Ronald Gene Simmons Sr. (July 15, 1940 – June 25, 1990) was an American mass murderer who killed 16 people over a week-long period in Arkansas in 1987 and wounded several others. A retired military serviceman, Simmons murdered fourteen members of his family, including a daughter he had sexually abused and the child he had fathered with her, as well as a former co-worker, and a stranger; he also wounded four others. He is the most prolific mass murderer in Arkansas history.^[1]

Simmons was sentenced to death on each of the sixteen counts, and after refusing to appeal his sentence, was executed on June 25, 1990. His refusal to appeal was the subject of a 1990 US Supreme Court case, Whitmore v. Arkansas.

Ronald Gene Simmons was born to Loretta and William Simmons on July 15, 1940, in Chicago, Illinois. On January 31, 1943, William Simmons died of a stroke. Within a year, Simmons's mother had remarried, this time to William D. Griffen, a civil engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In 1946, the corps moved Griffen to Little Rock, Arkansas, the first of several transfers that would take the family across central Arkansas over the next decade.

On September 15, 1957, Simmons dropped out of school and joined the U.S. Navy, and was first stationed at Naval Station Bremerton in Washington, where he met Bersabe Rebecca "Becky" Ulibarri, whom he married in New Mexico on July 9, 1960. Over the next 18 years, the couple had seven children. In 1963, Simmons left the Navy, and, approximately two years later, joined the U.S. Air Force. During his 20-year military career, Simmons was awarded a Bronze Star Medal, the Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross for his service as an airman, and the Airforce Ribbon for Excellent Marksmanship. Simmons retired from the Air Force and military service on November 30, 1979, with the rank of master sergeant.

In 1981, Simmons was being investigated for multiple allegations of child sex abuse and that he had impregnated his 17-year-old daughter, Sheila.

Otero County Sheriff's Department Investigator Bill Woltz said that authorities were tipped off by a teenage friend in whom Sheila had confided. However, when a deputy was dispatched to investigate, Sheila and her mother refused to discuss the matter.

In March 1981, the county social services office reported Simmons to the District Attorney in nearby Alamogordo, Steve Sanders. Simmons' oldest child, Robert Eugene Simmons, Jr., reported the incest allegation to the New Mexico Department of Human Services. DA Sanders assembled evidence that students, parents, and teachers had provided, but it was mostly tidbits of hearsay that couldn't be used in court. Sanders subpoenaed Sheila to appear before a grand jury. After being threatened with arrest for contempt of court, Sheila reluctantly appeared and testified against her father, telling the jurors that her father had intimate relations with her three times. 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."^[2]

After a three-count indictment of incest was handed down, on August 11, 1981, sheriff deputies drove to Wills Canyon, near Cloudcroft, New Mexico to arrest Simmons, but the house was empty, and there was no forwarding address.^[3][4] The New Mexico incest charges against Simmons were still open but had been "conditionally dropped" August 10, 1982, meaning they could be reinstated.^[5][2]

Fearing arrest, Simmons fled with his family, first to Ward, Arkansas in Lonoke County, where he worked as a civilian employee in a Little Rock Army recruiting office from January 1982 to August 1983. Purchasing a small "farm too far from Little Rock to commute" in the summer of 1983, the family took up residence on a 13-acre tract of land in Pope County, 6.5 miles north of Dover that they would dub "Mockingbird Hill."^[6][5]

The residence was constructed of two older-model mobile homes joined to form one large home, neither of which had a telephone nor indoor plumbing, and was surrounded by a makeshift privacy fence that was as high as 10 feet tall in some places. As a result of the home's lack of plumbing, Simmons ordered his family to dig three cesspits, one of which would eventually be where he disposed of some of their bodies.^[7]

Simmons worked a string of low-paying jobs in the nearby town of Russellville, Arkansas. He quit a position as an accounts receivable clerk at Woodline Motor Freight on November 19, 1986, after numerous reports of inappropriate sexual advances.^[5] He worked at a Sinclair Mini Mart for approximately a year and a half before quitting on December 18, 1987.^[8] By the time of the killings, the number of people within the home had reduced to seven, as two of the older children (Billy and Sheila) moved out, married, and had children of their own.

Shortly before Christmas 1987, Simmons decided to kill all the members of his family. On the morning of December 22, he first killed his wife Rebecca and eldest son Gene by bludgeoning them and shooting them with a .22-caliber pistol.^[9] He then killed his three-year-old granddaughter Barbara by strangulation. Simmons dumped the bodies in one of the cesspits he had forced his children to dig previously. Simmons then waited for his other children to return from school for Christmas break. Upon their arrival, he told them he had presents for them but wanted to give them one at a time. He first killed his daughter, 17-year-old Loretta, whom Simmons strangled and held under the water in a rain barrel. The three other children, Eddy, Marianne, and Becky, were then killed in the same way, and subsequently dumped in the cesspit.^[7] The older six relatives were shot as many as seven times each.^[10][9]

Around mid-day on December 26, the remaining family members arrived at the home, as Simmons had invited them over for the holidays. The first to be killed was Simmons' son Billy and his wife Renata, who were both shot dead. He then strangled and drowned their 20-month-old son, Trae. Simmons also shot and killed his oldest daughter, Sheila (whom he had sexually abused), and her husband, Dennis McNulty. Simmons then strangled his child by Sheila, seven-year-old Sylvia Gail, and finally, his 21-month-old grandson Michael. Simmons laid the bodies of his whole family in neat rows in the lounge. Their bodies were covered with coats except that of Sheila, who was covered by Rebecca Simmons' best tablecloth. The bodies of Trae and Michael were wrapped in plastic sheeting and left in abandoned cars at the end of the lane. After the murders, Simmons drove to a Sears store in Russellville, where he retrieved Christmas gifts that he had previously ordered for his family. That night, he went for a drink at a local bar before returning home where he spent the rest of the evening and the following day drinking beer and watching television.^[7]

On the morning of December 28, Simmons drove to a Walmart in Russellville, where he purchased another firearm to use in the attack he was about to carry out. His first target was a law firm where he had previously met secretary Kathy Cribbins Kendrick. Simmons had been infatuated with Kendrick, but she had rejected him. After walking into the office, he shot and killed Kendrick. He next went to an oil company office, where he intended to kill the owner, Russell "Rusty" Taylor. Taylor was also the owner of the Sinclair Mini Mart from which Simmons had recently resigned. He shot and wounded Taylor before killing another person in the building named James David Chaffin; Chaffin was the only deceased victim who was a stranger to Simmons.^[11] Another employee in the building was shot at, though the bullet missed.^[7]

Simmons then drove on to Sinclair Mini Mart, shooting and wounding two more people. His final target was the office of the Woodline Motor Freight Company, where he shot his former supervisor twice, wounding her.^[12] He then ordered one of the employees at gunpoint to call the police, telling her “I’ve come to do what I wanted to do. It’s all over now. I’ve gotten everybody who wanted to hurt me.”^[13] When the police arrived, Simmons handed over his gun and surrendered without any resistance.^[7] Throughout the 40-minute-long rampage, Simmons had killed two and injured four others.

After his arrest, Simmons underwent a psychiatric evaluation where he was found fit to stand trial and was ordered held without bond.

Defended by two local court-appointed attorneys,^[4] John Harris and Robert "Doc" Irwin,^[9] he first went on trial in Ozark—moved there because of pretrial publicity—for capital murder for the killings of Kendrick and Chaffin, five counts of attempted murder and a kidnapping charge. Under Arkansas law, capital murder applied to crimes involving multiple killings. In the four-day trial, Simmons was linked to shootings at four businesses through eyewitness accounts and ballistics evidence.^[18] The defense rested without presenting evidence or calling witnesses. Simmons was found guilty on May 12, 1988, and was sentenced to death.^[19][7]

After jurors had been excused, Simmons told Circuit Judge John Patterson he had a statement to make. Speaking softly from the witness stand, Simmons stated in open court that, after careful thought and consideration, he was ready to waive all his rights to appeal.^[18][20] His statement included the following:

I, Ronald Gene Simmons, Sr., want it to be known that it is my wish and my desire that absolutely no action by anybody be taken to appeal or in any way change this sentence.

It is further respectfully requested that this sentence be carried out expeditiously. I want no action that will delay, deny, defer, or denounce this very correct and proper death sentence.^[21]

On May 16, Judge Patterson found Simmons to be of sound mind and could waive his right to appeal. Patterson issued an order for Simmons to be executed by lethal injection at 11 a.m. June 27.^[22] Calling his sentence "proper punishment for the crime," Simmons told the judge he would not try to stop the execution. "I arrived at my decision in regard to the proper punishment on Dec. 28 and don't hold your breath for me to change it.^[23]

In a 6-1 ruling, the Arkansas Supreme Court issued a temporary stay of the execution on June 20 after attorney Mark S. Cambiano for Catholic priest Louis J. Franz raised issues of whether Arkansas had or should have had a mandatory review of capital cases or the waiver of appeals in such cases.^[24]

On June 21, Circuit Judge Patterson said that the trial for the murders of Simmons family members, initially scheduled for July 18, would be postponed indefinitely pending decisions by the higher court.^[25]

The Arkansas Supreme Court terminated the temporary stay on July 1, 1988, in a 5-2 ruling,^[26] holding that Rev. Franz did not have standing in the case and that Simmons understood his choice not to appeal. They also held that automatic appeals were not mandated but that the court would not automatically acquiesce to a defendant's desire to decline his right to appeal. ^[27]

With the stay lifted on July 15, on July 15, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton set Simmons's execution date for August 9 in a letter to A.L. "Art" Lockhart, director of the Arkansas Department of Corrections.^[28]

U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Eisele stayed the execution on August 3, 1988, telling lawyers he would decide later in the month whether a court review in death penalty cases is mandatory but wouldn't consider if others had standing to intervene nor whether Simmons was competent to waive his right to appeal.^[29]

Simmons next went on trial for the murders of his 14 family members and was found guilty on February 10, 1989, again being sentenced to death by lethal injection. As to motive, a family friend told investigators that Simmons' wife had been saving up money to divorce Simmons when the killings happened. During the trial Simmons had to be removed from the courtroom for punching the prosecutor, John Bynum, and trying to grab a deputy's handgun, after Bynum had introduced a letter between Simmons and his daughter Sheila in which Simmons expressed anger that Sheila had revealed that he was the father of her child, and that he would see her in Hell.^[1][30] He refused to appeal his death sentence, stating, "To those who oppose the death penalty – in my particular case, anything short of death would be cruel and unusual punishment."^[31] The trial court conducted a hearing concerning Simmons' competence to waive further proceedings, and concluded that his decision was knowing and intelligent.

Simmons became the subject of the United States Supreme Court case Whitmore v. Arkansas when another death row inmate, Jonas Whitmore, attempted unsuccessfully to force an appeal of Simmons' case.^[32]

While on death row, Simmons had to be separated from other prisoners as his life was threatened constantly. This was because he refused to appeal his death sentence; the other prisoners believed Simmons was damaging their chances of beating their own death sentences.

In June, Assistant Attorney General Jack Gillean said Simmons could stop the execution at any time up to the point of the lethal injection by saying he wanted to pursue his right to an appeal. "That is because he is a volunteer, which is the word we're using for people who aren't appealing and who want to be executed."^[25][9]

On May 31, 1990, Arkansas governor (later President) Bill Clinton signed Simmons' execution warrant, and on June 25, he died by the method he had chosen, lethal injection, in the Cummins Unit.^[33] The execution commenced at 9:02 p.m. CDT and he was declared dead at 9:19 p.m.^[34] None of his surviving relatives would claim the body, and he was buried in a potter's field in Lincoln County, Arkansas.^[7][9]

• Capital punishment in Arkansas
• Capital punishment in the United States
• List of people executed in Arkansas

• Moore, Jim: Rampage - America's Largest Family Mass Murder; The Summit Publishing Group, 1992. ISBN 978-1-56530-002-6
• Marshall, Bryce Zero at the Bone: Story of Gene Simmons Mass Murder; Pocket Star Books, 1991. ISBN 978-0-671-68511-9

• Crime Library Report
• Ronald Gene Simmons from the Office of the Clark County Prosecuting Attorney
• Article at The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture