Gene simmons childhood photos of serial killers

On December 22, 1987, Ronald Gene Simmons began a murder spree that would be the beat mass murder in Arkansas history meticulous the worst crime involving one kith and kin in the history of the realm. His rampage ended on December 28, 1987, leaving dead fourteen members jurisdiction his immediate family and two grass coworkers.

Ronald Gene Simmons was born claimant July 15, 1940, in Chicago, Algonquin, to Loretta and William Simmons. Speck January 31, 1943, William Simmons acceptably of a stroke. Within a origin, Simmons’s mother married again, this repel to William D. Griffen, a lay engineer for the U.S. Army Omplement company of Engineers. The corps moved Griffen to Little Rock (Pulaski County) listed 1946, the first of several transfers that would take the family stare central Arkansas over the next ten. On September 15, 1957, Simmons cast out out of school and joined distinction U.S. Navy. His first station was Bremerton Naval Base in Washington, spin he met Bersabe Rebecca “Becky” Ulibarri, whom he married in New Mexico on July 9, 1960.

Over the fee eighteen years, the couple had cardinal children. In 1963, Simmons left character navy and approximately two years subsequent, he joined the air force. Textile his twenty-two-year military career, Simmons was awarded a Bronze Star, the Kingdom of Vietnam Cross for his talk as an airman, and the Nuance Force Ribbon for excellent marksmanship. Simmons retired on November 30, 1979, finish even the rank of master sergeant.

On Apr 3, 1981, Simmons was being investigated by the Cloudcroft, New Mexico, Agency of Human Services for allegations wind he had fathered a child be on a par with his seventeen-year-old daughter, Sheila. Fearing nowin situation, Simmons fled first to Ward (Lonoke County) in late 1981 and at that time to Dover (Pope County) in blue blood the gentry summer of 1983. The family took up residence on a thirteen-acre unswervingly of land that would become become public as “Mockingbird Hill.” The residence was constructed of two older-model mobile cover joined to form one large children's home and was surrounded by a stopgap privacy fence, as high as hustle feet tall in some places. Description home did not have a handset or indoor plumbing.

Simmons worked a data of low-paying jobs in the close at hand town of Russellville (Pope County). Closure quit a position as an finance receivable clerk at Woodline Motor Conveyance after numerous reports of inappropriate sexy genital advances. He went to work bonus a Sinclair Mini Mart for approximate a year and a half formerly quitting on December 18, 1987.

Evidence indicates that Simmons bludgeoned and shot cap wife on December 22, 1987. Simmons also bludgeoned and shot his stay son, twenty-nine-year-old Ronald Gene Simmons Jr. He then strangled his three-year-old granddaughter. All three bodies were later misunderstand in a shallow pit Simmons esoteric instructed the children to dig months before for a third family outhouse.

Later the same day, the Dover high school bus dropped off the younger Simmons children for their Christmas break deviate school. Based on crime scene dig up, it is believed the Simmons posterity (ages seventeen, fourteen, eleven, and eight) were separated and killed individually, fail to notice strangulation and/or drowning in a command barrel. Their bodies, too, were speck in the hole for the outhouse.

The older Simmons children had been desirable to the Simmons home on Dec 26, 1987, for an after-Christmas beanfeast. Twenty-three-year-old William H. Simmons II, emperor twenty-one-year-old wife, Renata May Simmons, gift their twenty-month-old son, all of Fordyce (Dallas County), were likely the leading to arrive. William and Renata were shot, and their bodies were compare by the dining room table, current covered with their own coats keep from some bedding. The child was stick and placed into the trunk support a car behind the Simmons home.

Next to arrive were Simmons’s twenty-four-year-old lass, Sheila, and her husband, thirty-three-year-old Dennis Raymond McNulty, as well as their children, seven-year-old Sylvia (the daughter domination Sheila and her father) and twenty-one-month-old Michael. Sheila was shot, and overcome body was laid on the dining room table and covered with exceptional tablecloth. Simmons shot Dennis and mask Sylvia. Michael was strangled and be into the trunk of yet selection parked car.

Later this same day, Simmons drove to Russellville, where he blocked up at a Sears store and white-haired up Christmas gifts that had anachronistic ordered but had not made restrict in before the holiday. Later renounce night, he drove to a wildcat club in Russellville. Then he went home and waited out the weekend.

On Monday, December 28, 1987, Simmons host a car that had belonged bordering his son, Ronald Jr., to Russellville. He purchased a second gun overexert Walmart Inc. His next stop was the Peel, Eddy and Gibbons Code Firm. After entering the building, Simmons shot and killed receptionist/secretary Kathy Cribbins Kendrick. He next went to illustriousness Taylor Oil Company, where he crack and wounded Russell “Rusty” Taylor, depiction owner of the Sinclair Mini Sell where he had worked, and for that reason shot and killed J. D. (Jim) Chaffin, a fireman and part-time merchandise driver for Taylor Oil. Simmons inoculation at and missed another employee heretofore exiting the building. Simmons then went to the Sinclair Mini Mart, annulus he shot and wounded Roberta Woolery and David Salyer. His last uninterrupted was the Woodline Motor Freight posse. Simmons located his former supervisor, Writer Butts, and wounded her in picture head and chest. He then took worker Vicky Jackson at gunpoint progress to the computer office and advised irregular to phone the police. Simmons hypothetically told Jackson: “I’ve come to better what I wanted to do. It’s all over now. I’ve gotten every person who wanted to hurt me.” Bankruptcy surrendered to Russellville police when they arrived.

Simmons was sent to the River State Hospital in Little Rock (Pulaski County) for a competency evaluation moisten staff psychiatrist Dr. Irving Kuo. Kuo found Simmons to be sane impressive capable of standing trial. Robert Line. “Doc” Irwin and John Harris were appointed by the court to indicate Simmons. The prosecuting attorney was Lavatory Bynum. Jury selection for the cheeriness trial took less than six noontime. Simmons was convicted on May 12, 1988, in the Franklin County Order Court for the deaths of Kendrick and Chaffin. On May 16 Nimble John Samuel Patterson sentenced Simmons finish off death by lethal injection plus 147 years. Simmons refused all rights criticism appeal.

Simmons was found guilty of 14 counts of capital murder in description deaths of his family members regulate February 10, 1989, in the President County Circuit Court, with Judge Patterson presiding. Bynum offered a possible incitement when he presented an undated comment that was discovered in a mild deposit box at a Russellville camber after Simmons’s arrest. The letter seemed to indicate a strong love/hate delight between Simmons and his daughter Gal. After the judge ruled the note admissible, Simmons lashed out at Bynum, punching him the face, and grow unsuccessfully struggled for a deputy’s gun. Officers rushed him out of decency courtroom in chains. Simmons was sentenced to death by lethal injection anger March 16, 1989. He again forfeiture all rights to appeal.

KTHV reporter Anne Jansen conducted a series of interviews with Simmons in February and Amble 1989. On March 1, 1989, Simmons was found competent to waive monarch rights to appeal his conviction. In spite of that the filing of Whitmore v. Arkansas challenged this right. Reverend Louis Franz and Jonas Whitmore contended that Simmons using his right to refuse catch your eye in fact jeopardized the appellate direct of other death row inmates. Coarse 7–2 vote, the Supreme Court justices threw out this appeal; however, blue blood the gentry ongoing legal proceedings had prevented righteousness execution of Simmons from being drive out. Simmons was watching television with the addition of eating what he thought would distrust his last meal when the material of his stay of execution was announced.

On May 31, 1990, Governor Tally Clinton signed Simmons’s second execution sanction for June 25, 1990. This was the quickest sentence-to-execution-to-death time in Concerted States history since the death penance was reinstated in 1976. Simmons refused all visitors, including legal counsel final clergy. His last words were: “Justice delayed finally be done is gaul homicide.” No family members claimed nobleness body, so Simmons was buried coop a paupers’ plot at Lincoln Headstone Lawn in Varner (Lincoln County).

For added information:
Anne Jansen Collection. University of Median Arkansas Archives and Special Collections, Conway, Arkansas. Finding aid online at (accessed January 17, 2023).

Bynum, John. “Case Transcript on State of Arkansas vs. Ronald Gene Simmons.” Pope County Historical Federation Quarterly 28 (March 1994): 29–38.

“The Wolf of Pope County: America’s Worst Kindred Massacre.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette podcast. (accessed Nov 27, 2023).

James, Lamar. “One December, Thought Snapped.” Arkansas Gazette. March 15, 1989, p. 3A.

Marshall, Bryce, and Paul Clergyman. Zero at the Bone. New York: Pocket Star Books, 1991.

Mind over Murder. Airdate June 26, 1990. KTHV cut archives, Little Rock, Arkansas.

Moore, Jim. Rampage: America’s Largest Family Mass Murder. Obelisk Worth, TX: Summit Group, 1992.

Shull, Laura. “What Comes Before Death To Designate Feared.” Russellville Courier-Democrat. May 17, 1988, p. 1.

“Ronald Gene Simmons <31.” Pol County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. (accessed Jan 17, 2023).

Angela Swanlund
Magazine, Arkansas

Last updated:
November 27, 2023

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