Happy New Year. They won't be here to see. It's the holiday of horror because of Ronald Gene Simmons. So there you go. That, everybody, is Pleasant Grove slash Dover, Arkansas. And one of the worst mass murders we've ever had in history. I've never heard of it. No, that's what's so fucked up. I've never heard of it either. That's crazy. Well, we've heard of it. I've been looking at it for years to do on the show, but...
And other people had done it and stuff. And I'm finally like, fuck that. I'm doing a good story. I don't care if anybody else has done it. Guess what? We'll do it better. Fuck them. I don't care. So there you go. I don't care anymore. It's a long one, too. Fuck it. And it's good. So there you go, everybody. That is a sad, terrible tale of just people living a horrible fucking life.
Just put upon life and then murdered for no reason. It's terrible. But look, abusive situations always end like this. It's always really fucking bad.
If you're in an abusive situation, get the fuck out because something bad is going to happen. You have no choice. This is bad stuff, man. You don't want this to happen. So if you like the show, please tell everybody you can. Get on whatever app you're on. Give us five stars. It really, really does help drive it up. Tell us what your last meal would be. There you go. That's perfect on there. It'll help a lot. Drives the show up the charts. Also, listen to our other two shows, Crime in Sports and Your Stupid Opinions. Yeah.
which is fucking hilarious, and you don't want to miss it. So check that out right now. Shutupandgivememurder.com is where you get all of your bonus material. Or I'm sorry, that's the website. No bonus material there. Regular stuff. You can get a link there.
You can buy merch and also tickets to live shows. Minneapolis, September 20th. You'll be our biggest show ever. Sell that bad boy out. Milwaukee the night after at the Pabst. We love the Pabst, by the way. That's almost sold out, so a few tickets left. If you want to go get them right now, I suggest. Otherwise, we added more for Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Austin. We got New York, Boston. Get your tickets now.
Shut up and give me murder.com. Patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get the bonus stuff. Oh, baby. There's so much bonus stuff and you can get it right here. Anybody $5 a month or above hundreds of episodes of back bonus stuff. You get immediately new ones every other week. One crime in sports, one small town murder this week, which you're going to get industrial disasters for crime and sports. Nothing to do with sports. Just tons of people dying in horrible, weird ways.
crazy stuff and then for small town murder we are going to talk about the cannibal cop yeah you remember that story from a few years ago let's try to unpack it and find out if he actually ate anybody or not or what happened so we'll talk all about that patreon.com slash crime in sports and you get a shout out at the end of the
show, which is coming up right now. Also follow us on social media. Shut up and give me murder.com. Shut up and give me murder on Instagram at murder small on Twitter at small town pot on Facebook. Jimmy hit me with the names of the people who would never wipe out their entire family on Christmas and then drink beer and watch TV. Hit me with them right fucking now. This week's executive producers are Cameron Kuchwara. Cameron, thank you so much. Nice pronunciation. Amber, Amber Lounds, Jordan Bennett, of course, Neilu Raphson, Johnny Neil.
It's terrific to see you again. She was at the San Francisco show. Diana Machalski, Raymond Rust. Yeah, that's right. They were worth it. I was talking to them both at the same time at one point. I was like, look at this shit. And also Tyler Ringer. Thank you so much. Thank you. And Dawn Sherman. She says, cheers.
to the only two men who gave me 500 moments of pure bliss. I don't know what that means. Salute Shantani 500 more. Let's do it. She's a mother. She should have gotten way more than that. Way more, I would hope. We'll be back to Philly soon.
Oh, fuck yeah. Next year. Next year we'll be back. Other producers this week, Peyton Meadows, Abigail Gathard, Janice Hill, Whitney Green. Happy birthday, Whitney. Happy birthday, Whitney. And Teniel Headley-Blake. I think that's it. Teniel? I don't know. Colleen Frank. I can't pronounce shit. Tyler DeMarco, Starkweather Christina. I think it might be Christina Starkweather. Charles Starkweather's daughter? Ooh.
No. Joel with no last name. Broomstick, I think. Melon. It's B-R-M-S-T-I-K. That's Broomstick. That sounds like a license plate broomstick. Melon. Melon. Melon. Melon. Melon. Melon. Melon. Melon.
I don't know. Maybe it's Mellon. James, nice to meet you. Also, someone named Lynn. Joy DiVincenzo. Kristen Chartier. Laura Buckle. Haley French. Margaret Nash. Samantha Vandekrats. Vandekrats. Vandekrats. Kayla B. John Boehner. That's probably not that one. Yeah, I'm sure it is. Former Speaker of the House, I'm sure. Yeah.
Tammy Garrison, Sarah Loopsin Canova. Loopsin Ninkova. All right. Loopus Ninkova. Loopus? Don't put Loopus in the porn version. That's her name. Oh, it's Loopus. Yeah, there you go. That's it. Loopus Ninkova. She's like, now I'm Loopus? Thanks a lot. God damn.
Daniel Duffy, Jennifer Ross, Craig Holden, Jack, Jack, Lay, oh boy, Larchevac, Larchevac, Jennifer, nope, that's Jessica, Alberti, Emanuel, Emanuel. Emanuel. Isn't that a poem? I don't know. I don't know. It may be a song, too. Who knows? Bill Redon. Sounds like an Eagles song. Emanuel. It's probably a Christmas song. It's a Don Henley for sure. Stephanie Hankins.
Andrea Krushka, Crystal Fart. Oh, boy. Oh, good. Crystal Fart. I like that. Crystal Fart. Crystal Fart. Crystal Fart. There we go. That's an expensive fart. It's a fart from a nice bottle of champagne.
Merritt with no last name, Jessica Rich, Randy Sherman, Carla Mass, Laurie with no last name, Erica Hawley, Stephanie Schillinger, Tatum. Tatum and Plant has two patrons. Thank you so much, Tatum. Thank you. Aidan McGraw, Cindy Finney, Carlos Romero, Pamela Cutter, Ida Fitch, Albert James Horn, Kristen Bray, Angel Faced Killer. Oh, boy.
Hillary with no last name. Rhonda Haskell. Scott Geisler. Patrick Spencer. Rebecca McIntosh, 16, because there was 15 others. River Tugging Phil, James. He's tugging on the river. Oh, he's filling it up. That takes a lot to fill a river from tugging. Yeah.
Let me tell you something. He sings that old song. Jeff Davis, Just Christy, Olivia DePalma, Mark with no last name, Katie with no last name, Cappy Arnold, Ronan Lane, Hannah Brooke, Justine Charters, Paige Bassey, Kate Maloney, Mikel Page. Maybe it's Mikel. Oh, yeah, it's Mikel.
Trina Miller, Danielle Gibson, Polly with no last name, Tina Mulcahy, Kelly Reeves, Jenny Hinojosa, Casey Breeze with no last name, Jonathan Darnell, Kim Bernard, Brandon Bruce, Annika Johnson, Renee Jamerson, Jane Pinkerton, David Gundino, Jordan with no last name, Sarah Hallberg, Gracken Verb.
I think that's what that says. Alex Powell, Isaac Larson, Lynn Oliver, Rachel Totao, maybe, Michaela Zivic, Stetson with no last name, Nicholas Willman, Tracy with no last name, C and the letter G, C-G, Jennifer Lawson, Heather Martin, Quinn Dawson, Carlton Powell, Heather C., Jeff
Willis, Kaylee Panos, Mayteen Stewart, Tabitha Colvin, Michelle Rollison, Daniel with no last name, DMIJ79, Terry Kennedy, Sarah Zinger, Courtney... Someone forgot to put their name. It's just they mashed the keyboard and pressed enter. Sarah Zinger, Courtney Whitworth, Katie DeGrande, DeGrande probably, Jerrica...
Jericho Marie, Christy Weed, Tanya Dabra, oh boy, Dabra Zadonsky. Yeah. Amy Mason, Jason Pearson, Tammy Little, Doug Flash.
Michael Gillian, good Christ, that's a tough one. Diane Warman, Lisa Danforth, Justine with no last name, Chris, not Christ. Chris Crow. Yeah, we got the Speaker of the House, Sex Speaker of the House, we got fucking Christ, you know.
Buddha's going to give us a couple bucks next month. You never know. Nyla with no last name. Bomber307, Greg Lindberg, the baby, grew up. Tiffany Muzzy. Yikes. Muzi? Golly. Commander and Queef. Oh, the commander, James. Oh, well, and the ex-speaker of the house. Both? Wow. Now that is, we've really cracked a different stratosphere here.
Classy people. Charlie Kane, Honey Knit. Harry with no last name. Happy birthday, Julia Mank. C. Ryan Shields. Meyer Lunk, Queen. Dakota Experiments, Transmedia Universe. I don't know what that is. Will Nelson. Definitely not Willie, but certainly a Will named Nelson. Moe with no last name. Probably the bartender. Sarah Talent. Sarah Talent.
Sarah Kelly, Darren Wilson, Amy Pendergrass, Pendergrass, Petergrass. No, that's an N. Beth Story...
That's Story, Ryan Marlott, Heather Sims, Bree Beach, Thomas Reiser, B with no last name, Reed Sadler, Brad Halsey, Joe Murphy, Ocho with no last name, Ruby Gonzalez, Tina Miranda, Jonathan Grover, Alex Kenny, Lexi with no last name, Jennifer Melke, C and B, Justin Hanley,
Jay Hilde, 11. Dan Dan Mott. BF, our best friend, evidently. Dakota Savage. Nora Bird. Justine. Justine. Nike Newquist. Newquist. Oh, it's a Q. Yeah. Nikki MF. MF and star. She's a star, James. Don't tell her she's not. Motherfucking star, bitch. That's right. Angie with no last name. Jim B. Mandy, 100. DJ Jordan. Jeanette Nix.
J.C. Jutai, Rebecca Morgan, Harrison Bequette, Brian Himmler, Joe Ayers, Elwood Blues,
Just change the last name. How fucking great could the last name be? I mean, it's overshadowed. I don't think anybody's going to like it. That is not good. Yeah, not a lot. Yeah, no. There's a few names from there, about five of them that you really don't want. Can't do it. Joe Ayers, Elwood Blues, Desiree with no last name, Nancy Hamilton, Jeremiah Romero, Tony Tone, Punky Ween.
Ween? Yeah. Miguel Hernandez and Blake Chancellor and all of our patrons. You guys, thank you so much. Thank you, everybody, so much for all that you do for us. Thank you for everything. By the way, it's my birthday today, and thank you for all the birthday wishes on social media. I really appreciate that a ton. You guys are so fucking cool. And you want to follow us on social media, head over to the site, shutupandgivememurder.com.
drop-down menus. It's all right there. You can't miss it. Keep coming back and hanging out with us, and we hope you enjoyed the first 501. We'll be here for another 501. Until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. Bye!
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Scammers are best known for living the high life until they're forced to trade it all in for handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit once they're finally caught. I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. And we're the host of Scamfluencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of some of the most infamous scams of all time, the impact on victims, and what's left once the facade falls away.
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To the infamous scams of Real Housewives stars like Teresa Giudice, what should have proven to be a major downfall only seemed to solidify her place in the Real Housewives Hall of Fame. Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad-free right now on Wondery+.