Episode 646: Ronald Gene Simmons Part II - To Kill A Bunch of Mockingbirds

Summary

Last Podcast On The Left

Episode 646: Ronald Gene Simmons Part II - To Kill a Bunch of Mockingbirds

Date: December 12, 2025
Hosts: Marcus Parks, Henry Zebrowski, Ed Larson

Episode Overview

This episode concludes the two-part series examining the life and crimes of Ronald Gene Simmons, the most prolific family annihilator in American history. The hosts detail the harrowing events leading up to, during, and after the Christmas Massacre of 1987, in which Simmons murdered 14 people, primarily his own family, before embarking on a local killing spree. The episode explores Simmons’s psychology, abusive family dynamics, his sense of entitlement and control, and the impact of his crimes, all with the show's signature irreverent dark humor.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction and Tone-Setting Banter

• [01:25-05:16] The hosts open with trademark banter, joking about taboo subjects to disarm the audience before diving into grim subject matter.
• There’s playful chatter about crossdressing in the military, family acceptance, and “panty-curious” intros—tying back satirically to themes of repression and secrecy.

2. Recap: Who Was Ronald Gene Simmons?

• [05:35] Henry: “We are concluding our series on Ronald Gene Simmons with the Christmas Massacre.”
• Simmons is described as a controlling, entitled, and profoundly abusive patriarch who attached his manhood and self-worth to the dominance of his large family.
• [05:56] Marcus: Emphasizes that Simmons’s crimes were rooted in entitlement: “Ronnie felt entitled to everything that America had to offer a white man in 1987.”

3. Cycle of Abuse and Control

• [07:49] Simmons’s iron grip began to fracture as his children grew up and his wife, Becky, asserted autonomy—including sterilization after seven children, defying Simmons’s demand for more offspring.
• [09:06-10:24] Hosts discuss the various motivations of family annihilators compared to Simmons, who “planned everything out because of his entitlement and feeling owed a certain life” (Henry, [10:13]).

4. Incest and Escalating Crimes

• [12:39-14:25] Simmons’s incestuous abuse of his daughter Sheila is laid out in upsetting detail.
  • He publicly favored Sheila, took sexually charged Polaroids, and escalated to forced pregnancy.
  • The family’s silence and isolation were enforced through fear and manipulation.
  • [14:25] Marcus (facetiously): “This is my daughter I fuck.” (Exemplifies the hosts’ black humor and disgust at Simmons’s brazenness.)

5. Attempted Intervention and Failed Law Enforcement

• [15:18-18:14] When Sheila becomes pregnant, Becky informs her son, who alerts authorities. CPS intervenes, but Simmons evades repercussions by moving the family to Arkansas just ahead of arrest.
• Loopholes and lack of cross-state databases allowed Simmons to escape justice and restart his abusive cycle.
• [17:40] Henry: “It is surprisingly hard to find incest statistics, though.”

6. Arkansas: Descent Into Paranoia, Isolation, and Obsession

• [24:21-26:33] In Arkansas, Simmons grows increasingly paranoid, restricting his family’s movements, enforcing darkness and silence, and physically preparing for more violence.
• Sheila gains perspective and support by attending business school and confiding in friends, eventually rejecting Simmons.

7. Mockingbird Hill: The Stage for Massacre

• [27:18-28:17] Simmons buys 13 acres and names it Mockingbird Hill, transforming it into an isolated, junk-ridden compound devoid of basic plumbing and privacy—a literal and figurative dump where his family is both physically and emotionally imprisoned.
• [28:24-29:16] The family’s hopes of a fresh start in Arkansas dissolve as descendants leave, Becky seeks help, and Simmons’s rage festers.

8. Trigger Events: Job Loss, Social Rejection, and the 'Masturbation Room'

• [33:22] Simmons retreats into isolation, obsessively masturbating to Polaroids of Sheila and seizing any remaining control and pleasure.
• [35:12-36:00] Simmons is further humiliated by women bosses and colleagues, particularly after being rejected by coworker Kathy Kendrick.

9. Manipulation Fails & The Murder Countdown

• [38:41-40:14] Simmons’s emotional appeals to his remaining family are transparently self-serving. Recognizing growing defiance, he moves toward violence.
• [40:22] His violent urges are foreshadowed by shooting animals and making veiled threats.
• [41:55] Becky refuses to leave out of fear, familiar with the statistics that the most dangerous time is when an abused tries to escape: “That’s usually when all the bad shit happens.”

10. Massacre: The Christmas Killings

• [51:18-56:04] Detailed, graphic step-by-step account of Simmons’s methodical, cold-blooded murder of his wife, children, grandchildren, and more, over three distinct waves Dec 22-26, 1987:
  • Shoots adults, strangles children, disposes of bodies in privy pits, then tries to stage scene as outside maniac’s work.
• [53:50] Henry: “God damn. It’s annihilation.”
• [59:35] Marcus: “He hated the kids. He resented the children most of all because he literally couldn’t control their futures.”
• The psychological horror is underlined: the killing was spread over several days—rare even among family annihilators.

11. Aftermath & Spree Killings in Town

• [62:50-66:37] After murdering his entire family, Simmons embarks on a local shooting spree, targeting those he believes wronged him (former colleagues, supervisors).
• Notably, he targets women at close range, enacting particular violence against them.
• The massacre is only stopped when 71-year-old Tony Carter fights back with cans of soda, driving Simmons off ([71:05]).

12. Arrest, Trial, and Execution

• [73:35-74:09] Simmons is arrested calmly and refuses to cooperate or offer explanations, maintaining control through his silence.
• His only “mitigation neutralizing maneuver” is punching the prosecutor in the jaw ([76:24]) in a final demonstration of narcissistic bravado.
• Simmons demands the death penalty without appeal, committed by lethal injection. Notably, his execution order was signed by then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton ([77:30-78:09]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Marcus [09:57]: “If you find worth in the size of your family, when you actually die, you are worthless.”
• Henry [10:13]: “He planned all of this—not from a momentary breakdown, but entitlement—what he believed he deserved just for being a white man in America."
• Marcus [14:25, mocking Simmons]: “This is my daughter I fuck.”
• Marcus [38:41]: Quoting Simmons’s self-centered apology letter: "You just don't know what it's been like for me."
• Marcus [53:50]: “God damn. It’s annihilation.”
• Henry [77:03]: “The only thing decent that he did—sort of—was die.”
• Marcus [77:56]: “It’s like finding out Thomas himself made the burger at Wendy’s... it’s special when a future president signs the execution order.”

Comic Relief:

• [71:05] Tony Carter, the 71-year-old customer, chasing Simmons out of the Mini Mart with cans of soda stands as a surreal but triumphant pushback against evil:
  • Marcus: “You think you’re the meanest old bastard in this town? Not while Tony Carter’s around!”

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Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Content/Segment | |----------------|-------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:05-05:16 | Opening banter, setting irreverent tone | | 05:35-07:30 | Series recap & theme: control, entitlement, annihilation | | 12:39-14:25 | Description of Simmons's incestuous abuse | | 15:18-18:14 | CPS intervention and flight to Arkansas | | 24:21-26:33 | Growing isolation, paranoia and control in Arkansas | | 27:18-28:17 | “Mockingbird Hill” setup, hellish compound | | 38:41-40:14 | Failed emotional manipulation and escalation to violence | | 51:18-56:04 | Detailed narration of the Christmas Massacre | | 62:50-66:37 | Simmons’s spree killings in town | | 73:35-74:09 | Simmons’s arrest and silence | | 76:24 | “Mitigation neutralizing maneuver”—punches prosecutor | | 77:30-78:09 | Bill Clinton signs the execution order |

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Episode Takeaways

• Ronald Gene Simmons’s actions were premeditated, driven by entitled rage, and distinctly different from other family annihilators who acted from desperation rather than entitlement. His psychological need for dominance and control—paired with sexual violence and narcissism—created the conditions for catastrophic violence.
• The episode is a chilling study in how cycles of abuse, societal failures, and deep narcissism can converge into tragedy.
• The hosts balance harrowing subject matter with gallows humor, skillfully walking the line between informative true crime and comedic commentary—with moments of dark absurdity and human resilience (Tony Carter’s soda-can intervention).

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Further Listening

• Previous episode: Ronald Gene Simmons Part I (background, early life)
• References to: Family annihilators (John List, Chris Watts, Andrea Yates, Fritzl), serial offenders, and history of mass violence in America.

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For listeners seeking deep insight, morbid history, and cathartic comic relief—a classic, disturbing “Last Podcast on the Left” episode.

Transcript

[Marcus Parks]

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[Henry Zebrowski]

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[Marcus Parks]

This is the last on the left. That's when the cannibalism started. What was that? It's exactly what you'd think it would be.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Super macho guy. Love, lovey, lovey, lovey, lovey.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Wearing some panties really loves it. They really love it, love it to.

[Marcus Parks]

The point where you'll kill to cover it. It's about the panties.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's about feeling like a pretty lady.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Feeling sexy and you understand, like, dude, you could just. Just pop on some panties. You don't kill anybody, man. Yeah, I know. He's a military man. Ask your father.

[Ed Larson]

You know what I mean?

[Marcus Parks]

What he. How he feels.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Father's not a military man.

[Marcus Parks]

Your father kind of acts like one. If your father found out, like, if you found out your dad wore panty, like, hardcore panties and stuff like that.

[Ed Larson]

Like, you're happy for him?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, why not?

[Marcus Parks]

Will you be fine with it?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Right? Of course I would be fine with. Yeah, anything, as long as it was consenting and legal.

[Marcus Parks]

That's the kind of stuff my mom used hit me with towards the end where she was like, sometimes I wonder if your father was gay. But then my question is, to what end?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, for what? What do you mean, for? Well, being gay isn't for anything.

[Marcus Parks]

What I'm just saying. Then, like. But now we're just talking about.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Do you think gay people have an. You believe in the gay agenda?

[Marcus Parks]

I mean, yeah, I believe in the idea of antiquing. They have an agenda quite often for seeking, you know, classic fashion combinations.

[Ed Larson]

I personally love the gay agenda.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, it's great.

[Marcus Parks]

I serve the gay agenda.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. We're theater kids very deeply.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

We're in entertainment of course we serve the gay agenda.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, it's just the idea of, like, you know, like, now that he's in the hospice bed and we're all banning him back and forth about whether or not he's gay or not, I don't think it matters. But it's like, if you found yours hard for.

[Ed Larson]

Think he heard you?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

I don't know. Yeah, Maybe. Now do you think that you're dead, though? But if he was all like, because he's a big, strong man, would you just let him go?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Of course.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I'd let anybody know that I love Go if they want. If they wanted to Fly. Yeah, fly, brother.

[Marcus Parks]

Would you buy him underwear?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes, if he want. If he asked me to. If he was embarrassed, he never would. No, he never would. But if he asked me to, I would.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Would you?

[Marcus Parks]

For your father?

[Henry Zebrowski]

I know you went for my father.

[Ed Larson]

What would end up happening is if I was buying it for my dad, I would just be like, okay, I gotta try it on because we got.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The same body shape. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Until you start trying it on, you're.

[Ed Larson]

Like, this is very nice.

[Marcus Parks]

You ever been a whole nother thing going on? It was amazing. Panties for dad is called Rodney's Adventure. It's different than Victoria's Secret because Victoria keeps it. Keeps it quiet. Yeah. Where. Yeah, Rodney, though?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Out and loud.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, yeah. He's like, plenty of room for your balls.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. These panties, they have a penis hole.

[Marcus Parks]

So make sure you.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Welcome to last podcast on the left. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Marcus Parks. I'm putting an end to the charade right now. With me.

[Ed Larson]

That's the guy who works at the.

[Henry Zebrowski]

With me is the panty curious Henry Zabrowski.

[Marcus Parks]

Wink. I am panty curious because the. The. It's so nice. And it seems that if it fit under my gut, my panties wouldn't fall down as much inside of my, like, underwear or inside my pants, like I've been saying. But also the problem is it does push it down because I have a little butt. So I'm smooshing them. I'm eating the back of the panties with my butt, and then my balls are pushing down the front.

[Ed Larson]

I know we've talked about this a lot lately, but have you thought about a thong?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, the thong would be perfect.

[Ed Larson]

I feel like a thong would totally work for you.

[Marcus Parks]

Really need to see how much leftover shit is in my butt at all times.

[Henry Zebrowski]

G string.

[Marcus Parks]

That's what that is for.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

P string. Oh, yeah. I. I was getting into the Colonel Russell Williams. I was watching his interrogation. That's why I was asking Marcus about his father wearing panties.

[Ed Larson]

Sure.

[Marcus Parks]

Okay.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And we have the man with all the questions and all the answers. It's Ed Larson. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

My dad could have been worn panties, but by the end certainly wasn't wearing socks.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, no panty hose for him.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Cuz he didn't have feet.

[Ed Larson]

He lost his feet from diabetes.

[Marcus Parks]

Knee highs would have been a waste on him. They just would have been two puddles on the floor.

[Ed Larson]

But, you know, when he d. I was taller than him.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's good. It's good that you had that to hold on to. Today we are concluding our series on Ronald Jean Simmons with the Christmas Massacre.

[Marcus Parks]

Ronnie Jean, he's a bit of a bad daddy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So when we last left, Ronald Jean Simmons, the most prolific family annihilator in American history. His wife Becky had just given birth to their seventh child. Because if there's one requirement for being the number one family annihilator, it's having a big family.

[Marcus Parks]

Because if it's not big enough to set record words, it's like not having a family at all.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Indeed.

[Ed Larson]

Now, being the number one family annihilator of all time, does this make him the worst father of all time? You know, because that is. I feel like that's interesting.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm still saying Fritzel is still up there.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I also notice I said the biggest American family annihilator of all time. Yeah. There's a. There's others around the world. And of course, we can never know the full extent because I'm sure there were plenty of people back in the, you know, 1600, 1700s that were killing entire families all over this globe.

[Marcus Parks]

You know how many times there was probably whole stories we've never heard of where one family went over to the home of another family, covered that house in gasoline, and set everybody in that house on fire.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Like that's probably happened at least a dozen times.

[Ed Larson]

I was going to say a dozen.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

And you wouldn't even know.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. I mean, we covered, when we did the hatfields and the McCoys. You're like that. That's exactly what happened.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. But they annihilated a different family. So that makes them good fathers.

[Marcus Parks]

Protective fathers, generals.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, Ronnie Jean had attached his self and his manhood to the size of his family. In that same vein, Simmons had also attached his self worth to how much control he could exert over his family, which combined with his own pedophilic tendencies, had resulted in an extended sexual relationship with his eldest daughter. But after the birth of the seventh Simmons child, doctors had told Becky Simmons that she would definitely die if she had another. So Becky stood up to Ronnie Jean for possibly the first time in their marriage. And. And Simmons ended up giving in on his wife's desire to have her tubes tied.

[Marcus Parks]

Honestly, I just gotta stop because the doctor said I'm gonna have to get a footstool to hold up my intestine at this point. I'm just all, I'm old. I'm just a sheet this whole time. Just a sheet.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I'm a leg.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm legs in a sheet.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, this paired with an incident that resulted in Ronnie Jean's eldest son leaving home as soon as he was able. This was the first crack in Ronnie Jean's care constructed and controlled personal world in which his family were near slaves to his personal needs and desires. See, outside of a need for control, what defines Simmons more than anything is a sense of entitlement. Ronnie felt entitled to everything that America had to offer a white man in 1987. He wanted respect from his peers, a solid career, a plot of land, and a family that did what they were told, no matter what.

[Ed Larson]

Cigarettes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. But when Ronnie Jean's family started bucking his in the late 70s, which coincided with the end of his 20 year career in the military, it was the beginning of a series of events that would lead Simmons to the perpetration of 14 murders during the Christmas holidays of 1987.

[Marcus Parks]

Taking the holidays back for the father's. Father's got to do everything all year for these pesky children. Oh, whoa, Santa, come oh, won't you pay the mortgage?

[Ed Larson]

So if he found worth in the size of his family, when he actually died, he was worthless.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Indeed.

[Marcus Parks]

Exactly.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, indeed.

[Marcus Parks]

Because you can't take it with you.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And he. I mean, and he is kind of different from a lot of family annihilators that we've covered. And just a lot of the most famous family annihilators, like, you know, John List, for example, killed his entire family because he was about to lose everything. He didn't want the family to suffer the embarrassment of being poor.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Which happens a lot.

[Marcus Parks]

Then we have, like, the ladies that murder their children. We got the two, I believe. Andrea Yates, she was more of a religious fanatic.

[Ed Larson]

Right.

[Marcus Parks]

That was like mentally ill. That was like a breakdown. But a lot of fans.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And also Chris. What's his name? Name.

[Marcus Parks]

Chris Watts.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Chris Watts killed his family so he didn't have to deal with them anymore.

[Ed Larson]

Okay.

[Marcus Parks]

It's a sign that have been my dad. Yeah. Yeah. Just wouldn't take.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

You know, the issue is, is it really. Is that it's about this idea of. It's a flatness of affect. So they believe that they're saving you from embarrassment. A lot of times, family annihilators also will just kill everybody in the immediate family. The reason why this is particularly interesting. Particularly interesting is because of the days it took to do it and the way he killed his entire family.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Most of these guys just stop with their kids.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. Or it's like a. One moment that they just lose their mind and then they regret it. You know, this was sometimes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, this was very. This is very much planned out. And it all comes down to entitlement and him not getting the life that he felt that he was owed, the life that he felt he deserved just for being a white man in America.

[Marcus Parks]

And because last year, nobody gave me what I asked for, which was an Oscar Meyer weenie whistle. I asked for fidget slap bracelets, and none of you will hear me or see me. I wanted to ride the Weenie mobile like it was an A bomb. Can't do any of it. No one listen.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now, back in 1979, where we last left this story, Ronald Gene Simmons was nearing the end of his career in the Air Force. Since he was such a difficult man, he'd basically been shoved into a nearly shuttered Air Force base outside Alamogordo, New Mexico, so he could serve out his last years without bothering too many people. Simmons, however, had bought himself and his family a plot of land in New Mexico. There, Simmons lived with his wife and six of his kids, who worked the land tirelessly and pointlessly day and night under Ronnie Jean's exacting and often incorrect direction.

[Marcus Parks]

Go count the rocks. Go and count the rocks. It gives them something to do. Where's corn?

[Ed Larson]

The band or the vegetable?

[Marcus Parks]

Honestly, I go. Where are. Where are they? Bakersfield.

[Henry Zebrowski]

God damn.

[Marcus Parks]

They never come here. They never come to Albert.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So he's officially become Jesse Ventura, huh? Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

I don't know why. I don't know why he got there.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The family dynamic, though, was still just as up as ever. And it was about to get worse. See, after Ronnie Jean's wife, Becky decided that she would not risk her life to give her husband an eighth child, Simmons lost all sexual interest in his marital relationship. Instead, Simm Simmons believed that he needed a young, obedient wife who would bear him enough children to staff his dream farm in Arkansas. If you'll remember, Simmons had Idealized a chunk of his childhood that had been spent in the Ozarks. And he believed that he could only achieve true happiness by returning to that area of the world. But instead of divorcing Becky and finding someone outside of his own family line for the Arkansas farm.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes. Talk about a snooze fest.

[Henry Zebrowski]

What am I gonna make a hinge account?

[Ed Larson]

No.

[Marcus Parks]

You want me to go out there, try to ask icebreaker questions. Stuff like, have you ever fucked your daughter? Been a good enough father to fuck your daughter? Right. I speed date inside my own family. Boom, boom, boom, boom.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Ronnie Jean's entitlement led him to believe that his eldest daughter, Sheila, would nicely fill the new wife role. So an incestuous relationship began in 1980 when Sheila was around 16 years old. To show the rest of the kids that Sheila was more important, Simmons began picking her up from school personally every day while the rest of the children were left to wait for the bus. Plenty of room in the car, but they ain't coming. Simmons also began following Sheila everywhere with a Polaroid so he could take as many sexually suggestive pictures as he wanted.

[Marcus Parks]

God. Polaroid cameras, man.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, we've talked about it plenty.

[Ed Larson]

Many, many.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They have. They have captured many. So many crimes.

[Marcus Parks]

So much child pornography, really.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, because you don't have to take it in.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, you don't have to take it in now. All it. Like, Jeffrey Dahmer, like, he was a big Polaroid guy. Oh, really big.

[Ed Larson]

I personally like Polaroids, and I think they should be a sponsor.

[Marcus Parks]

They're a wonderful way to keep a memory.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They are wonderful. I do love them as well.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, I mean, it's wonderful. I have one, you know, one Polaroid I love to see. What a wonderful patina of the old times. You know, me, my uncle, you know, it's nice to see. But then it is nice to have a collection of my corpses staring at me in the shed. Just because then I'm like, I have them still.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, after Ronnie Jean and his daughter began actually having sex, Ronnie Jean did not hide the relationship with his daughter from the rest of his kids or from his wife. He even gave Sheila pet names like Ladybug and Little Princess.

[Marcus Parks]

This is my daughter. I fuck. I'm sorry. I should put that. It's my.

[Henry Zebrowski]

By March of 1981, Sheila was pregnant with her father's child. So Ronnie Jean decided to tell his wife, Becky about the pregnancy on the night of Sheila's senior prom, which Sheila only attended at her father's insistence.

[Marcus Parks]

You're going to the Prom. You're going to the prom, and I'm watching through the window.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Becky was, of course, stunned at the news that her husband had impregnated her daughter. But Simmons had such control over his family at this point in time that all he had to do to get his wife to go along with the birth of an incest baby, at least at first, was to tell her to shut up and get with the program.

[Marcus Parks]

You know, I didn't think about it that way until you said that.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, I should shut up. I didn't think about that.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, wow. That's right. I'm just a slippery slide for your semen production.

[Henry Zebrowski]

As I said earlier, Ronnie Jean's eldest child, Gene Jr. Had already left home and broken free from his father's grasp by the time all this happened. Happen. And since Gene Jr. Was outside the sphere of influence, Becky told him about the incest baby within a month. So Gene Jr. Called the local social services to leave an anonymous tip reporting the crime. Social workers therefore showed up at the Simmons home in New Mexico to interview Sheila, who quickly admitted to having a forced sexual relationship with her father.

[Marcus Parks]

Do they call this group of workers, like, the EW Squad Specific? Like EW Squad. Like, for specifically icky things?

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's called cps.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, child protective.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Sorry. Yeah, there's some of our. But there's some of our most thankless government workers out there. And, you know, they get good on you. For all the CPS workers out there.

[Marcus Parks]

I feel like go send some yucksters out there. Yes, that's what we need. Some guys who can really take it. We gotta get some real.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, you don't want the word yuck in there, though.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, no. Oh, you mean, like. You don't mean, like, yeah, yucksters.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, I'm not laughing. Yeah, I mean, like, oh, yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, yeah, the yuckster squad.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Yeah, they get to go in there.

[Ed Larson]

Those are yers.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Oh, sure. Thank you.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The creepy crawlies. I get up. But since this was the early 80s and Ronald Gene Simmons was incredibly arrogant, it seems like he felt as if he could talk his way out of this pickle because he continually denied to the social workers that there was anything abnormal about himself or his family. But when the social worker filed charges for incest and the case hit the local news, Simmons started getting nervous. The trigger to actually leave, however, came when the former mayor of Alamogordo was sentenced to 60 years in prison for child sex abuse, which showed Ronnie Jean that a white man could indeed go down in America for doing exactly what he had done.

[Ed Larson]

This is why I love Arkansas.

[Marcus Parks]

They built an entire state. You're truly devoted to the ideals of this country. If you're a father and you made a child, just reprint it. That's what I say, man. Double down.

[Ed Larson]

That's what that is.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's actually hard to. We actually had Joel try to find like, you know, is Arkansas the incest capital of americ? It's top 10.

[Ed Larson]

Okay.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It is surprisingly hard to find incest statistics, though.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

It's like they hide it and don't want to talk about it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. But I will say though, is that, you know, they. They talk about how you know, like, well, you know, it's illegal to marry your cousin in certain states. I think you need to look at states where it's illegal to marry your cousin because that means it was happening so often they had to pass a law.

[Marcus Parks]

Whoa.

[Ed Larson]

Interesting.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Great. Yeah. It is illegal to marry your first cousin in Arkansas. However, it is legal to have sex with them and to live with them.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, wow.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Okay.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Put that in your pocket.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, good. No, take it home. That's safe.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I know we just passed Thanksgiving, but you can save that one for Christmas.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, yeah, no, that's a. That's a Hanukkah story.

[Ed Larson]

And we know how much Hanukkah's celebrated in Arkansas.

[Marcus Parks]

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[Henry Zebrowski]

And so after Sheila gave birth to her father's child In July of 1981, Ronald Jean Simmons somehow got a loan that tells you that's the fucking insane thing about this is like in 1981 is that this guy who has been on the local news for having an incestuous relationship with his daughter can still walk into a bank like, I'll give you $14,000, no problem.

[Marcus Parks]

You know what? If you just figured there in the end, or like, we, we got to support our community because if he. As soon as he falls, we're all going boys.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, but there's no Internet. The guy probably had no idea that he was a Kid fucker.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's very possible. Yeah, very possible. But after getting a loan, Ronnie Jean packed up his entire family into a U haul and escaped New Mexico just before the sheriff arrived at his property with a warrant for his arrest. This of course, effectively ended Ronnie Jean's career in the Air Force.

[Marcus Parks]

Unbelievable.

[Ed Larson]

He put the force in Air Force.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But in the midst of the escape, Ronnie Jean had finally decided to take his first shot at his dream. Their ultimate destination was the small town of Ward, Arkansas, which was just 80 miles from Marnie Jean's dream town of Hector in the Ozarks. But rather than being the place where Ronald Gene Simmons finally found contentment, Ward, Arkansas would instead be the site of both Ronnie Jean's Christmas time family annihilation and the spree shooting within the town itself that followed soon after.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, he must have got a good mortgage interest rate.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, he did actually. Yeah, yeah, he did, yeah, he borrowed, he made, took a lien against his property in New Mexico and was able to get a good amount of money to start a new lot, start a new incestuous life in Arkansas.

[Marcus Parks]

That's smart. Incest real estate contest.

[Ed Larson]

And this is before they like had like national database of crimes, right?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Exactly. Okay, yeah, yeah. I mean he easily escaped the incest warrant and the warrant wasn't filed with the FBI. States didn't share information back then. So as long as he stayed out of New Mexico, basically in the clear. But even though Ronnie Jean had escaped justice.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Now he can his daughter anywhere he wants. We know Henry, we know.

[Ed Larson]

That was much nicer way.

[Marcus Parks]

Any place.

[Ed Larson]

West Virginia.

[Henry Zebrowski]

We. I think West Virginia is number one.

[Marcus Parks]

Yep.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I think it might be destination.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, it's all the moonshine.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. But even though Ronnie, they call it the Mountain Dew destination for fun. But even though Ronnie Jean had escaped justice, he was still terribly paranoid when he arrived with his wife and six kids in Arkansas. His family was ordered to keep all the lights off in the house and never answer the phone. And the children weren't allowed to go anywhere outside of the house by themselves. Sheila, however, started to rest herself free from her father's control. After they established themselves in the south, she attended a business school in Little Rock. And when she finally started making friends, she began seeing just how grotesque the relationship with her father really was.

[Marcus Parks]

It's so hard to share stuff with your friends when you're like, you know when your daddy spits in your mouth in order to make you a chocolate fountain and they're like what you're not.

[Ed Larson]

Supposed to be doing that?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

You don't do that. You and your daddy don't share toothbrush on top and bottom?

[Ed Larson]

No, no, just the top.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's weird.

[Marcus Parks]

That's weird. You've never father child with your father.

[Ed Larson]

Mothered a child.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

How are you? I was. I kind of was.

[Ed Larson]

I was wearing the pants.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You're a man, aren't you?

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, you got me. Uhoh.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Where's Sheila?

[Marcus Parks]

I'm just a colonel in the Canadian army and. And I've been wanting to wear panties in a career like fashion for a long time.

[Ed Larson]

This is the worst version of Ladybug.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm featuring Colonel Russell Williams. Ladybug is a. And Rodney Dangerfield.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But even though Sheila was making friends, the sexual relationship had nevertheless continued. So Sheila became pregnant again in late 1981. But Jean, perhaps wanting to avoid any more undue attention, forced her to get an abortion, which ended up being a turning point for Sheila. After the abortion, she began confiding in a new friend, Dennis McNulty, about the incest. And eventually she found the strength to completely reject her father, despite his continual attempts to shame him, her into having sex with him. This, of course, was another blow to Ronnie Jean's fragile ego, which was made all the more powerful because Arkansas was supposed to be where Simmons was finally going to get everything he thought he deserved.

[Marcus Parks]

I also wonder why he thought that like you could shame your daughter into having sex with you. I don't feel like in that. That way you might need to like briber or something. I feel like if you're doing them like daddy's hard. Can you see how hard your father is? Yeah, it's such a bad pitch.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. It's like trying to make her feel bad for.

[Marcus Parks]

Look, your father is. What's he going to do with it? What's your father going to do with you? Going to leave him out here in the cold.

[Ed Larson]

It's also like he's not wronged by anybody. It seems like at this point.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, he's never, he's never wronged by anybody. It's all about what he believes he deserves.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, he's a piece of shit.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Yeah. Everything bad that happened in his life was his fault.

[Marcus Parks]

He's a bad man, did bad things.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now within a couple of years, Ronnie Jean found a 13 acre plot of land outside of town that he eventually named named Mockingbird Hill.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, and that's so nice, isn't it?

[Henry Zebrowski]

After purchasing the land, Simmons crammed his wife and five remaining kids into the double wide mobile home that had already been plopped down on the property. Now, naturally, Mockingbird Hill was an absolute hellhole of an existence. Ronald Jean quickly turned it into a white trash cliche, filling it with junked out cars, electrical fixtures, barbed wire, and various other pieces of junk that Simmons would force his children to use for his hair brain projects that never quite worked out because his labor force was entirely children. The double wide also had no plumbing, so Ronnie Jean had his kids build outhouses out of scrap and dig massive privy pits to hold all the waste that two adults and five kids create. Within just a few years, though, those privy pets would become a terribly odorous mass grave for the Simmons family.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, there was a book about it, right? To. To kill a bunch of mockingbirds.

[Marcus Parks]

I thought that was the fight against wind energy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now, even though Ronnie Jean seemed to be making headway towards his dream of a family farm in Arkansas, the indignities of his own reality, or at least the indignities he perceived, kept hitting him square in the face. Sheila began dating her friend Dennis McNulty, and despite Ronnie Jean's best attempts to sabotage the relationship. He'll never love you like I do do. He'll never love. He'll never love your incest daughter. Sheila and Dennis got serious. Additionally, the only jobs Ronnie Jean could get in Arkansas were low skilled labor. His first job was working as an industrial cleaner, fishing pickles out of vats of brine at the local pickle factory for five bucks an hour. I love that job. It's a good job. But that's the thing. They say that if you love your job, you never work a day in your life. But you also don't want to overdo your passions.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, you don't want to get too close to the brine professionally.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Sometimes I'll go months without eating a pickle just so I can, like, get the pickle flavor back up and I can get the desire back up you. It's sort of like edging, but for pickles.

[Marcus Parks]

If you have your manager breathing down your fucking neck about dill production, you're going to be really fucking pissed. You're going to be like, first of all, money and pickles never should have been a thing. No, pickles were made by humans that were made by nobody. Okay? Pickles are literally like, we took God's fucking bad creation. We made it tasty.

[Ed Larson]

I just hope, like, one day someone, like, looked at him, was like, ronnie, you call this a gherkin, you piece of.

[Marcus Parks]

No, take a look. This is what I call a gherkin. He's purple Little incest filled penis gherkin.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This is barely a cornerstone.

[Marcus Parks]

I fucked my daughter for a long time. I know what gherkins are. If there's one thing this incest lover knows, it's tiny pickles. That's what I love. I love pickles.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, Ronnie paired that job with a night shift at a Del Monte frozen food plant. Neither of which were jobs befitting an Air Force man of Ronnie Jean's self styled stature.

[Marcus Parks]

There's corn niblets fucking every. I am sick and goddamn tired. There's little peas in my shoes. This place sucks. Let me go home. And my car.

[Henry Zebrowski]

All right, all right, okay.

[Marcus Parks]

We're sick of hearing it.

[Ed Larson]

We're all getting a little too into character. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, you can't do anything in this country anymore.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's all right.

[Ed Larson]

Henry doesn't have a family.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. That's a very important thing to remember. Although he does have two female dogs.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm a girl dad to two dogs. And just the idea of what he even thought of doing to his daughter makes me sick. Just thinking of burdening Carmi with a child makes me so sad.

[Ed Larson]

She's been looking good lately.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Thank you. Yeah, we've been working on it growing up that K. Really? You wait your turn.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Watch out when you take her to the dog park.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, I know. She's a flirt. I always like it when they say that about children.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, I hate it when people refer to a child as a flirt.

[Marcus Parks]

He's a little flirt.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I don't think people do that anymore. I think that was more of an 80s and 90s.

[Marcus Parks]

He's a little. My son Coxer.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Before long, Ronnie Jean quit his job at Del Monte and got a part time job as a cashier at a local mini mart where he played the part of the local pain in the ass right up until his eventual murder spree a few years later.

[Ed Larson]

What a horrible job for him to have. Interacting with everybody in town, people every single day.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Like I could imagine like not going to the mini mart like that. Fucking Ronnie. That Ronald Simmons is working there. I don't want to fucking go. Oh my God.

[Ed Larson]

How many times did like the cash register are not open and he just like punched it out of rage.

[Marcus Parks]

This. Goddamn it. I said. I said enter. Enter. This is another you. It's another thing sent from Asia to ruin my life.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now, Ronnie Jean's desire for mass murder was by no means an overnight invention. Instead, it seems like the path truly began in 1984, when Ronnie's World began getting shakier and shakier, it seems. Such he retreated into an inner world, both mentally and physically, where murder became the only possible solution to his problems. See, in the summer of 1984, Ronnie Jean's daughter Sheila married Dennis McNulty. Simmons thereafter went into a full extended pout, shutting himself away in the only room in the mobile home that had a lock. In his little locked room, Ronnie Jean ate junk food alone and mopily masturbated to old nude polaroids of his daughter for hours on end.

[Marcus Parks]

And I got zag nut all over this one. What am I supposed. All right, nut rageous now.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Payday. There you go.

[Marcus Parks]

There we go. There's no chocolate in the payday. Ah, good. Her 11th birthday, I'll always remember, we went to Chuck E. Cheese.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You know, that might be the end of it. Yeah, that might be the last. That might be the last one. I think we can put that to bed now.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, I'll take my Charleston Chew and I'll go to the bathroom.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Ronnie Jean's other kids, meanwhile, were also starting to grow up, leave home and start families of their own. By this point, three of the Simmons children had left and married, while Ronnie Jean's wife Becky was also asserting her own independence after years of isolation. Becky reconnected with her sister sister and told her everything about the decades of trauma with her husband, from the abuse to the incest. Soon after, Becky began comparing notes with Gene Jr. And the two of them concluded that Ronnie Jean was not only most likely an obsessive compulsive, but was probably a full on sociopath. Right on the money. In other words, the family was starting to pull away and see Ronald Jean Simmons for what he really was. From what it sounds like, he could feel it in his bones by the mid-80s that his entitled fantasy were never gonna manifest. And things got even more unbearable for Ronnie Jean when he took a job at a local freight company as a clerk. He was a man in an office of women, and taking orders from women, which he unsurprisingly despised, made him even more morose and irritable. The only thing Simmons did like about his job at the freight company was a 21 year old named Kathy who looked similar to Ronnie's daughter, Sheila.

[Marcus Parks]

Let me ask you something, Caddy. How do you feel about fathers?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Guess it's not over yet, huh?

[Ed Larson]

Did I make you.

[Marcus Parks]

I just quite. I just want to know.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, Simmons acted as if he actually cared about Kathy in order to gain her trust. And before long, Kathy was indeed opening up to this fat, balding 44 year old loser. Very quickly though, Ronnie started making Kathy uncomfortable by showing up to work with flowers and inviting Kathy to his home at Mockingbird Hill. Simmons would also rant to this office full of women about all the ways in which the women in his life were causing him suffering, which did not make him popular either.

[Ed Larson]

Fire him. Yeah, well, that's what everyone else probably did.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

The problem is, is that that's going to be an issue.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now, everything came to a head at the freight company when Ronnie Jean got into a fight with his boss, a woman named Joyce Butts.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, they should call you Joyce Asses.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's really clever, Ronnie. Yeah, really clever Ronnie. Ye regular Lenny Bruce, aren't you, Ronnie?

[Marcus Parks]

I know. Oh, you. Oh, you're making Joe. I got this really clever comeback.

[Ed Larson]

You.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, In July of 1986, Joyce reprimanded Ronnie for failing to properly sort and code company bills according to company policy. His Simmons pushed back by repeatedly insisting that his way was better.

[Marcus Parks]

I don't like doing it wrong and slow. That's how it's supposed to be. That's how shit doesn't get done.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Simmons and Butts got into a shouting match in front of everyone. So Joyce gave Ronnie an official write up in his personnel file. A few months later, Ronnie walked into Joyce's office and literally told her to take this jab and shove it. Like the song.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Right after he told his crush Kathy.

[Marcus Parks]

Quote, I hope you're happy now.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Nobody knew exactly why.

[Marcus Parks]

I hope you're happy now.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Nobody knew exactly why Ronnie Jean quit that day specifically. Nor did they know why Kathy should be happy about it. From what it seems like Ronnie Jean was fully retreating into an impenetrable world of entitlement and rage. Because once he quit his job at the freight company, the countdown towards family annihilation began.

[Marcus Parks]

I tell you right now, I'm coming right back here for you butts. Right back here for you butts. And you fucking know it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

All right?

[Marcus Parks]

Your butts are mine, butts.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Watch your ass. But.

[Marcus Parks]

Coming for you, I'm gonna stick my face right in there. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be sexual, all right? I'm trying to stop that. I'm trying to curb that.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, Kathy, if you want to be sexual, I have free time.

[Marcus Parks]

I will peruse your butts.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The Ronnie Jean's grip on his family was indeed slipping. But Simmons did try various manipulation tactics to regain control before he murdered everyone, tried begging. First he apologized to Sheila for fathering an incest Baby, hey, that's a first step. It's a bit, yeah. And then he insisted to Becky that he had changed, that he was going to bring the family back to together. But like many abusers, Ronnie Jean made it all about himself rather than taking any responsibility. In one letter to Becky, he wrote.

[Marcus Parks]

Quote, you just don't know what it's been like for me.

[Henry Zebrowski]

For me, for me.

[Marcus Parks]

Have you thought about how I feel about impregnating my daughter? Do you have any idea how hard it is to groom somebody for that long with all my opportunities, how often people are slinging bush at me that I gotta say no to?

[Henry Zebrowski]

The family, however, was not buying it. In Becky's letters to her sister in the months before the massacre, she referred to Jean as old crazy and called him a jerk. But I mean, it doesn't sound bad. It would have been unthinkable a few years before for her to even utter a single bad word about him. And now she's openly telling people about it. Additionally, Gene's attempts at molesting his other daughter Loretta, had been thwarted. See, Becky didn't want what had happened to Sheila to happen to Loretta, so Becky had well prepared Loretta instead. Secret to watch out for her father. As such, Loretta only communicated with her father by slipping letters underneath the door of Ronnie Jean's locked masturbation junk food room, where he was spending much of his time.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm sick of reading your erotica, all right? I'm sick of this. What is a court of thorns and roses?

[Ed Larson]

If you would have just stuck to the junk food masturbation room, everything would have been fine.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, I mean that. I think that's the case. Case with many men.

[Marcus Parks]

You know, I like it in here. Like, if he was just in his masturbation room and just been like, my happy place.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That. Well, that's the. That's the famous quote, is that many of humanity's trouble comes from man's inability to sit alone in a room. Oh, sure.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, very much so.

[Henry Zebrowski]

As for Ronnie Jean, it was obvious that violent thoughts were entering his mind. He took to shooting stray dogs, armadillos and other critters around his property, which he would d dump in shallow graves around Mockingbird Hill's 13 acres.

[Marcus Parks]

Can't wait to dig much bigger graves. Oh, look, there's a grave already. Doug. It's crazy. I just can't. Can you imagine if this grave could fit you?

[Ed Larson]

Loretta, I got you a dog costume. Would you mind trying it on for me?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, Simmons also began making sideways violent threats towards his family. In one example, Sheila and her husband Dennis arrived at Mockinger Birdhill for a visit just a few months before the massacre. Ronnie Jean, however, physically stepped in between them and said that Dennis wasn't welcome at Mockingbird Hill because Simmons blamed Dennis for his own daughter, basically breaking up with him. After arguing about Dennis for a while, Ronnie Jean grabbed his.22 revolver from inside the trailer and went out back to shoot bottles and rocks in the yard.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm going outside with my gun.

[Ed Larson]

Never a good sign.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No. After firing off dozens of rounds without saying a word, Simmons went the into and Dennis and Sheila left. Seeing that their father's behavior was only getting more chaotic, Becky and Ronnie Jean's kids tried convincing Becky to leave, but while she agreed that her husband was a nightmare, she still refused to leave him because, ironically, she was afraid of what he would do if she left and took the kids.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, we know that that is the most dangerous point in an abusive relationship, is trying to leave.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes, always. That's usually when all the bad shit happens.

[Ed Larson]

It also just shows, like, how much fun it is to watch people shoot guns. They should have left the moment he pulled out the gun, but, like, you know, let's see what he does.

[Marcus Parks]

It's so funny when he does the. See how fast I can do it. See how fast I can. Up behind my head. I put in my balls.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Wild Bill Hickok. November of 1987, was quiet at Mockingbird Hill. None of the kids who had moved away visited, even on Thanksgiving. And Ronnie Jean stayed locked inside his masturbation room day and night. When he did emerge, it seemed as if he was distracted by something preoccupied.

[Marcus Parks]

I just can't believe I couldn't get it up to Kathy Lee this morning.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Little did the family know that Ronnie Jean had made a list of all the people he was planning to kill, which included not only his wife and kids, but also Joyce Butts and Kathy Kendrick from the freight company, who were still burning Ronnie Jean's ass a full year after. After he quit.

[Marcus Parks]

Dude, it's a year later he's still angry at old Butts.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Ronnie Jean, however, was not shy about what he was planning. Reportedly, the bread delivery man at the mini mart said that Simmons had told him that Simmons had been maligned by several people, but he was soon enough going to get even with all of them.

[Ed Larson]

Listen, I just got the bread.

[Marcus Parks]

Let me tell you something, Ron. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna exaggerate here. You're the third man this week. Tell me his plans of mass Murder. I just want to know if you want these new challah breads, you want these new whole wheat breads.

[Ed Larson]

I have a personal responsibility that anyone who says they're gonna kill someone, I just give them extra bread so they like me.

[Marcus Parks]

Hey, don't kill me, huh? All right, have a good day now.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Just a ha. Heads up. What day are you planning on getting even?

[Marcus Parks]

Christmas day.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Great.

[Marcus Parks]

All right.

[Ed Larson]

You know, bagels already have holes in them. Get your aura frames. I love my aura frame. I got it all set up, and I got all these great pictures of horrible things that I don't want to show people. And then I put it right next to my television. So while we're watching a movie, you just see a picture of Henry and his guts coming out, or you see a picture of me all dressed up with blood all over me. There's lots of pictures on my aura frame that could get me arrested. But it's my aura frame, and that's how I like it. Personalize with a custom message. It'll appear when it's first turned on and thoughtful for any occasion. Now what's great is you can, like, hook up your aura frame with your buddy's aura frame. And so you could just start sending really crazy pictures to them, and then their family has to look, look at it. It's actually a really fun thing to do. So this Christmas, get an aura frame for the person you love. Because I like a good picture frame, but there's only one picture in it with an aura frame. In the age of technology, why does that picture have to be the same cycle through? Have a great one with an aura frame for a limited time. Save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get $35 off Aura's best selling carver mat frames named number wire cutter by using the promo left at checkout. That's a U R A frames.com promo code left. This deal is exclusive to listeners, and frames sell out fast, so order yours now to get it in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions do apply.

[Marcus Parks]

This is an ad by BetterHelp. Can you feel the ticking clock of the holiday holidays?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Tick tock, tick tock.

[Marcus Parks]

What are you gonna buy me, daddy? Oh, I want this locket. And if I don't get it, I'll leave you. Trevor, what am I gonna do to get off of work? They said they need me. They need me as the bullet factory. I can't get off for Christmas. Oh, I hate the holidays. That's why? BetterHelp is encouraging you to rewrite your traditions this season by making time for for you. Incorporating therapy into your new or existing traditions can help you slow down and take care of yourself during what can be a joyful but sometimes hectic and lonely time of the year. I know. I always invite my psychiatrist to Christmas morning. I want to see him get yelled at by my mother. The holidays look different for everyone. Maybe it's baking your great aunt sweet potato pie. Nice. Or starting something new like a quiet night in with friends. Yeah, that's fun. They're becoming one of the first new traditions too, right? Better Help gives youth space to pause, reflect, and feel more grounded. And there's nothing that would make somebody happier than giving them a gift for the holidays of a gift certificate to better help this December, start a new tradition by taking care of you. Our listeners get 10% off at betterhelp.com lastpod that's betterhelp H-E-L-P.com lastpod how you doing everybody?

[Ed Larson]

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[Marcus Parks]

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[Ed Larson]

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[Henry Zebrowski]

Now, the Simmons family had decided that they were all going to work together to get their mother to leave Ronnie Jean that Christmas. And they began coordinating on ways to get their mother to safety. They, of course, knew, Henry said, that the most dangerous time for anyone in an abusive relationship is when they leave. So they were trying to do it right. But Ronnie Jean had already decided to murder his entire family that very same same holiday. And so, on December 18, Ronald Gene Simmons quit his job at the Mini Mart. In preparation for what was to come, he told off his boss, saying he was leaving because he was tired of working there.

[Ed Larson]

This part ain't big enough.

[Marcus Parks]

It's too many. I need a maximum.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You got the worst hours and the worst pay out of everyone. Again, it's entitlement. Ronnie Jean then waited for the day that his eldest son was set to visit. December 22, 19, 1987. See, Simmons had surmised that Gene Jr. Had been the one who had turned the whole family against him. Because if you remember, Gene Jr. Was the first person in the family to actually stand up to Ronnie Jean. So Simmons decided that he would begin the annihilation of his family on the day that Jean Jr. Came to visit.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, I feel like a lot of people. Not that everyone has a kill list, but I almost feel like there is a therapeutic way for you to make the list and then burn it. If you make the list of everybody, all the people you want to kill across the world and all. Across all pale things.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

You make. You write the list out just to get it out of your system.

[Ed Larson]

Get a Polaroid of it.

[Marcus Parks]

It might help.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And then you burn the list and, like.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, you say you talk about writing an angry letter and then you never mail it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

You think I would help?

[Ed Larson]

Who's number one on your list? Henry.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, I don't know if I should say.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I think he shouldn't, I think. But that's a. I think that's something for a private conversation.

[Marcus Parks]

It's for Christmas.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, yeah. Maybe it was just making a Christmas list.

[Marcus Parks]

All the people I want to deliver to. Jesus Christ.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now, Ronnie Jean didn't sleep at all the night before the massacre. So he emerged from his masturbation room on the morning of December 22nd, jittery and irritable.

[Ed Larson]

He's living alone by this point, right?

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, it's him, his wife, and four kids.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, okay.

[Ed Larson]

I thought the wife was gone.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, no, no, no. The wife had not left it. No, they're all there.

[Marcus Parks]

Can we get the Home Alone theme?

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, for this we can't do that.

[Marcus Parks]

Okay.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, no, can't do it.

[Marcus Parks]

Andrew checking.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, Becky was in the bathroom on that day while Gene Jr was somewhere in the trailer with his three year old daughter. Ronnie Jean's four school age children, meanwhile, all between the ages of 17 and 8, had their last breakfast, then left for school. Once they were gone, Ronald Gene Simmons took his.22 caliber snub nose pistol and methodically began the devil's business. Becky was the first to go, shot twice in the head, while Ronnie Jean's eldest son Gene Jr. Was killed with four headshots and a bullet to the chest. Some accounts say that Ronnie Jean even smashed in their skulls with a two foot length of pipe. After killing the adults, Simmons then strangled his three year old granddaughter to death with a length of yellow nylon fish fishing line. Once everyone else was dead, Simmons loaded the bodies into a wheelbarrow and dumped them in the outhouse pits that his children had dug on his orders. After that, Ronnie Jean simply waited at Mockingbird Hill for the school day to end so he could pick up his other four kids as a show of power over the son he'd just murdered. Ronnie arrived in Gene Jr's Buick, then drove all of his remaining children home. Once they got back to Mockingbird Hill Hill, Simmons told them that he had a Christmas present for each of them, but wanted to give them their presents individually and alone. So the children were to wait in the Buick while the others went inside one by one. The first to die was Loretta, the 17 year old, who was taken inside and quickly garroted again with nylon fishing line. She struggled, but after Simmons pushed her to the ground, he laid his knee on her chest and pulled the garrote tight until she lost consciousness to make sure she was dead. He then dragged her to the bathroom and plunged her head into the water barrel they kept for washing and such because there was still no running water in the house. Simmons then repeated the process with his other three children all the way down to the eight year old. And after killing them all, Simmons watched TV and drank wine and beer for a bit before finally dumping the bodies of his children in the same privy pit where he dumped the three family members he'd killed the that morning. He then soaked the bodies in kerosene, but covered the pit with sheets of tin and barbed wire. Instead of lighting the fire, he finished the afternoon by trashing the house so he could possibly claim that a maniac had stormed the place and killed everyone but him. And after that impotent task was done, Ronnie Jean sat back down in front of the TV with a beer and watched Wheel of Fortune to contemplate the murder of half his family. God damn.

[Marcus Parks]

It's annihilation. No, I hate this. I hate letters.

[Ed Larson]

So he killed Loretta? Strangled her?

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, just shot her in the head.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, you shot Loretta in the head?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, no, no, Loretta. Yeah, Loretta was strangled.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, he strangled Loretta. There's three other kids are sitting outside in the Buick.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So what?

[Ed Larson]

He like opened the door and he would like, called for the next one and they walked in and then.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, just one by one.

[Ed Larson]

And there wasn't any screaming in that. I mean, there's no way to really know, I guess.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, well, what do we know?

[Henry Zebrowski]

And what are they going to. And also if. Even if there was screaming or struggle or what are they going to do their children? You know, he's a full grown man.

[Marcus Parks]

From what we've said on the show before. And I think that what people don't, particularly if you haven't been anywhere where a gun is shot. Yeah. Even from inside, a gun sounds way weirder than. Way different than maybe you think it is, especially as a kid, especially.

[Ed Larson]

22.

[Marcus Parks]

And I know they've been around guns, but still, like this idea of a.22 is a really small gun. And so you're going into the room. I could definitely see it be done in a way that it's fairly not subtle, but I could see it done in a way in which they don't quite under. The kids don't quite understand what's happening.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, that by that point there was no gunshot because, like the only kids are just doing it. Yeah, the kids were all gidded with a fishing wire. So like the most they might hear is like a scream, dream or, you know, some struggle. But, you know, the, the. He's doing it in the trailer and the kids are all in the car. So, yeah, they probably had no idea what was going on.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

And especially every time he comes out with a new piece of Christmas flare on and he's getting more excited. He's got like ornaments on his nipples. He's coming out, he's got elf shoes. Now every time he comes out, it's something new and you're like, wow, that's amazing. This year he's not.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No. The worst gear. Yeah. Now, Ronnie Jean kept to himself on the night he committed his first seven murders. When he wasn't drinking and watching tv, he was going out to the Privy Pets to stare at the corpses he'd made to kick off the Christmas holidays. But on the 23rd, he drove to a nearby Sears and picked up a stereo system he'd ordered for his wife. He then Returned home and set fire to the corpses, then spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day moping around the house blaming his fat family for doing this to themselves.

[Marcus Parks]

And what was he listening to on his new stereo system?

[Ed Larson]

I am, I'm guessing, Barbara Strand's Christmas albums.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Jingle jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle jingle bells.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. Well, you're close. It's like jingle bells, jingle bell, jingle. That's what it is.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Sounds terrible.

[Marcus Parks]

It is.

[Ed Larson]

I love it.

[Marcus Parks]

She's no business singing the Christmas. She's very Jewish.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I don't go for that Jew Christmas. I like a Don Hol Christmas.

[Marcus Parks]

Give me a Hawaiian Christmas I want a blonde headed man.

[Ed Larson]

I mean, all the great Christmas songs are written by Jews.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That is true. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Irving Brow and Jesus Christ.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, it's all about him.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Number one.

[Marcus Parks]

Number one Jew.

[Ed Larson]

Remember that this Christmas when you're killing family.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, I do.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The massacre, however, was only a third of the way done. On December 20th, 26th, Ronnie Jean's son Billy arrived at Mockingbird Hill with his wife and child. Sheila and her husband were due to arrive that day as well, along with the child she'd had with her husband, Ronnie and Ronnie, Jean's incestuous child grandchild. Now, Billy Simmons had known something was up before he even arrived. He'd called his grandmother on the way to Mockingbird Hill and she told Billy that she'd been worried because nobody had answered the phone at the trailer for several days. Sheila was worried as well, because she hadn't heard from Jean Jr. Since the 21st. But despite these massive red flags, Billy and Sheila still went to Mockingbird Hill without calling the police, most likely because they were holding on to the hope that their worst fears had not come true.

[Marcus Parks]

I also bet you they were kind of half opening that he just killed himself.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. And maybe there and maybe her mother was somewhere else. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

But he's also, I mean, like, he's been physically abusive by this point, right?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Very much.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. But he's never like, taken it to the next level like this.

[Marcus Parks]

No, but it's. He's been a terrorist to the family. Like, he's emotionally violent and he's been threatening violence and he's been amping up all the gun reader and all the gun presence and all the gun activity. So it's like he's been very much getting them ready.

[Ed Larson]

But you still never think it's going to happen to you. You just think it's a story that you hear.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Of course, if you thought it would.

[Marcus Parks]

Happen to you, you. Everyone would say there's you're wrong. It's not going to happen to you.

[Ed Larson]

It's just right. You don't have to go home for Christmas.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You really don't.

[Marcus Parks]

That's the biggest less is that you don't have to ever go home for Christmas.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, as it went, Ronald Jean Simmons killed his son Billy with his revolver as soon as Billy walked in the door. Killed him with two shots to the head. While Billy's wife was killed just after with seven shots to the head and neck. Now, we have no idea why, but Ronald Jean Simmons bifurcated his murder methods into one method for the adults and one for the children. While all the adults were quickly shot in the head, the kids all died agonizing extended deaths by strangulation, which really is the opposite of what you'd expect.

[Ed Larson]

Not really. He's a. He knew he couldn't win the fight.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

He's an old man at this point.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I didn't think about it that way because I thought about it from the perspective of like, you know, like I would if I had to kill a family.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I'd want to get the kids over with quickly. I wouldn't want to like sit in the murder of the children.

[Marcus Parks]

But he's putting the. Then I can also see it's not even just a fight. I could see a psychological thing of killing the. The kids and then this sort of like a symbol of the future of the family. You want to put all of your pain and you're going to make them feel the pain of it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Because he hated the kids. He resented the children most of all because he literally couldn't control their futures.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But the weird thing was that he really did. He separated it between like 18 and up and 18 and under. Like, even his own children who were, you know, in their early 20s. Like, I think Sheila was only like 21 or something like that. Maybe, maybe 20 years old. Still shot in the head, you know, like. But the end. But Loretta, who was 17, strangled with the fishing line.

[Marcus Parks]

I think Ronnie's tale is a tale of the life unexamined and kind of what happens when you don't look inward. And I think that Ronnie. I might be stepping out of my bounds here a little bit.

[Ed Larson]

Go for it, buddy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Do it.

[Marcus Parks]

I don't know if Ronnie has thought about what he wants. Right. Or how really in the end, really how he feels.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Who he is.

[Marcus Parks]

And it kind of comes out like this.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Because if you don't know who you are, you don't know what you want.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And sometimes you end up fucking your daughter and putting a B of her and then murder later on.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That is sometimes what happens. It can happen that way with people. Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Your thesis is upsetting.

[Marcus Parks]

Just be careful. That's why. Start that band. That's what this is about. Start that band. Paint that picture.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, in this, the third murder spree, Billy and his wife had brought their baby to marking Bird Hill. And after shooting the baby's parents, Simmons once again used the nylon fishing line to strangle his grandson before holding him up underwater in the bathroom water barrel. Afterward, the bodies were all dragged into the double wide's dining room where Ronald Gene Simmons awaited the last of his family. Just a few hours after Ronnie Jean killed Billy and his family, Sheila arrived with Dennis and their two children. Sheila entered the house first, where Ronnie Jean shot her as soon as she walked inside. Six times in the head, not to hear in the gunshots. Dennis ran inside as well and was killed by a single headshot. And this is also like an interesting psychological. Every time he shoots a woman, he shoots them far more times than he shoots the man. The man gets one, maybe two bullets knocked out the women anywhere between four and seven.

[Marcus Parks]

It's almost like his version of ultraviolence with the gun on them.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, no, he, he wants to destroy them as much as possible. He's got this rage towards women specifically.

[Marcus Parks]

And he hates the kid and he hates the kids.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Ronnie Jean then presumably went out to the car and got his six year old incest child so he could strangle her with a nylon fishing line. And as well, he then put the child's corpse into Loretta's bed and laid a blanket over the body. We have no idea why he treated this corpse differently than all of the others.

[Ed Larson]

It's his favorite, probably.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, I would imagine so. The last member of the family to be killed was Sheila's one year old son who was strangled and drowned like all the rest of the kids. Once done, Simmons took the bodies of the two infants and wrapped them in garbage bags. The bags were taped shut and the corpses were left in the the trunks of two abandoned cars on his property. Finally, Ronald Jean Simmons took a tablecloth and draped it over Sheila's body. He decided to leave the bodies of the people he killed on the 26th to rot in the trailer with him instead of taking him out to the pits. And by the end of it, Simmons had killed his wife, all of his children, all of his grandchildren, and two out of the three people his adult children had married.

[Ed Larson]

How many is that now?

[Henry Zebrowski]

1212 people were dead in four separate murder sprees committed over two days. The only person in the Simmons family to survive the massacre was Jean Jr's wife, who only escaped because she was taking a break from her marriage to Jean Jr. After a rough patch.

[Marcus Parks]

You know, this is probably a bad time to even think this, but it's crazy. You finally get the whole family together. It's crazy how much.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Tape's a tragedy, doesn't it? Takes a tragedy. Need to get the whole family together. Now. On the evening of December 26, after Ronnie Jean had finished killing his entire family, he went to a nearby bar, ordered two cocktails, drank only one, and did not tip. Prick. Yeah, right. On the 26th.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Unbelievable.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But bar patrons remembered that Ronnie, for some reason continually toasted, hosted the empty chair next to him.

[Ed Larson]

But he was always an empty chair next to him. It's not like the guy ever drank.

[Marcus Parks]

With anybody exactly, but you know. But this time he was happy about it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The next day, Ronald Jean Simmons stayed home drinking and watching tv. But he also wrote a list.

[Ed Larson]

See, Henry.

[Marcus Parks]

It'S just a list.

[Henry Zebrowski]

See, Ronnie Jean was not done taking his revenge on the world just yet. Even though his family was dead, there were still plenty of other people who had wronged him in around the town of War, Arkansas. There was of course, Kathy and Joyce at the freight company. But Simmons also planned to kill David Sawyer, his old boss at the Mini Mart. His last target was the owner of the Mini Mart, Rusty Taylor.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, that's a guy who owns a Mini Mar.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh yeah, Rusty Taylor's Mini Mart. Yeah. He defended Simmons when he had sold the Mini Mart without at least offering to sell it to his worst employee first.

[Marcus Parks]

Ronald, I would absolutely love. Rossi Taylor, I would absolutely love to sell you this Mini Martin.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Don't.

[Marcus Parks]

No, no question. Absolutely not. But I don't know if you are aware of the collateral on it, of the instructural integrity one must understand about the business itself. Ronald, I don't know if you're ready for this type of leadership.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And are you ready for the grave responsibility of the slushy machine?

[Marcus Parks]

It must be clean. It must be clean. It's my struggle.

[Ed Larson]

Interestingly enough, I made a slushie out of my family.

[Marcus Parks]

Exactly. It is that sort of self referential sense of humor that will make me miss you always.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I was Gene short for anything, possibly Geneford. And so, after doing practice runs on four locations where his targets worked on the 26th and the 27th to timeout the quickest routes between each bit business Ronnie Jean exited his trailer on December 28 on a mission. He had decided to wear a big white cowboy hat for the occasion. And he carried with him three letters, a bottle of wine, a box of crackers from when he got peckish, and two.22 pistols. Once again, he drove Gene Jr's Buick into town as a last petty you to the son he had just murdered.

[Marcus Parks]

I think this is him trying to be murdered, murdered by the public as well.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I, you know what? I don't think so. Yeah, I, I really don't think so. I think he wouldn't have minded being murdered by the public because this is.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, now he's in falling down type world, but now we're burning it all to the ground.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, I don't think he particularly cares, but I actually, I do think he cares. I think his ego wants him to survive to the end. Yes, he has to win, and that's the. As long as he gets to the.

[Marcus Parks]

End, he has to be murdered by the state.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, that's how he wins as he shoots everyone on his list. That's how he wins. He's not trying to get killed. He's not trying to do suicide by cop. He's trying to kill every. He's trying to take revenge on the world. That's all he cares about.

[Marcus Parks]

And again, this is an inappropriate way to maybe even shoehorn this in, but shoehorn away. But it's like again, if you're thinking about, like your goals, think about what's attainable for you with what you have.

[Ed Larson]

Sure.

[Marcus Parks]

And that's what Ronnie did, is that he realized, like, I got to stop dreaming big and start thinking about what I can do now, now to make my dreams happy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. He can't kill Dan Quail.

[Marcus Parks]

No, he wishes. We all wished he could.

[Henry Zebrowski]

After mailing the letters, two letters to his nieces and one to his mother in law, Ronnie Jean drove to Kathy Kendrick's new place of work. Kathy, if you'll remember, was the woman who'd rebuffed Jean's sexual advances at the freight company.

[Marcus Parks]

Have some flowers.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I want to give you some flowers. I want to give you some flowers.

[Marcus Parks]

Take, Give me flowers. Give me some flowers.

[Ed Larson]

What do you.

[Marcus Parks]

Have some flowers.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But Kathy had since gotten a new job as a receptionist at a law firm. So at 10:15am, Ronald Jean Simmons walked into the firm's offices with his revolver without saying a word, he strolled up to Kathy's desk while she was answering phones and fatally shot her four times in the head. Sticking to his plan, Ronnie Jean left Immediately and drove to Taylor Oil Co. Where the owner of the Mini Mart, Rusty Taylor, had his headquarters. Headquarters. Tellingly, Ronnie Jean did not walk inside when faced with a male target and instead shot Rusty Taylor through a window.

[Ed Larson]

He's a.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He's absolutely a. Yeah, no, absolutely. When Simmons turned to leave, he was confronted by a part time employee of Taylor Oil named JD Schaffen. Gene shot Chaffin in the head just once, but still fatally. Rusty Taylor, however, survived the attack despite being shot twice in the chest.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, thank God I had my Queen Elizabeth coronation plate in my shir. But I knew one day the Queen's grace would save me.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Rusty is short for Rusterford. By this point, the local police have been alerted several times over that a maniac wearing a white cowboy hat was rampaging through town.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, will call me when he's rampaging to my house.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You know, my shift. I ain't come back till the second.

[Marcus Parks]

All right. You just keep on going. You.

[Ed Larson]

You just.

[Marcus Parks]

You keep it looking are there. We had such a good year with.

[Ed Larson]

Not that many murders. I can't wait for this.

[Marcus Parks]

Last week, just around 28. Boys, we finally can celebrate. Zero murders in this town and we did it right. Good work, boys. Let's start drinking.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Somebody answer that phone that's been ringing.

[Marcus Parks]

For the last 30 minutes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Of course, these guys had no idea who the shooter was or where his next target might be. So when Ronnie Jean showed up to the mini mart to kill boss David Salier, there was no police resistance. David Salier was having coffee with another employee named roberta and a 71 year old local named Tony. Again, Ronnie Jean decided to shoot his male target through the window. But David saw Ronnie Jean raise his pistol and David had enough presence of mind to duck before Simmons took his first shot. Once the gun fired, Roberta immediately tried going for the phone to call the police. But Ronnie Jean was unfortunate. A very good shot. He got her twice. Once in the mouth and once in the shoulder. But Roberta thankfully survived. What? Once Roberta was down, Simmons turned back to his old boss David, who grabbed a chair and actually began walking towards Simmons while shouting, get out you son of a bitch. Gene fired again, but the bullet hit the chair and ricocheted off into David's skull. David was down, but he would survive due to the heroic actions of the last man standing at the Mini Marty. That tough old buzzard was a surprisingly tenacious 71 year old customer, Tony Carter.

[Marcus Parks]

You think you're the meanest old bastard in this town. No one around in Tony Carter's small town. This be my right hand. Him and my left hand to Oswald.

[Henry Zebrowski]

See, when David went down, Tony grabbed a six pack of soda cans and tossed them at Ronnie Jean's head.

[Marcus Parks]

Take the fans, catch us.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The six are missed. So Tony kept grabbing individual cans of soda, throw them at Simmons, while shouting, you son of a bitch. Over and over. It's like Simmons was a wild animal that Tony was trying to chase away.

[Marcus Parks]

Like, get out of here. Ow. Ow. Not, Dr. Pibb, not.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This is apparently the only pushback needed because Ronald Gene Simmons could only fire wildly at the old man before he gave up and ran off.

[Ed Larson]

What a fucking bitch.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Again, all it took, a 70 year old man throwing cans of soda at him. He's like, stop it. Stop.

[Marcus Parks]

A jolt at me. Throw a jolt at me. Called the army and this is the.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Guy that for years been like, if I would have been at the Tet Offensive, those Viet Cong wouldn't have taken Saigon.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh my God, he's got a diet spray.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But since Simmons had worked at the mini mart, Tony recognized him. So he called the police to finally identify the mass shooter terrorizing their small town. Ronnie Jean, however, still had one more score to settle. At long last, he drove to Woodline Motor Freight to murder his old boss, Joyce Butts. After walking to her desk, he shot her in the head and chest, then turned and walked to the back room. Joyce Butz, by the way, also survived. He was met in that back room by another woman that had worked with him at the freight company. But luckily for her, all of Ronnie Jean's scores had been settled.

[Marcus Parks]

You know what? I'm tired. I'm tired, boss.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He put one of his pistols down, gave the other to his former CO worker and asked her to call the police. They soon arrived and arrested Simmons without incident. Just 45 minutes after his last shooting spree began.

[Marcus Parks]

And he didn't even get lit up or anything. Yeah, it sucks about this. Exactly what he wanted. He did it all. Yeah, he lived his dream.

[Ed Larson]

Well, you know, he did get lit up with the electric chair.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Lethal injection, God damn it.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, he wanted it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Just not as satisfying, is it?

[Ed Larson]

You know, I mean, thank God though, he used a.22 and not like a.38 or something. I think it really did save a lot of these people's lives.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It really did. Yeah, but yeah, he just liked a.22.

[Ed Larson]

Because he's a. Yep.

[Marcus Parks]

I mean, it was the gun.45 hurts my elbow. Kickbacks too much, my thumb hurts now.

[Henry Zebrowski]

While Simmons was arrested at 11am, it took until about 3 that afternoon before someone in the local police department finally figured it'd be a good idea to go check in on Ronnie Jean's family.

[Ed Larson]

They're not used to this stuff.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They're really not.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And when the police arrived, they quickly found the fire. Five bodies Simmons had left rotting in his trailer. And not too long after, they found all the bodies in the privy as well. But the motivation behind everything was still a mystery. Ronnie Jean had refused to say anything since being arrested and simply laid in his jail cell staring at the ceiling.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, he's a real prick. He's a real prick. Where he didn't give anybody a single bit of motive for.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, yeah, yeah, he did.

[Ed Larson]

I mean. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

I mean, but he's like.

[Ed Larson]

But, you know.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. I mean. The only people Ronald Jean Simmons ever talked to about the murders were his two public defenders who listened to Ronnie Jean's entire story over the course of two days during their initial meeting. But after that, Simmons refused to say anything ever again.

[Marcus Parks]

He just said. Told him what he did.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, yeah. All the information that we really have from, like, his life is from his family, like, the surviving members of the.

[Marcus Parks]

Family and Junior jr's wife.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Ninth June, his wife.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. He had decades of practice of not talking to people. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

He's really good at it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. And he also knew that not saying anything would drive people crazy. You know, he wanted. Because it was more control. You know, he didn't want to control the narrative because some of these guys are like that. They want to control the narrative, so they say what they've done. But he wanted to just. He knew what would cause the most suffering.

[Marcus Parks]

It's his biggest accomplishment.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

It's the only thing he's ever done.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yep. Yeah. In fact, Simmons refused to cooperate with his defense team at all, even though he still pled not guilty. The defense was left with only a weak argument that the perpetrator of the family massacre was actually sheila's husband, Dennis McNulty. Whoa.

[Marcus Parks]

What the fuck? Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Come on. You don't have to throw him under the bus. Defenders.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

No, it was some kind of Asian. We're pretty certain that there was a several group of five Asian. Asian mercenaries that have come in here and did their most Asian violence on this white family.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes, we all know that Asian McNulty family. Yeah, the. The Chinese McNulties.

[Marcus Parks]

You know them downtown China, they have a whole pub section. They love their Irish people over there.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But this defense didn't really do much to defend Ronnie Jean Spree in town on the 20th. Yeah. The only action Simmons took over the course of his trial was when he told his attorneys to watch out because he was about to demonstrate what he called his mitigation neutralizing maneuver. That maneuver simply amounted to Ronnie Jean punching the trial's prosecutor in the jaw.

[Marcus Parks]

Wow.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This, however, was all a part of the plan. Simmons boasted that his mitigation neutralizing maneuver, which I found, are the three hardest words to type in a row that I've ever typed.

[Marcus Parks]

Mitigation neutralizing maneuver. Yeah. It's a pain in the ass.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

I don't even like hearing it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I, I.

[Marcus Parks]

And you know what?

[Henry Zebrowski]

I hate saying it.

[Marcus Parks]

I can't believe that he said.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Simmons boasted that this would ensure he got the death penalty. And in this, he was correct. Death was Ronnie Jean's wish because after he was sentenced, he requested that no action be taken to appeal or change the death penalty.

[Marcus Parks]

It's truly the epitome of a bastard.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. The only thing decent that he did. Yeah, sort of was die.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. I mean, well, I guess he didn't.

[Marcus Parks]

Cost us a lot of money as.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The American public, but, yeah, that is true. Now, Ronald Jean Simmons obviously wanted to die, but from what it seems like, at least my perspective, his narcissism was so strong that he could never kill himself. He could never bring himself to actually do it.

[Marcus Parks]

We thought he was correct. Yeah. He did it all because he thought he was correct. And then he was. He was correcting the universe.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, instead, he had the state do it for him. Bill Clinton himself, acting as governor of Arkansas, signed the execution warrant. And I, you know, it's. I don't know why. I find executions signed by, you know, future presidents when they were governor. They're kind of special. They are like when in a. Like when something's signed by, like, George W. Bush, when he was like, like Carla Fay Tucker's execution order, like, that's George W. Bush.

[Marcus Parks]

It's like finding out, like, you went to Wendy and, like, the guy, like, Thomas made the burger. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, that guy made the burger.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I even like it when, like, the failed guy, like, when, like, Jeb Bush, that's Eileen Wuornos, you know.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, wow.

[Ed Larson]

Interesting. You know, Clinton, though, he not only signed it, he also played Taps on a saxophone.

[Marcus Parks]

That was fun. I miss him. I miss him. I want him over him again. I can't wait for you.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, after Ronald, Gene Simmons had a public battle in the newspapers with a Christian organization that tried to save his life, he had to write letters to the newspaper Saying, like, tell these people.

[Marcus Parks]

To stop filing appeals for me.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I said no.

[Marcus Parks]

Quit crying for me. I'm sick of your goddamn pity. I love that man.

[Ed Larson]

I mean, but that's good. Annoy him.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes, annoy him. Always go for him. Well, he was finally put to death.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm sick of all these damn. Try to give me me cats. All these in here trying to give me cats and trying to raise a cat. A cat.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He was finally put to death on June 27, 1988, which is kind of half Christmas. He was killed just one year and four months after his conviction, making his death by lethal injection the second fastest in modern history at the time, right behind double murderer Gary Gilmore. Merry Christmas one and all. And we're really getting to the spirit this year. We even got like a Christmas themed episode coming up next week as well.

[Ed Larson]

We do. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Next week's episode is a one off that I am so excited for.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Horrifying history, like, featuring one of the most storied objects in all of Christmas history. It's a surprising one and it's really.

[Marcus Parks]

That's the best part is that it's up.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

It's extraordinarily Santa's Sleigh S L A.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Y, which was a fun movie with starring Goldberg.

[Ed Larson]

We watched it together.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's right.

[Marcus Parks]

That was when he tucked right. And he did the thing where he was with Abhora. I believe that he did that. Yeah. He's serving this year. I hope you. I hope you were nice. Is here because Santa's serving cunt. And you can go get it on patreon.com I thought cunts got cold.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, no, no, no. He's serving charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent.

[Marcus Parks]

He's serving cunt. He's got that busy on fire. Thank you guys for watching.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Patreon.com lastpodcast on the left is where you can go to watch all of our video episodes as well as watching the stream every Tuesday. Last stream on the left, that is at every single Tuesday, 6pm PST. And I, I want to thank a listener named Ryan Marchetti who sent me some of the, like, possibly one of the coolest things I've ever gotten. He sent me pictures of his grandfather from World War II, as well as the newsletter that his grandfather's company got during, like at the end of World War II. Like, listen to this. It's called Carry On. It's all over in Holland, Denmark and northwest Germany. The second great unconditional surrender in the last five days was time to take effect. An hour ago, 0800, British double summertime. This is incredible. Thank you so much. You really shouldn't have sent me a family heirloom, but, man, I love this.

[Ed Larson]

That's really cool.

[Henry Zebrowski]

90Th. 90th finds Reich gold. All the golden Germany says Reichsbank official.

[Ed Larson]

That's a dirty. His grandfather's part of the Dirty Dozen.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's a picture of him standing in front of a swastika that they probably blew up right afterwards.

[Marcus Parks]

Wow. That's awesome. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So. So thank you. Thank you once again, Ryan Marchetti, for such a cool thing. Yeah. This is his grandfather, Joseph Pitt Marchetti.

[Ed Larson]

Wow.

[Henry Zebrowski]

90Th Infantry, 359th Division, World War II. The tough hombres out of Texas and Oklahoma.

[Ed Larson]

Fuck. Yeah. Well, I hope he comes and sees us on the road. Hit me up if you do. I'd love to meet you. We're gonna be in Philadelphia on January 31. Austin, Texas. February 28, Indianapolis, Indiana. March 13, Cincinnati, Ohio. April 25. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. May 29. Grand Rapids, Michigan. June 27, Tulsa, Oklahoma. July 17, Oklahoma City, July 18. These shows are so much fun. We're having a great time. Akron was a blast. We're in Portland this weekend, but I'm pretty sure it's sold out by now, if you might get lucky and snag a ticket. So go check it out if you want to come out. Also, I got some stand up shows coming up. I'm going to be in Oxnard on January 4th with a whole bunch of people from the last podcast network, and I'm going to be in San Francisco on February 18th. Come and see those shows, please.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes. I love it. Thank you. Hail Satan. And I will. I won't kill anybody this Christmas.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I know you won't.

[Marcus Parks]

You know why?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Why?

[Marcus Parks]

Because I'll be safely, peacefully stoned in my home.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Nice. That's really nice. Just don't.

[Ed Larson]

Carmelita.

[Marcus Parks]

Hey, yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No.

[Marcus Parks]

I let my daughters be free. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I make my dogs wear pants.

[Marcus Parks]

Cut that down. Don't worry about that. Oh, man.

[Ed Larson]

Well, hail Steve Cropper, too. He passed away today. I love, I love Steve Cropper.

[Marcus Parks]

Blues Brothers Band will never be the same.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's right. Yeah. And hail the tough hombres.

[Marcus Parks]

Yep.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Ah.

[Marcus Parks]

Wow.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Liberating us from the Nazis.

[Marcus Parks]

Good work, guys. Hey, this is Jeff Lewis from Radio Andy live and uncensored. Catch me talking with my friends about my latest obsessions, relationship issues and bodily ailments. With that kind of drama that seems to follow me, you never know what's going to happen. You can listen to Jeff Lewis live at home or anywhere you are.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Download the SiriusXM app app for over 425 channels of AD, free music, sports, entertainment and more.

[Ed Larson]

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[Marcus Parks]

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[Henry Zebrowski]

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