Ronald Simmons Research Paper

Ronald Gene Simmons began a killing spree on December 22, 1987 that culminated in the worst mass murder occurrence in Arkansas history six days later. He killed sixteen people during this short period of time; fourteen of his victims were members of his own family. Ronald was born forty seven years earlier on July, 15, 1940 in the city of Chicago. His father, William Simmons, died of a stroke before Ronald’s second birthday. Simmons’s mother remarried within a year of his father’s untimely passing. Her new husband was William D. Griffen, a civil engineer employed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Army employment took Ronald Gene Simmons’s family to Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1946. This was the first of several transitions around central Arkansas

Investigators believe that his first victim was his wife, killed on December 22, 1987. He both beat and shot the woman who had born him seven children. His twenty-nine-year old son, Ronald Gene Simmons Jr., was visiting the family at the time. Ronald Jr. was bludgeoned and shot in a fashion similar his mother’s murder. Ronald Sr. then decided to take the life of his three-year-old granddaughter, as well. The child was strangled. The bodies of Simmons’s wife, oldest son, and granddaughter were all dumped in a pit on the family land that had been

It is likely that the first family to arrive that of Simmons’s twenty-three-year-old son, William H, Simmons II. He was accompanied by his wife, Renata May Simmons, and their son. The child was only twenty months old. The young couple was shot. Their bodies were covered with coats and bedding in the dining room rather than being thrown in the pit Simmons had used to inter the other murdered family members. The young toddler’s body was put into a car trunk on the family property. Sheila, Simmons’s twenty-four-year-old daughter, was the next Simmons child to arrive on the property. Her husband and two children joined her for this holiday visit. One child, Sylvia, was the seven-year-old incestuous progeny of Ronald Gene Simmons and his daughter.Sheila. The other child was nearing his second birthday. Sheila’s body was shown reverence after her murder; Simmons placed her on the table in the dining room. Simmons covered Sheila’s body with a tablecloth. Simmons shot Sheila’s husband and strangled her two children. The small body of the boy found rest in another car trunk on the Simmons family