The Black Hole Murders - Kibler, Arkansas

This week, in Kibler, Arkansas, three missing people send police into a frantic search, but when one of the detectives also disappears, it turns into the hunt for what they think may be a deranged serial killer while desperately trying to find all four victims alive. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay. Yay. Yeah, indeed, Jimmy. Yeah, indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wisman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today on another absolutely bonkers. If you heard the opening, you can, there's a lot going on in this episode, as you might imagine, episode of Small Town Murder. It's going to be a wild one buckle up before we get to that, though, absolutely head over to shutupandgivememerder.com. There you go. It's there. Merchandise. Sure, there's Merchandise. We got all that stuff. Tickets to live shows are the things you really want to get here. Next up, Milwaukee, September the 18th at the PAPST, there are not a lot of tickets left for that one. No. If you'd like to go to that show, I suggest do it right now, get them in there, and then after that, the next day, September 19th in Minneapolis at the state theater, get your tickets for that. Do it right now. There's more tickets than there should be available for that one. It's very odd, though. Milwaukee is going to beat you guys. Don't do that. What do you want? Always sells out. So it's going to be great. They do. Let's hope they come through here. Then we have Dallas, San Jose, Sacramento, Terrytown, and Boston in October and November. So do that and get your tickets right now. Shutupandgivememerder.com is where you do that. Definitely listen to our other two shows, Crime in Sports, where we have a very cool series about the Yahweh, Ben Yahweh cult going on right now, because one of the main enforcers happened to play football for like a month and a half in the NFL, so, you know, it counts. So we do that. And then your stupid opinions is just insane. So fun. It's so fun. So check those shows out. Get yourself Patreon. That's the important part. Patreon.com/CrimeInSports is where you get all the bonus material. Anybody $5 a month or above, you get everything we put out, including as soon as you subscribe, you get about almost 400 back bonus episodes. So much. Our huge feed to Ben John. And then you get new ones every other week, too. One crime in sports, one small-town murder, and you get it all, everybody. And this week, it's a banner week, actually, because it is prisoner dating game time for everybody. Much requested, and we do it about twice a year. The prisoner dating game is back where what we do here, it's the all-violent felon, as always. I line up four ladies and four young gentlemen for Jimmy to choose from here. And he's going to pick one based on just what they say about themselves. And then afterwards, we get to find out what they did and how horrible of a choice Jimmy has made. And the whole game is basically, try to avoid the pedophile. It's like whack-a-mull. That's what we're trying to do. It's very fun. Patreon.com/CrimeInSports is where you get all that, and you get all the shows we put out. Crime in sports, your stupid opinion, small-town murder, all ad-free. Ad-free. All ad-free. Just take it. We want you to have it. And on top of that, you also get a shout out. Shout out at the end of the show, too. It's literally all we could give without opening a vein, so. That's all we've got. Disclaimer time. It's a comedy show, everybody. Right. We're comedians, so we're going to make jokes. And the show's called Small Town Murder, so people are going to die. That's the way it works here. And then you go, well, how the hell do those things go together? Real easily, actually. It's amazing. If you do certain things. The main thing we do is we never make fun of the victim or the victim's families. Why? Because we're assholes. But. But we're not scumbags. See how that works? It's real simple. And if you stick with that, it's pretty easy. Plus, there's plenty to make fun of. There's some murderer to make fun of. It's more easy to make fun of. Make fun of some small town police force that didn't do their jobs and let a murderer go free. Make fun of small towns, because why not? We're all from somewhere that deserves to be made fun of. So there you go. That said, you think that true crime and comedy should never ever go together, though. Maybe it's not for you. I don't know. But it might be. Put it that way. I'd give it a shot. But either way, don't really want to hear you complain later. So enjoy. Buckle up, strap in and sit back also and clear the lungs here and put your arms to the sky. And let's all shout, shout up and give me murder. Let's do this everybody. Okay. Let's go on a trip. Shall we? Yeah. Gotta do it. I saw that always raises get a any crowd. You say that too. Obviously a huge cheer will come up. Yay. Finally, underwhelming destiny. Yeah. If you have kids gather them up, sit them down and go, we're going on a family vacation. They'll go, yay. Where are we? Disney? Where are we going here? And then go, we're going to Arkansas. And then watch your faces change and they'll go number one. They have of the moat. No, it's a state. So they won't even know what we're talking about. They've forgotten. And the other ones who do know, they'll be even more frightened. So this is Kibler, Arkansas, K-I-B-L-E-R. Kibler. That's Kibler. That's Kibler. It's Kibler. It says it. I looked it up. Trust me, because I was going to pronounce a Kibler. And then I looked it up and it says rhymes with rib like ribbler. And I was like, perfect. It's Kibler. Far Western Arkansas. This is two hours and 15 minutes to Little Rock. If you want to go that way, two hours and 50 minutes to Oklahoma City, the other way. So it's kind of almost right in between them. And about two hours and 15 minutes to Austin, Arkansas, which was our last Arkansas episode, episode 664, the deadly grandma and the doppelganger. That was a wild one, by the way. This is in Crawford County, area code 479, now a little bit of history on Kibler. Kibler is a small town. It's like the bigger towns nearby are places like Van Buren and put like not big and Fort Smith is the big city nearby, which has like 80,000 people, but that's the big city. So it's a real small area on Kibler. It's about halfway between the I 40 and the Arkansas River, right between the freeway and the Arkansas River. It's interesting. That thing's muddy. That's a monster. Brown. Absolutely. Originally known as Prairie Grove in the beginning. Apparently, it's very hilly in this region and didn't attract a lot of settlers until the 1800s. Guy named John Kibler is said to have arrived from Germany in the 1840s. And there's also Mary Kibler and all this type of thing. Now. Hilly, not mountainy. Yeah, hilly. Yeah, just hills. Yeah. There's no mountains over there. It's just this is the hills. Prairie plain. The hills got some hills and then they go away completely before you get to Oklahoma. I think that's where they drew the border where the hills stopped. Yeah. If there's anything over about seven inches of elevation, that's still Arkansas. We can't have that. So their wells for natural gas were dug in 1914 on the Binks Kibler farm. So they're farming gas at that point. And then more wells the next year on a different farm and then a saw mill was built to harvest trees in order to clear land for gas wells and for corn farms. Yeah. More wells and farms. So this was probably a pretty nice scenic area at one point. And then they, you know, destroyed it all reviews of this town could only find one. And I was honestly surprised there was any is one of those small towns. It's a four star review and it says I would definitely choose to live here again because it is a safe environment. The atmosphere is always great. I see this town expanding in the future. This guy writing this on his deathbed. Oh, she'll live here again. I don't know. But where's he talking? It's going to expand. I don't know. I don't know. I think the big next boom. I mean, we had booms. I mean, Austin was pretty boom. For a while, Austin, Texas and, you know, people were going places, Nashville, very boom in Vegas. I think the next one's Kibler Arkansas, is that it? Well, I was going to go to Nashville, but man, those burbs are getting expensive. Kibler's my next choice, though. What the fuck? People in this town, 1,324, oh yeah, it's going to be a metropolis at no time. It's going to be huge. What is that person saying? I mean, I understand what they haven't seen, but what have they seen that made them think that this is a booming place? Seems like they're sitting in whatever place they've moved to because this place was terrible and they couldn't get a job. So they move somewhere else and they're just having some reminiscent flashbacks of like, boy, that place was great. I bet a lot of other people will go there since I want to go back. You know, that must mean everyone agrees with me. More women than men in this town, barely 50.2 percent women. So a few more median age here is a couple of years below the national average, about 35.2. Now, it's the family, normally 50.50 is average for married. Here it is 69 percent married. God. These people are married. I don't know. The courthouse isn't close enough to get a divorce or what the deal is if they are sticking around. 30 percent single. I mean, 30 percent of this country is unmariable, you know what I mean? Oh, absolutely. 30. So these are all the mariable people are married. 30. At least. You know what I mean? I was going to say. Yeah. I mean, even some of the people that are married, I would say 80 to 85 percent of the country is unmariable. Yeah. Right? For one reason or another. Just in a lifestyle that you just grow fucking pill addicts, I mean, you could name a bunch of different things. - About 85% of this country, if you put all those things under an umbrella. - It's a miracle that it's as high a married population as it is. - Yeah, maybe they're just too lazy to get divorced though. You don't know, that's probably it too. - People settling, that's possible too. - Race in this town, 91.3% white, 0.0% black in Arkansas, not a black person in town. That seems, that's weird. 1.4% Asian, 1.2% Native American, which is above the national average, actually, and 1.1% Hispanic. So white. - Fascinating. - Religion here, 50/50 is normal. This is 51.3% of the people here are religious, which is kind of lower than you would think for this kind of area, but as you wouldn't think though, the number one religion here is Baptist, of course. As we know, Baptists are the Catholics of the South, everywhere, 0.0% Jewish or Muslim or anything like that. Unemployment is low here, actually, under the national average. Median household income also below the national average. It's 69,000 in the rest of the country here, 56,563. So a little bit low, but the cost of living is also lower. In the rest of the country, let's say it's 100 as average, here it is 76 for cost of living, and the housing is the low thing. - That's how they all have fishing boats. - That's the only way. - Median home cost here, 151,600 dollars. - Dang. - So I mean, that's-- - You can do it. - That is very, very cheap. So I don't know, maybe we've convinced you to make Kibbler the next boom town. - I don't know. - I'm not sure. I'm surprised that's not the motto. If we have convinced you, we have for you the Kibbler Arkansas real estate report. (upbeat music) - Average to Bedroom rental here goes for 830 bucks, well below the national average. - Yeah. - Well below. So I found some shit here. Here is a five acres of land. - Yeah. - Totally undeveloped. Just woods. - Just barren. - Just woods, $75,000. - How many acres? - Five. - That seems steep. - That is expensive. - Right, for not developed at all, like no-- - Not even a little-- - Just a sore hook up cabin or anything? - No, no, nothing. This is just a patch of woods, basically. That's it. Here is a two bedroom one bath, 960 square foot, really old shitty metal trailer. It's terrible looking. But if you buy this, you'll get the entire trailer park, 10 acres of trailer park. - You're the boss. - You are the trailer master here. Park was built in 1965. The listing says unlimited possibilities. You can have crackheads and child molesters and pool limits. - I would say there's plenty of limits here. The property was formerly an active mobile home park and presents an exceptional development potential with ample space for up to six homes. You can create a small subdivision or just live in it in your trailer. $166,500 for that. - Wow, 10 acres? - Yeah, and that's a $12,000 price cut. So it seems like five acres is about 75 grand in that ball park here. And then one, here's one, a three bedroom two bath, 1171 square foot house. It's a little brick house, pretty nice decent on the inside, small lot, $169,900. - That's a castle. - Now this is the castle here. Five bedroom four bath, 7,318 square feet, which the house doesn't look at. The house looks like a rural information center. It'd be the best way to put it. There should be pamphlets in one of those things outside. That's what it looks like. - It's got a basement or what? - It has to, but it's 20.67 acres and there's a huge pond and with a dock and all kinds of shit like that. It's a lot of land. $949,000, don't think so. Just had a price cut of 20,000. I don't know what they were thinking there. - I would never pay a million dollars to live in Arkansas. - No, not a chance. Fuck no, no, that's why that house is sitting there. Someone built that and then went, I have enough money to not live in Arkansas and then they left. Well, they used to, they spent it all in that house. - Things to do here, old fort days. This is at Fort Smith, which is nearby. It's like five miles away. Now I'll give you a schedule. It runs for a few days, but I'll give you a basic everyday schedule is pretty much the same. There's a rodeo parade. And then there's a mutton bust in event of some kind. There's qualifying and then they go through the rounds. - A whole thing for the kids. - Oh yeah, there's live music at the old Fort Days stage, which we'll talk about with that music as in just a moment. And of course, all sorts of fireworks and shit like that and short street dances or some horse shit. Like we always read about in these places. The musical acts that we'll be playing, Leah Butler, who's just a chick who's leaning against a huge keyboard that's standing up. She's like leaning on it. So she plays a giant Casio. The Lane Louder band, which it's LOW so it's like Loader. I guess it might be Loader. He looks like a 15 year old boy dressed up like a cowboy. - Oh, that's a dude. It's hilarious, Lane Loader. Yeah, you look at this guy and you go, dude, stop making that face. He's like making a face like, I'm a tough cowboy singer. It's like, dude, you are 12, you're 12. Like you're late for math class. Seriously, get back there. - Change your last name, that's very confusing. - It's also confusing. Kennedy Holland, who's just some chick wearing a tiara for some reason, I don't know where she got that from. Bourbon Rain, I'm gonna give you a guess what those people look like. Bourbon Rain. - That is a bunch of fellas in very, very weird hats. - That is four old men, is what that is, yeah. - Four old men, I wish it would rain bourbon. One of them said one night and they're like, me too, man. If there was a bourbon rain. - The rain is poison and it kind of tastes like bourbon. - I wish it got you drunk, too, instead of just sick. - Instead of just burning your mouth. (laughing) - Oh, man. Todd Mitge, there has never been a worse stage name than Mitge. And my name is Petrigallo. So, M-I-T-T-G-E, Mitge. That's a horrible name. - It's a terrible name and he looks like a complete dork. He looks like whatever company you work at, picture of the IT guy, now put a cowboy hat on him. That's this fucking guy, dork. Then there's Uncle Fudge, Uncle Fudge, which sounds disgusting. That sounds like he's molestier your kids. That's the worst, Uncle. - That's Uncle Fudge, watch out. Then though, the problem is when you look at them, it's exactly what you think it was. It's four guys and they look like four different families kicked out the worst uncle and they all fall away. It looks like the uncle that no one wants at their house, all four of them together. It's Fudge, it's four guys. - Four guys who look like the worst uncle ever. That's what's great about it. - Wow, Sarah Murrah, M-U-R-R-R-A-H, Murrah. I guess that sounds like a Southern person saying Murray. - Isn't that the name of the building that they exploded in Oklahoma City? - Is it the M-U-R-R-A-H? - I think it was. - I'm not sure how it was spelled. The Libby Starks band, you know what they are? Libby Starks. - Very small blonde girl. - It is a blonde chicken cowboy hat and then a bunch of dudes behind her that says under them real country, real music, real fun. - Okay. - That's not a lot of diversity in the music so far. - Not really, no, no, you're gay. You know what you're getting here. Then there is cowboy hour with Heathright and Chris Hempfling. - We got two of them. - We should be at Hempfling and Mittkey together to form the worst name band of a Mittkey and Hempfling, I think is how many albums are they so? - You gotta take a beat before you pronounce that band. - There you go. - So you hit all the syllables and consonants in there. - Too much, it's too hard. It hits hard everywhere. - So a lot of consonants. - Chase, Prince, and the redemption, and then Stormy Sullivan, some chick, and then the Dustin Boyd band. - Yeah, Dustin Boyd, he's gonna put his name on it. - All these people have cowboy hats. It's just too much. - They all sing the same shit. - Same song. - What's the point? - He's gonna sing his song about beer and a parking lot now. Okay, that's good. Oh, he added a pickup truck to it. This is, he's really. - They all gotta have a meeting beforehand. - Yeah, they don't all cover the same Toby Keith song. - It's like comics beforehand. If you're on a line up with people, and like I, there was another comic whose son was autistic. So we would literally get together and go, "What jokes are you doing? "And are you gonna do what you're about to do?" Well, okay, you do that section. That's nothing like my shit over there. So we can both do that. - Tell you what, you talk about your kids' school. I'll do everything else. - Yeah, I'll do the stuff. - I'll do the home stuff and, you know, I'll do that. So crime rate in this town, what we are interested in, property crime just under the national average, which at that town of 1,000 people, it seems like it should be farther below than that. Then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and of course assault, the Mount Rushmore of crime, is also, is about 20% under the average. So. - Okay, well, that's better. - That's what happens when you cover my Toby Keith song. (laughs) So that said, let's talk about some murder. Let me say here, let's do it. Okay, let's start out hot January 6th, 1981 in Arkansas. Yikes. - Summer of '81. - January 6th. - No, January, not June. - No, no, January 6th, winter of '81. - I gotta see a doctor. - You gotta see a doctor, we'll go back to that again. No wonder why you couldn't follow it, Osbe. - What just said them? - Look how damn summer. - Look how damn dated he say that was that they're doing here. Who'd they find in the basement? What's going on here? - I heard a J and N, yeah, that's June. - Yep, that works. 130 PM, Juana Price, young lady, 21 years old. She calls up a company called Baldor Electric Company, where her husband, Larry, works as a machinist. He's 22. A young couple just got married. Now, they say that Larry said that he, they said that Larry had called in and said that he wasn't gonna be at work that day. She's like, "What are you talking about?" He's gonna be at work that day, that's crazy. Now, the reason why she's calling at 130 is 'cause they were supposed to meet at lunch at noon and he never showed up. So she's like, "What the fuck is going on here?" So it's 130, so she calls his work like, "Hey, dickhead, I waited for you." 'Cause this is pretty cell phones and everything like that. Two hours go by. She doesn't hear from him. And back then, you could call a couple of people and that was pretty much it. You pretty much just had to wait after that. And so 330 PM, she calls Baldor again and is told that the man who called in to tell them that Larry would not be there wasn't Larry. Some other guy called in for Larry. Someone called in for Larry. She gets to the bottom of it. You talked to Larry and they're like, "No, no, no, some guy called for him." They're like, "Who, what are you talking about?" Who calls in for you? What was it? Was it different time? Yeah, imagine somebody calling in for you? For, unless you're like, you know, in the emergency room or like, you know, spouse calls in for what, exactly. Your spouse or like your mother or somebody calls in, but not your, some random dude. Hey, Chuck, call me in to work, will you? You do that for me, please. Like, imagine asking your buddy. Hi, my name is Chuck, I'm calling in for Larry. Larry ain't gonna be there today. Yeah. Well, I guess there's only limited questions I could ask. Well, why isn't he coming in? I don't know, he didn't tell me. Just had to tell y'all he wasn't coming. Oh, okay. So there's one way. So then five p.m. comes up. And now there's Joanna starting to get upset here. Still no Larry. Still no Larry. So her and a neighbor, who is a friend of theirs also, actually go down to the Fort Smith police station to file a missing person's report about him. 'Cause as far as she knew, he was going to work that day. She saw him in the morning, they had lunch plans and now he's just disappeared into thin air. So he didn't show up to work, he didn't show up to lunch. Now he's not home for dinner. Now, well, it's five. So yeah, she was just, she was going down after 3.30 when she heard that. I think she sat around, you know, maconated on it for a minute and then was like, we should probably report a missing, right? So they go on down to the police station and they meet with detectives James Davis and Ray Tate. Tate says, I'll bite. Let's see what's going on. And he says, lead me over to the apartment that you guys live at. I'm gonna look around and then I'll start from there, basically. So 604 PM, detective Tate, while he radios the police station at 604 PM, he gets in his car and follows gentry and Joanna, gentry is her friend. Joanna Price and gentry to the apartment complex. - Gentry is the last name? - Gentry's the last name. We'll talk about the first name and middle name 'cause they're interesting. So gentry and Joanna lead him there. He Tate radios the police dispatcher at 604 PM and says he has arrived at the apartment. Now, from there, there is contact coming into him. People are trying to get a hold of him on the radio to find out status and things like that. - Yeah. - He does not answer his radio after that and never radios back again. Oh, gone, disappeared. Just not answering the radio. So they're like, okay, well maybe it died, doubt it, but maybe it died. But so the detective they're looking for is William Ray Tate, goes by Ray here and Tate here. He's born June 14th, 1947. So, was he 34 at this point? - Oh yeah, he's a young man, that's wild. 33 young man, he's from Salome Springs in Benton County and police can't reach Tate on his radio by 630. So they start to be a little bit worried and whether or not it died or not, they still want to know. So at 710 PM, Detective Davis, the other guy, he goes to the apartment as well that goes to the address that he knew Tate was going to. Oh, he shows up to find the door ajar. He's like, okay, he opens the door and doesn't see anybody. There's no Tate, there's no Joanna Price. - No Tate car or anything like that? - No, that's the thing, nothing is there. But he does find the telephone receiver cord ripped from its socket and he finds his partner's flashlight. - It's like a horror movie. - Lens down on the table, you know, standing up. As they said, I'm one of the mag lights and he said that's our, there's one of our flashlights. He's like, why the fuck would he? He would never leave his flashlight behind. - Never. - That's crazy. So at this point, no people, phone ripped out of the wall, his partner's flashlight there, now they freak out. - Alien abduction kind of soon. - Yeah, by 8 PM, it is a full on search for Tate's police car which is an unmarked car, by the way, which also doesn't help. - Oh, that's not helpful. - That's not helpful. At least a marked car is easy to find. It's just a blue sedan, so it's hard to find. - In '81, when they didn't have trackers on those tracks, no GPS, you just had to look, so who knows. Now, let's find out who the hell they were looking for to begin with when they went in. Larry, Larry A. Price is his name. Larry is the missing person. He is born April 1st, 1959. He's, you know, 21 at this point in time for Christ's sake. Didn't even turn 22 yet. He's got a dad named Burl, which is a great dad named, B-U-R-L, Burl. Like, Burl Ives, the guy who sings the Christmas songs, fucking, that's a real old dad name. - I don't like any name like that, like Burl. - This is my dad, Burl. Burl says, "Cool." - Milti, Uncle Milt, that's a good name too. - Milton Burl? - Yeah, 'cause he's a Milton Burl, that's it. - Yeah, 'cause he's a kind old man. It's just such a nice name. - He's not a kind old man, Milton Burl. - He was a kind, fuck no. He was the biggest dick in show business. Everyone ate it, no, Burl. - Oh, Jesus, I've never heard that. I heard he had the biggest dick in show business. He had a shike, he loved showing it to everybody. But he was a complete asshole, that guy. Everything hated him. Yeah, no one like Milton Burl. He was a real dick. - I'm kidding. - Yeah, real dick, but I never mind. Look up his contract that he signed in the early '70s, it's incredible. It's incredible, like, to what? - To TV, a TV deal. 'Cause before, this back when TV first started, it was only like in New York City area. - Yeah. - And he was, he got like an 80 share. Like, he, the whole, everyone had a TV watched him. So they were like, oh man, we gotta get this guy signed. So they signed him to like a 25 year deal for like, crazy money every week. And then, by the time it started going national in like two years, nobody watched him anymore because they were like, that piece too New Yorkie and to whatever. So, they really lost their asses on the deals. - Oh, whoops, they made that heart. - He made money for decades though. So he's got a mom named Geraldine, Burl and Geraldine. And those are parents there. - Hell yeah. - And his wife is Joanna Claudette Parker, price now. But she was born Joanna Claudette Parker. She's born August 13th, 1959. So there are only a few months apart. Her dad is named Claude, which is why she's Claudette. And her mom's name is Patsy Parker. Patsy Parker, great names. - Great names for parents. She came from a very small community here. I guess Larry was from flat rock and she was from Lamar, which is a very small town. But they met in high school and they started dating in the 12th grade when they were seniors, which was like a year and a half ago. - Yeah, yeah, it was just a minute ago, yeah. But it's all in Arkansas, huh? - Yeah, yeah, it's all in the little area here. They had fun together, they have a lot of things in common. She's real shy, Larry's real outgoing. She's short, he's tall, they get all works here. They literally said, we both have very thick brown hair. We'd make pretty babies. And so they got married, as you do. When it's here in Arkansas and it's 1978. - You're cute enough? - Yeah, they got married in August of 1978, which means that shit, he was good guy. - Almost 20, right? - No, he was born in '59. - So yeah, 19, barely, she wasn't even 19. Interesting, okay. So they get married. Now, so high school, sweethearts get married. Larry gets a job at Baldor Electric Company. - I'm just, yeah. - So that's what he's been doing. And Joanna has a job too, but she's training to be a registered nurse. She's going to school for that. So they get an apartment together, and they get an apartment managed and partially owned by a guy named Holly by a guy named Holly Kim Gentry. Is that right? Holly Kim is his name. Awesome. I'll give you the explanation for that, by the way. He's born August 12, 1953. A real nice guy, this Holly Gentry from what everybody says, just like a real easy-going, everybody likes him, goes with the flow, type of guy. Befriended them pretty quickly after renting them their apartment here. Yeah, he's a part owner of the complex also, and so he manages it. He's a nice guy. He's from Alma, Arkansas. His dad is named Robert. He has a brother and a sister, and also a sister that died in infancy in 1948. 47 to 48 here. He graduated from Alma High School, which I believe we've talked about Alma before here on the show. And then he went to the University of Arkansas and graduated from there too. He was a manager of Phoenix Village Mall and also part owner of the apartment complex. He goes very much into church, where he's a member of the choir, and yeah, a former member of the Deacons of the church, and a commander of the Royal Rangers, a member, which is, I don't know what that is. I guess it's part of the Crawford County Mounted Patrol. So I guess it's like a voluntary, royal unit that rolls out the horses when there's a problem. I don't know why you would need that, like riot control in the town of 1,000 people, but on horseback, that's fucking, that's frightening too. That's aggressive. Well, they use that in like Manhattan where there's huge crowds of people to control. This is even Fort Smith where he hangs out is still 80,000 people. What could be the crowd? That's what I'm saying. I don't know where they're getting a crowd from. You really have to gather everybody to get a crowd. So he's also a member of the Christian men's business committee, and the International Council of Shopping Centers, which I had no idea there was an international council of strip malls, but there is. He's doing all for himself. He's also named, and this, you could take it either way, because we've mentioned this one other time on the show, and the guy who we talked about was a horrible murder that was a part of it. He is named in one of the books of the outstanding young men of America. Again, it's back again. The outstanding young men of America. My God. I can't believe it exists. It's the funniest thing in the world. I really want every copy of all those just to look up those people and find out how many of them are murderers and rapists. I want to look at all of your child molesters. I love it. So he's got a wife and a son, a wife and a son, Holly Kim. He has plans for building a strip mall, and this is, he is right on target for the timing on that 1980 strip malls are blowing up. He and his brother Mark, who was a minister and taught at the Central Bible College in Springfield, Missouri, they said they felt called to build the stores. God said we need a yarn barn. God said the dollar general must go here. We need a TV repair shop, a coin-operated laundromat. Got to have a laundromat. Then you got to have a dry cleaner too, just in case, you never know. So that's what's going on, maybe an ice cream shop, something like that. Well, they said the calling was to build the stores so that they'd make more money to finance Mark's mission work. So that's the calling. Oh, the whole goal is to get to those underdeveloped countries and lock them into Christianity. Yeah, and then fucking guests and then tell them a new lie. And the ones they've been told, they're all, yeah, and get more money. Perpetual money. Perpetual. They were both devoted to church here, super into it, the faith assembly of God and Fort Smith. And Holly Gentry does youth work with this church too. And he said he'd need, he felt the need to carry the gospel to the young children in other parts of the world. Sure. So the royal rangers, by the way, are a group of children that he leads. Kids on horseback? Not on horseback at all. He's just also as part of the mounted people book. The royal rangers are like the Christian boy scouts in this area, I think. They like to, which is basically the boy scouts, they, he takes them camping and hiking and all that kind of shit, which is what they do. The year before he took them all the way to the Rockies to camp out. It's a long ride. Now his name, he explained that my sweet mama Odessa Howard loved cowboys. That's what she said. And she said that she saw a movie with Jimmy Stewart and he played a hero whose name was Holly. That is how he got the name Holly. And then they went, might as well go all the way and name him Kim is his middle name. They didn't get Kimberley, he just got Kim. Kim, K.I.M. That's it. So yeah, they're like, maybe people think he's Asian and they laughed. It is interesting how cowboys got a lot of girl names. They do, they do. Shitload of them. It's an interesting. I don't wonder why. I don't know. I don't know what that is. I'd love to read a book. You going to follow it? Probably not. I just want to know why they did that. But it's a very interesting. There's a lot of traces, a lot of stasis. There's a lot of ladies names in cowboy culture. Was it Johnny Cash that did it? No, it was before this morning. Was it before that? Was he just commenting on the trend? There's been boys named Lauren since the 1800s. Yeah, that was, yeah. Yeah, it's spelled L-O-R-E-N. Yeah. That's different. I think that came before the women's name of Lauren, honestly. It might have. I've never read about anybody from the 17th century named Lauren. There was a lot of Laura. Yeah, the Lauren, I think, came later. It sounds like a 70s name, Lauren. I bet it's, I mean, I bet it's, I bet it's, I bet it's a pioneer shit. Maybe. Who knows? December 16th, 1980 comes around. Uh-huh. Now, the prices, Larry and Joanna, agree to help Holly Gentry sell a car for him. Holly's got a lot of shit going on. He's a very busy guy and he doesn't have time to take calls and sell this car. So he said, Hey, if you guys get calls, if you have time, just will you show this car for me and, you know, just kind of whatever, try to sell it for me. And their friends, so they agree. Um, so they put it out in the paper on December 16th. It's a classified ad in the Southwest Times record. And it reads must sell 1979 Ford LTD, two door, silver with maroon top and interior, very clean $4,295. Interesting color scheme of that car. Strange. And that's a, like, a year old car to 79. It's we're in December of 80 and 4295 is the price. See at 710 North 48th apartment one or call 785 4185. Okay. So by January 5th, they still have the car. Still haven't sold the car, which around the week of Christmas is not a great time to sell the car. You're going to move $4,000 worth of car in that in 75 and 81. It's, yeah. People need money for Christmas. Yeah. And B, it's just not, you know, it's not a matter of necessity. Yeah. Yeah. It's not a necessity. And you're also busy. Right. You got family shit and all, you know, kids in all day enough time to go look at 4,000. And that's around the, around what that car costs new anyway. I don't know. And 80, who knows, I don't know what kind of features and brand brand new five, something like that. The 80, they were more than that by 80. Where are they? Yeah. Cause it's a big car. It's a pretty, pretty chunky car. Probably get a Toyota for that price back then. Yeah. I don't think you can get anything more than that. January 5th, 1981, 830 AM. Okay. This is someone wanted to see the car. All right. So Larry answered his apartment door and let's a man in who's interested in the car. Okay. They go out and take a test drive of the car. Go out and take a spin real quick. So they go out. He says, sure, I'll go with you here. So Joanna is still in the house. And it's January. It's cold. And she is going back. This is her first day back. I guess, no, it's not quite started yet. Nursing, nursing school. All right. So she's doing nursing school. She has one more week off for Christmas break. And then she goes back to nursing school. So she's doing a part time job as secretarial work at the Phoenix Village Mall, which her neighbors got her and her friends got her that job. And then she's got to go back to class and do all that shit. So I guess what is it? West dark. West dark. Fort Smith is where she. It's a community college in Fort Smith, West dark. Yeah. Like Western art. So it wasn't far. That's where she's been going. She's always wanted to be a nurse. And she's eager to get back to school too. I guess she's into, she does pediatrics, psychology, and ICU are her own areas, which are all interesting areas. Now Larry's out for a test drive. She's getting dressed for her day at work in the bedroom. And yeah, so somebody had come that morning and she said, yeah, whatever, great deal. So Joanna puts her shoes on, she's got khaki slack, she's got some brown shoes, she puts those on a white top and, you know, she's getting ready. She could hear the man and her husband return in the living room. Oh, yeah, you can hear that call coming. She heard the door close. Okay. In the living room. Now, she wanted to get rid of this car already. Number one, because it was only going to be in the paper for another couple of days and then they'd had to rerun the area. So that's annoying. And she felt bad about it. She wished that she and Larry could afford to buy it because it was a nice car, but they were, you know, a young couple like this, they can't afford a car like that. So, too new for them. So now, one of the neighbors had told them that a man had come by on Saturday afternoon to look at the car and he told Larry to tell you the truth. He didn't look like he could afford that car. And Larry said, "Oh, don't judge a book by its cover." You never know. You never know. That's a fact. You never know what someone's coming for, especially on a Saturday. He could have been doing anything. He could have been working in his yard and then decided to look at a car and he looks like a bum, but he's very wealthy. He owns that big house that we did in the real estate report. Yeah. It's like I got 900,000 sunk into Arkansas. It's crazy. It's crazy. He owns all four of those places. Yeah. Exactly. But the car needs to get sold like we said. The 6th of January is the last day it's going to run, which is the next day. So there we go. Now, she walks out of the bedroom, says hi to Larry, asks how the test drive was. Yeah. You know, Larry said to him, "This guy, you think he wants to buy the car?" So they're like, "Great." Larry made, she said, "Notices Larry made coffee because there was two cups out on the coffee table." So, you know, immediately brought this guy in, gave him a cup of coffee. Awesome. Nice guy. So, they were doing that. So, he looked a little disheveled this guy. He had a blue jacket frayed around the collar and sleeves. And underneath that, he had a blue shirt with what looked like an insulated shirt under it. Okay. And he had a mustache and long curly sideburns and a big comb over, over his bald spot. This guy. That's my elephant outfit. That is quite. You looking. Nah. That's how you want to look, right? For all the ladies, once he gets in that LTD, I mean, honestly, it's going to be dangerous. The amount of fucking women that are going to bum rush him is going to be dangerous. He is. He is. The human personification of a 79 Ford LTD. He is. But he'd be like a 72 with some rust on the doors in '80s, '79, still pretty new. This guy's been around, he's been through the ringer a little bit here. So, that's what he's doing. He's got glasses that are kind of out of style, thick lenses, black frames, like the '60s, or he's in prison. One of those, or the army, or something, he's thin. What's his goddamn name? Shit. Now, it doesn't matter. That camper. No. Is that who you're going for? San Francisco serial killer, never caught him. The. Oh, yeah. So, yeah. There you go. So, yeah. Kind of like that. He's sunken in, looking, but he looks wierry, looks like he's not a pushover. He doesn't look frail. He just looks like, eh, sinewy kind of. And also, he kind of smelled a little bit. Well, stinky. God. Yeah. Like I said, he's going to have to fight him off with a stick once he gets in that LTD. They're going to be diving on the hood across the windshield. Yeah. He's going to be running the windshield wipers just to knock off the women who are diving on, throwing their panties, stuffing them in the windows, turn on the windshield wipers around and spray in water at the lake. Get back. Get back. Go. Go. So, that's how he is. Now, she wasn't sure that he looked like he could afford it, but that's not really her problem. And she's like, what? It's, you know, why would he look at a car he can't afford? So, she took off. They made plans to see each other around noon. They made plans to try a Mexican place, which sounds terrifying in 1981 in Arkansas. Can you imagine how shitty that Mexican food was? Is it new and hip or is it just. No. I mean, Mexican food is at that point. Yeah. Mexican food really didn't hit America to like the 70s outside of the southwest, obviously. Really didn't hit till later. And like, there was a people, I can't remember what I saw it on, but people were talking about in the 70s, they discovered nachos. And everyone was like, oh my God, you can just get these chips and you put cheese on it. He's put in the oven for a minute and it melts on there. It's incredible. They blew their fucking minds and discovered nachos. They discovered cheese on chips to them nachos. Yeah. Yeah. This was, you know, in New York in the 70s. So, I mean, it was not really popular. So they talk about, neither of them, I guess, like to wear coats for some reason, which is interesting. So they talk about seeing each other at noon and she leaves and leaves Larry. And this gentleman in the house here. So apparently, he wanted to basically, he asked if he could use the phone. He wants to call his wife to go over the car with her, basically. Yeah. Okay. So Larry says, sure, phones in the bedroom, I'll be right back. And he walks Joanna out to the car and she takes her keys out of her purse, hands them to him for some reason, oh, because he's going to lock the door of the house. I don't know if they only have one set of keys. So anyway, he gives her, he unlocked the door and held it for her while she saw I got it. He opens the door for, he takes the keys, opens the door for her. She gets in. Yeah. They've been married very short amount of time. And then that's that's that and then gives the keys back to her. And she leaves with those two in the house alone. Now while this is going on, the man inside is in their dresser, snooping through their drawers. Oh. And he finds a checkbook and tears out a check and puts the checkbook back. Okay. Okay. So this guy's basically trying to get Larry to take him with the car to go see his wife. So his wife can see the car. That's what's going on at this point. So apparently from what we understand, they left in the car together to go show his wife is what they think here. And they're talking a small talk and all that kind of shit. Now noon comes around and Larry Price does not show up at lunch. No tacos for Larry. So that's when Joanna calls a neighbor and asks the neighbor, will you go check on him basically? Our friend Carol, who lived in the same apartment complex, and she said, I'm sorry to ask you, but do you mind walking down and seeing Larry's home? He's supposed to pick me up for lunch. And you know, I'm kind of worried, basically, he hasn't come. She said also see if that car that's for sale is still parked out front. So see if that guy bought that car or not, basically. So Joanna gives her the office number to where she's at and they go. So Carol calls back and said, I called and got no answer. Then I went down and knocked on the door a bunch of times. Your cat peaked through the curtains, but I didn't see any people. Okay. That's that. They said, what about the car? Was the car there? Larry always parks in a certain spot. And that's where she'd left him earlier. And so she's like, you know, they said, yes, Larry's car is there, but the car he's selling was gone. Right. His car is there. He won't answer the door or he's not home. And the for sale car is gone. He's gone. So now she's really worried, Joanna now, like none of that is right. None of that's right. Yeah. As long as there's if there's no Larry, then yeah, we got a problem. We got a problem. And she's not answering the door, but his car is there, but the other car is gone. So then and he's not it's strange and he's not at work. So it makes no sense, like I said, she called Baldor electric and got one o'clock and called again at 3.30. And then at 5 o'clock went down to the went down with Holly Gentry, right? The neighbor. No, no, Holly Gentry is the boss. The neighbor, the guy with the complex who's selling the car. She goes with him to the police station to say what the fuck basically, right? So Ray Tate, he takes the case detective Tate, 604. He calls in. I'm here. I'm at the location. What up, you know, and then 630 comes around and he's not heard from again after that. Now a little bit about William Ray Tate here, the detective. He's got a wife. He's got two kids. He's got a boy and a girl. He's got a wife named Anita. He joined the Fort Smith Police Department in June of 76. And for the last two years or so, he's been a detective. He's also a master sergeant in the Air National Guard, the Arkansas Air National Guard reserves and was a recruiter for them as well. So he does a lot, but he can't be reached on his radio. So it's 7 p.m. That is when his partner, Detective Davis, who by the way goes by Pancho here. So Detective Davis here gets a call and it's Burl Price, Larry's Dad. And he's like, that's interesting. He sounded very worried and he said, I helped fill out the missing person report on your son. How can I help you? and dad Burrell said we were supposed to meet Joanna at her apartment, but she's not there. She called us this afternoon and begged us to come to Fort Smith and they said, "Well, what time was this? When did you get to the apartment?" And Burrell says, "We got here about 630, but the place was empty and the lights were on. We went over to Tom Gilbert's apartment and he called the police station for me, but the lady, whoever she was, told us that detective Tate and Joanna and Holly had left earlier." So that's at least if you're, you know, that's some sort of relief. Where is my daughter-in-law? Well, she was went to the police station and left with a detective. So I left with a cop. That's good. Yeah, at least she's safe, they think here. So the detective says, "Where are you now?" And Burrell says, "We're at Tom Gilbert's apartment and we waited, but then we went over to the state police headquarters to see if they could help us, but we're back here at Tom's now and we're scared to death. Joanna's parents are here with me and my wife." So I mean, by 630, everyone's families are there. They're all gathered together. They at least care about each other. They talk a lot and communicate enough to where they know something's off. Yeah, and they're young. They're still young. So it's not like, I think they think of these people as kids still, you know, and you want to find out where they are. So this detective said, "I will be there." Detective Davis said, "Take me about 10 minutes. I'll be there. Don't worry. I'm gone the way." So 710 pm, the front door to apartment one, slightly a jar. So he walks inside, hesitatingly, like we said at the top of the show, the front door leads directly to the living room. He sees two coffee cups that Joanna had mentioned earlier, sitting on the table in front of the couch, and next to the cups was a large face-down flashlight. The cups flashlight. So he said, "Oh, this is strange." So he goes into the apartment a little further and looks around and notices that it's really clean and tidy, no dirty dishes, no dirty clothes, tossed on chairs, just tidy, very, very tidy. And he said, "You know, he sees a lot of the inside of homes, and this was pretty fucking immaculate compared to most other places he goes." Yeah, so obviously they take care of them their home and, you know, they seem like decent people here. In the bedroom, the bed is made, the room is in perfect order. The phone is still plugged into the wall, but the wires to the phone itself had been jerked out. The receiver wires pulled out. It's probably one of those where it's connected, not the plug-in ones. Back then, it was still, you got your phone from the phone company, and it was that big fucking. Yeah, it's like soldered into the receiver, soldered into the box. Big line that goes in the back, yeah, and that's what's that. Now, the Johanna had told the detectives earlier that she knew where the papers were to the gentry car that was for sale. So this cop looks around to see if you can see any envelopes or manila folders lying around that look like they might contain, you know, official paperwork, and he didn't find anything. So he walks across the apartment yard to a home across the street and asks to use their phone. He calls the police station and asks for an alert to put out for missing people. Johanna Price, Holly Gentry, Larry Price, who's already reported missing, and now add detective retake to the mix too, because he ain't hearing cars in here. He's flashlights here, but he's not answering his radio. There's a problem. So that's crazy. He didn't want to use his radio because he didn't want, it's why he called on the phone because he didn't know if somebody had a scanner whoever did this and would know it was going on. And now they know to run. So he also asked that a team be sent out to the apartment to take fingerprints and perform, you know, an investigation to lock it down basically. Then he walks back to the apartment complex and he finds Burl Price again. And he says it looks like detectives tates police cars missing his flashlights on the coffee table. The phone is torn up and ripped out. I just called the station. We've put out an alert. My guess is they've all been kidnapped, but we're going to find them, which is not what you want to hear from the cops when you call. My guess is everybody's been kidnapped, but it'll be fine. My guess is we have four separate kidnappings. And this person's so bad ass they can get detectives, even an armed detective and everything, which seems far fetched. That that would happen. It seems like a tough kid. That's probably the hardest kidnapping on duty police officer. Probably. Yeah. He's got a lot on guard. Yeah. He's on guard. He's got a guy. He's got several weapons on a swivel. Which makes a situational awareness. This guy's not fucking around. No. So 8 p.m. The Arkansas and Oklahoma police all start to search because now there's a missing. It's one thing if you got a missing couple, but or three missing people. But when there's a missing cop, then they they all seem to really have a lot of energy about it at that point. It's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. So they start to search at 10.45 p.m. two and two hours and 45 minutes later. A Holly Gentries LTD is found. Sovere with the red top. That one. Not bad. They find it. It is at the central mall in Fort Smith. Oh. Okay. So that's where they find it. Within minutes, a bunch of people arrive at the scene, including Detective Davis. The car is locked. So they have to get a locksmith to open the doors. Yeah. They also got the someone to open the trunk because they wanted to see if perhaps Larry was in the trunk of his car. Anything's are of that. Anybody. Yeah. Anybody. And if he was, was he daddy could have been alive. They opened the trunk completely empty except for a spare tire. Like you were just selling it and you cleared all your shit out of there. No math books or anything like that. Now the car is taken to the police garage to be fingerprinted and processed for all physical evidence. Yeah. They're happy to have found the LTD, but they're saying the car is very near the interstate 540, which connects to the interstate 40, which we don't like that. If the kidnapper ditched the LTD and took off with or without these people, he could be in Tennessee by now or he could be in Texas by now or three hour head start. Yeah. It's he could be anywhere halfway through Oklahoma by now. So they didn't know. They didn't know if the kidnapper ditched the LTD and sped away. Did he have Larry price with him? Yeah. And if that's an also where the fuck are Holly Gentry, do you want a price and detective tape? Where'd they go? Right. Someone else kidnapped them. What's happening right now? Like this is all very confusing. If he's so Larry and took off with him, like people were looking for them hours later. Yeah. Yeah. Before the detective was even on the scene. So it makes no sense. Then 11.25 PM. So this is, you know, less than 45 minutes later. Still that in the evening, 11.25 PM, they find detective Tate's car. Found his car now. Not bad. Within three hours of starting the search, they found both cars they were looking for. It's pretty impressive, honestly, without GPS. It is recovered at a Union 76 truck stop. So truck stop gas station. There are 57 unexplained miles on the odometer, by the way, 57 57 unexplained miles that aren't that that are not like from the apartment to here. 57, the extra miles. They don't know where the hell they came from. Because every time they get in the car, they have to do mileage so they know exactly what it is. 11, that's 11.25. Yeah. So they're trying to figure it out. And there's dust on the car, like a lot of dust, like dirt road dust. So they're like this looks like as it was clean when detective take out in it. So it looks like it may have been driven on dirt roads for possibly 57 miles. Yeah. Which is a bad sign when someone's been kidnapped. And you've been taken on a dirt road. Now the cops, they're trying to figure out what's going on here on there. They say this is a quote from the police captain. He says detective Tate and Mr. Gentry were with Mrs. Price, who was a witness. That's the only thing we can attach to this is they're like, what does this have to do with Larry Price disappearing? And they're like, we don't know. Right. A cop came to investigate to find that out. And then he disappeared with the reporting people too. So who the hell knows what's going on? However, he's whatever it has in common. It has something real in common. Yeah. And he said, we don't know though. This is we just don't know. We get so we can attach it that they make, you know, they're happening on the same day. But other than that, we don't know. So they suspend looking, they find the cars and suspend looking for people because they have no idea where they're even looking until 6 a.m. the next morning. So we're like, let's go home, get a couple of hours sleep and then come back and figure this shit out essentially. So police begin a day of searching on January 6, 1981, 6 a.m. 100 or cops organized for a search effort. It's a lot. How do you even, there's got to be more than one person or more than one car because this car's, there's cars everywhere. There's that car. Yeah, all the cars that they, they found both the cars are looking for. So now there's a third car somewhere, obviously, or a four star. And these two cars aren't anywhere near each other. Yeah. And what's the, what are the odds of someone getting kidnapped? You report it, get a cop over there and then you're all kidnapped too. Yeah. The odds of that are crazy. I'm righteous. Yeah. They're outrageous. So this is bonkers at 9 a.m. There is a man waiting at the bank for the doors to open. Okay, just waiting there to get in. They open the bank for him. and now this guy said, "My name's Thomas Simmons. I deposited a check yesterday on the fifth the day of the disappearances, but I just found out from the guy who wrote it that it's no good." He said, "Oh, shit, I wrote you a check. It's going to bounce." He said, "So I'd like to get that check back. I don't want to have to pay no fee on no return check." He said, "Do you have a check bounces that you deposit from someone else? You have to pay that fee or do they pay a fee." I mean, both pay a fee. I don't know who pays the fee there. I just know you don't get the funds. I know you don't get the funds. So the teller, Elizabeth Arnold, asks for his address and bank account number and phone number and writes it all down. And then she asked for the name of the person who wrote the check. And he said, "Larry Price, it was on a Clarksville bank." So the teller recognized from the news the night before the 10 o'clock news saying, "Larry Price is missing." She recognized the name. Small town. And she said, "I hope it's not that same man who was kidnapped yesterday." She said that out loud. She said that out loud. Yeah, oh my God, that's that name. I heard that yesterday. I hope it's not the guy who got kidnapped. And he said, "I hope not too." And she said, "Just a minute, sir. I have to talk with our bookkeeper. Her office is in the back." And she can tell me whether we can get the check back right now or not. So they go into the back room, talks to the bookkeeper who happens to be married to a van beer and Arkansas policeman, by the way. Of course. The assistant police chief, as a matter of thing. And the woman in the back, the bookkeeper, she recognized the name as well, Larry Price. And she tells the teller, "Go back and tell him that the check's already been sent off and we can't get it back." It goes first to Little Rock, then on to Clarksville, so it's going to be a few days. It'll be at least Friday before he can actually pick up the physical check. It's Tuesday now. She then said, she said that she told the man waiting at the counter. She goes out, "I don't have the check." This guy leaves the bank. He goes, "Okay, and he leaves now." While he's backing out of the parking space, the bookkeeper, whose husband's a cop, writes down his license plate number, smart move. And calls her husband soon as she gets back in the bank and said, "There was a guy in here trying to get a check back from a kidnap guy. Don't know if it means anything, but you'd probably know more about this than that. Possibly kidnap guy." So they do all of that. They get his license plate number. Now, the day before he had come in and deposited the check, it was a $350 check. Yeah. They said he deposited $300 and got $50 in cash. They said then he tried to get the check back and whatever. So now he's being, they call it in. So now the license plate numbers called into the police and they figure out who this person is. And he wasn't lying at the bank about his name. His name is Thomas Winford Simmons. And he's 37 years old. And they find out when looking him up that he is a parolee from federal prison. Nice. At the moment. They find out he works at a sand and gravel company because his parole officer knows where he works. And that's helpful, you know, exactly where those guys are. And he, they find out that he had not been at work the day before. He apparently had said he was in a gotten a car accident and called him. Oh, car seems to be running. Yeah. So that's what happened. Then 314 p.m. on the sixth. So this is all going on. The bank and all that. They're, they're looking for everybody at 314 p.m. And we know the exact time because you'd remember it this shit, but that way a farmer in the area, claw, a Clyde McClure is doing some shit here. He notices blood on the ground near his diesel tank. And he says, um, God damn dogs killed a rabbit or something again. Farm dogs kill all sorts of shit. So then he returns and he walks off and comes back when he comes back. He spots what he describes as quote bear flesh. Oh, um, there. Um, so he reports this to the police and the police come in here and just a chunk of it, just some bear flesh. Well, you can see apparently they find some farm equipment. There is a large tractor tire near a mounted diesel fuel tank. And he said, I was coming back and I saw a bear flesh and I had a pretty good idea what it was. And they find out that it is bodies is what it is. Plural. Three bodies. Three. I'm going to look for. Yeah. How many are we looking for? There's some more out there. We got four. Yeah. We're not done. Yeah. Three. So they discover these three bodies. It is a large tractor tire and there is five gallon oil containers all on top of it. Like that. That's what someone did to hide it. Just put some oil containers on there. Um, they find out this is the bodies of Holly Gentry. Uh-huh. Joanna Price. Yeah. And Detective Tate. Wow. They're all in this tractor. We still don't know where Larry is. They're all Larry's tractor. Yeah. Maybe Larry's a psychopath and he did all this shit. You know, that's they don't know. Um, now Tate's hands were cuffed behind him with his own handcuffs. Oh, really? Yes. Joanna Price was on the bottom of the pile. Gentry was bound with a small white cord that was around his hands. And then one was wrapped around one of his ankles. And he had like one shoe and one sock missing, a Holly Gentry. Joanna is on the bottom of the pile. They also find a 38 caliber revolver with traces of blood also found. And they find that all three have been shot execution style at the base of the skull. Weird. And all three have their collars of their shirts pulled like halfway over their head, like they were being Corn Holyo. And what is that? Not sure. And I guess maybe for blowback or dragon it? Well, there's also the gun shot is in the collar. So it was pulled over before the shooting happened. So I don't know if that is a way to stop the blowback is what I'm imagining. Um, I, it's all I can think. So all three of them have been shot. The gun is a 38 special cult cobra six shot with a two inch barrel. And the serial numbers are filed off of it. I was stolen one nice. But they were able to, by the way, they, they don't find detective tape service weapon. That's not in the, that's not his service weapon. The, so the, the, the serial numbers are filed off. But not very well as we'll find out here. So yeah, each of those stamped in so deep. The on purpose because so people can't really file them off. Yeah. It's very hard to file that off. It gets some equipment. Yeah. You really do. Each of them were shot once at the base of the skull and killed execution style. Um, like we said, um, so missing from the scene are all three of the, of the, uh, the, uh, the wallets and to two men's wallets and Joanna's purse are all missing. They weren't at the, at the apartment either. Joanna's body they find has slight bruising in the genital area. And her pantyhose run wrong sight out, wrong side out inside out. And her belt was not loop through all the loops. That's weird. So that's not a good thing. We'll find out about that. Now the pistol is identified tentatively as the murder weapon, which is just pretty obvious. They have 38 holes in their head. There's a 38 there. Yeah. Probably numbers filed off. It didn't take it with them. It's probably the one. They were able to find, figure out the numbers, though, of the, of the gun, the serial numbers. Now the search is, they're still searching now even more frantically for Larry Price, because now they know what happened to the other three. So they're like, well, fuck is he. Yeah. He's willing to kill cops. Yeah. Anything. So they said, uh, one of the police people announced, quote, we have very little hope of finding him alive. Yeah. Either he's the murder, or he's probably dead too. That's if he's not he is exactly January 7th, 1981, the next day, Wednesday, nine 20 p.m. Oh man. Uh, there is a creek bed in Crawford County at a recreation area. Sure. Pretty rural. Pretty got to know where it is. In that creek bed, they find the body of Larry Price. An anonymous, this is the wild part too. They found it because it's so rural. They weren't looking there. They found it because an anonymous caller called the sheriff's department and just said to search the recreation area. And then left. We just calls on the phone call. We have no idea. You know, and then walk away. Yeah. That's it. I mean, so right who the fuck is doing that? And that's the major mystery. In this entire case, we never found out who made that fucking phone call. That's crazy, which is crazy. We don't know who made the phone call. Someone made the phone call and said that and his body is found. He is also shot exactly the same close range base of the skull shirt pulled over his head. Clearly, mine's their own business, but also doesn't want that person to just rot out here. Possibly. But yeah, they must somebody must have been told or some something. So state medical examiner said that they probably we'll find out they figure out that he probably died after the other three, even though he was kidnapped well before. They think from just what from the medical examiner thinks he was killed after. So figure out the math there. Now there is a cab driver because this gets huge, this is huge news locally. I mean, this is not only are three people kidnapped and murdered, but a fourth and he's a fucking detective who was actively investigating a case. That's crazy. That doesn't happen. You know, the detectives are there. Very few detectives get murdered on the job. Yeah. That's the good part about making detective. Now no one's going to shoot you while you fucking come up to their car. Generally, you're putting bad guys in prison and they stay there for a long time. So you just have to present the evidence in court. Yeah. Yeah. You're not. When there's a liquor store robbery and they call the cops, you're not running there to stop the guy. Once everything's done in the crime scenes already set up, that's when you come in and start asking questions. But anybody dangerous is long gone, usually with a detective, you know. That isn't interesting. They're usually, the criminal is usually mad at the DA, not the cops. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's shooting bars at the judge or fire bomb in the DA's house. It's one thing to, you know, make arrests and stuff like that, but it's another thing to go to court and tell everyone about it. That's the other thing. That's really, you know, you're coming just blow up my spot in front of a room full of people. It seems more invasive, I think, to be sat down in front of a room full of people with a guy literally, literally judging you with a fucking gavel who's judging and then be like that. Yeah. Very interesting. So there's a taxi driver who says he picked up a man at the central mall at 520 PM and took him to the apartment complex. That would line up right. And especially if you took their car, you wouldn't have a car to get back. Right. So they, he said that, um, you know, that's what happened. He said that the cab driver would try to identify his passenger in a photo, you know, line up or whatever. He said though, there was also several apartments in this complex and that the, this may have been coincidental, but doesn't sound like it because the mall is where the car was found. Yeah. And so this doesn't sound coincidental. How many people left that mall to go back to that apartment complex? That's, I mean, how many times do you do that, usually? You got about 30 of those a day or is that once every couple of weeks, you have to do that. What are we talking about? How many people in this apartment complex are lying on taxi cabs to get from the mall? To go to the mall. Yeah. That's weird. So the medical examiner findings, this is crazy here. They figure out that Larry most probably died after Joanna and Jolly Gentry and Detective Tate. They also said through thorough investigations of Joanna's body, there was evidence of both, both vaginal and anal rape. Yeah. She was raped in both places there. Um, the state later will say she was, they think it was basically just minutes before she was shot. She was raped twice. That's horrific. And she's the only one not tied up in that, in that tire, too. Um, they concluded that price may have died after the other victims, but also said nobody can determine the exact times of death except those who witnessed the death. They determined that Larry could have died anywhere between eight a.m. and 730 p.m. on January 5th. And they estimate the time of death for the other victims sometime in the afternoon of January 5th, which we know that we know they were alive at six o'clock because they pull, we're pulling up to a police to the apartment with a cop. So we know they're, they're alive at six. So we know that that's not correct. They said, we know that Jesus, but Larry may have witnessed what happened to his wife. That's possible to or that they may have been separate. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah. They said, Mr. Price most probably died after these people, which makes no sense because it makes all the sense in the world when we'll figure out the timeline of everything. It makes all the sense in the world that you would take Larry, go kill him, then come back. Yeah. For more, where the hell did he stash Larry when he came back to kidnap the other three? Right. Did he have Larry with him? Like just tied up in a, you know what I mean? Like trunk of the car or something? Who knows? Yeah. He didn't have a car. He had to take a taxi because he dropped the LTD off at the mall. Right. He came back at five something. Yeah. You can't, and it was a single guy. He didn't have Larry with him. Yeah. Larry's got to be dead by now. He's got to be dead by now or stash somewhere. This isn't like, you know, they're not the Gambino family. They don't have a fucking basement where they got a guy tied to a chair for the next, this doesn't make sense. Unless he stole the car. He'd have Larry with him if he stole the car. Unless he was Larry in the trunk. Yeah. They look Larry wasn't the trunk. Right. But I mean, came back with the, with the cop car and then pulled him out of the trunk maybe and then did whatever. Maybe. But either way, Larry would have been banging and screaming in that parking lot to get out of the mall parking lot. Yeah. Yeah. No way. In a mall parking lot. Yeah. So it doesn't, yeah, that doesn't make any sense. They say, fuck what he has stashed him. That's what's so weird. Now this contradicted assumptions that he was killed first dumped in the recreation area and then the other victims are abducted then. That's what the cops figured because it's logical. But the, the medical evidence says that's not how it happened, which is interesting, super weird. But it was determined. All the victims died of contact gunshots to the rear of the head with the direction being back to front right to left and slightly upwards in all four of them. So he's got. So it's a right handed guy. Yeah. Yep. In each case, their outer garments were pulled up over their heads. So the bullets passed through the material. The bullets retrieved from the heads of the victim were so mutilated that it was, it was impossible to say for sure that they came from that gun, but they're pretty sure it came from that gun. It matches up and it would make a lot of sense. So there, it's like 99% sure. Now, like I said, Joanna was, um, was, was raped, uh, both vaginally and annually as well as parts of her face had been eaten by an animal as well. Oh, for inside the tire? Yes. Um, the eroded area included the eyelids, the nose with the cartilage, uh, there, the lips and muscles on the face, like something either face hat or something. They think it was probably the farmer's dogs that ate her face. Um, uh, the hands of all the victims show bruising on the palms and around the wrists. Uh, detective Tate had a large amount of bruising on his hands indicative that there was some sort of struggle to get out of the bindings that he was in. Um, he was in cuffs. Uh, the knuckles of his left hand were colored with yellow and orange bruises as well as the fingers and palms of his right hand. And deep blackish purple bruises showed on his wrists where the handcuffs have been placed. He's been struggling. Yeah, hard. He tried. Holly gentry's right palm was covered in bluish purple bruises and his right thumb was heavily bruised. Grains of sand were seen embedded between his right thumb and right forefinger. So it's very interesting here. Um, uh, they never find detective Tate's badge and gun. Oh, they don't find that. Joanna's got a time next wristwatch on that is stopped at 150, 150, which is very strange because we know she was alive at 150. She's making phone calls at one thirty three o'clock and then she's literally at a police station at five o'clock. What time does they find her though? Maybe it died in the morning. Oh, that's true. They found her. Yeah. You're right. 3, 14 p.m. So that could have happened one 50 a.m. But she would have been long dead by then. Right. Does it need to be wound every day? Is it one of those? That's sure. The time. But it has to be wound. It's interesting. Um, now Holly Gentry's watch was still going. It was still ticking. Um, but they, they estimate that those three bodies were killed after five in the afternoon on the 5th of January. Now the guy in the bank, remember him? Right. Thomas Winford Simmons who had the check. Um, they go to his job on January 6th after the check thing because he had gone right to work after that and said, would you please come down to the police station to answer some questions? Sure. About a check you tried to cash. Um, it was drawn on the, on the account of a murder victim. So we, you know, we'd like to talk to you here. And he said, sure, no problem. And he really has no choice because he's a paroli. So they can talk to him. They can talk to him anytime they want. They can search him anytime they want. He has no rights, essentially. So they go out to the sand and gravel company, sand to interview Simmons. According to them, cooperative readily agrees. They go back. Um, he wasn't at work on Monday, the murder day, which is something they know pretty heavily here. Um, apparently his foreman here, um, got a call. Um, this was the first day the plant had reopened. They shut down for Christmas. Jesus, what, what place like this shuts down like an elementary school for Christmas? That's awesome. Damn. Hope they got paid too. So he said that, uh, he, his secretary came in and told him, Hey, that guy, Thomas Simmons isn't going to work coming to work today. And he said, why? And she said, well, he said he was in a car wreck and he wouldn't be able to come into Tuesday. Okay. So this guy said, was he hurt? And he said, I don't think so. He said, he'll be in tomorrow. So I don't know. Now this, the four. - Norman didn't want to have to replace Simmons because he was actually a good employee. - Yeah. - He said he was one of the hardest workers he ever had on the job of Shovel Boy. - Ever. - Ever he's the most. - The best Shovel Boy you ever saw. - The most impressive Shovel Boy in the history of Shovel Boys. If you're a grown man and your job has the title, your job title has the word boy in it, you have fucked your life up royally. - It's pretty bad for you. - Royally, yes. You need to work harder. - Yes, that means that job is supposed to go to a 16 year old. That's what that means. Shovel Boy. - Shovel Boy. - It's meant for a boy. So Simmons had only been employed since Thanksgiving, but he had a reputation for being like a tough guy and a tough worker. Once he was cleaning out from under the primary crusher and a large rock fell and hit him on the back, causing him to fall and they were like, oh Christ, he's gonna be. - Yeah. - He just said, I'm fine and went back to work. Or like, okay. So they had asked this guy, how's the new guy working out anyway? And he said, quote, tough as nails. He said the guy, he said the guy, bolder fell on him, he got right back up. He said, quote, any other guy would still be in shock. The other men couldn't believe it. They said he hopped up like nothing had happened. A lesser man wouldn't have been able to stand up for days. - A lesser man. - A lesser man. - A lesser man that doesn't need this job as bad. (laughing) - Yeah, a man who doesn't need this job to stay out of federal prison, right? Yeah. So this guy said, yeah, they come and go pretty fast. Usually these parolee workers, especially shovel boys. - Yeah. - Shovel boy turnover is pretty high. - Yeah, he said, well, the employment office routed me to a federal probation officer who was looking for a job for his guy who just got out of prison. So, we were both desperate pretty much as what he said. And he said, the probation officer told me about Simmons. He'd been paroled and was staying with his sister and Kibler. And he said, he needed to find him a job. He said, so I guess you needed a guy, you needed somebody and there you go. And the foreman said, yeah, it's a shitty little job. No two ways about it. The federal guy knew it too. And he said, I'm glad that the Simmons guy's working out for you. I guess everybody deserves a second chance. So, hey, if he says good work, great. The foreman said, I've been taking him down to the Jenny Lins store and having him try out one of those tuna fish sandwiches everybody loves so much. - What? - Everybody's, there's this new thing called tuna fish. It's great, it comes in a can, it's amazing. There's plenty of two. - Pickles and mustard and a mayo. They put it between bread and blows people's minds. - Did it take a while to get to Arkansas? - From the coast, there's nothing what the hell are they talking about? So, he said, he works so damn hard that I have to tell him he needs to take a break. Go smoke a cigarette every once in a while, relax. You can tell yourself out here. He said, we've had some heart to heart talks. And I like the guy. He deserves a chance to change his life. His sister thought so too, and you know, that's it. So, he also says that this guy's a nice guy. He fried some fish up for his sister and her boyfriend had a fish fry up at Lake Fort Smith. So, good guy, frying fish for my family. Now, they talked to Simmons. They said, well, you got a check from Larry Price. You got some explain to do here 'cause Larry is missing. And he said, well, I encountered Larry Price on Sunday night, which would be the fourth. And the check he gave me, he gave me the check. And they said, why, why'd he give you this check for $350? And he said, well, I don't really want to say 'cause I'm on parole. And they said, look, we're not caring about anything but dead people, right? We're murder police. Don't give a shit about that. - You're parole officer might give a shit about that, but not us. - Right now, there ain't gonna be nothing's gonna happen. We just didn't know what's going on. - We're not gonna do it. - So he said, well, it was for the check was for payment for some weed and quailudes, which quailudes still existed back then. So they were like, okay, and he said the check, when he encountered Price at a later meeting, later on that night on Sunday, Price had told him the check was bad. So the officers tell him that, well, now Larry Price is missing, Simmons clammed right up, said, I'm not talking anymore, I want an attorney, which for a guy who's been in the system as we'll talk about, he knows once they start talking to you as a suspect, you ask for a fucking attorney and you shut the fuck up. So the officers then place him under arrest for violation of his parole and cease their questioning and call a public defender to represent him. And we'll talk about this public defender, 'cause he's an interesting thing for the drug charge, 'cause he said that and he said he sold weed and quailudes. So they arrest him on a violation there. Now the detective says that they did not consider him a suspect in the murders or kidnapping when he was being escorted by officers from the Arcola, by the way, ARK-H-O-L-A, Arcola, Sand and Gravel Company. They said when they were pulling him in, they had no thought of him as a suspect in the kidnappings and murders, which is a crock of shit. - Yeah, they just say that 'cause that way, they don't have to read him as rights for a while and they can get some preliminary shit out of the way before they read him as rights. But they absolutely thought of him as a suspect. - He's got to. - Yeah, he was taken into custody before noon by 215 PM, a neighbor of the prices tells police, holy shit. He had seen a man in a similar description to Larry looking at the Ford LTD that they were selling. So this neighbor is nosy and looks at the window. Then at 2.30 PM, Donald Seton, who works in the Phoenix Village Mall parking lot, what the fuck he's working in a parking lot of a mall doing, but who the fuck is Valle at the mall besides Scottsdale? No one in Arkansas has mall valid over there. - No, not in rural Arkansas. - A place where something called ARK-H-O-L is. - ARK-H-O-L. Can I park your pickups, sir? - Thank you very much. - All right. - Ain't nobody touching my truck, boy. - Don't worry, I won't knock any of the mud off the flaps. I'll keep it real nice for you. - Nobody touching my truck, boy. Well, I go into coals and get me something. So I gotta go to Okshman's for a new collage. - Oh boy, I need him bad. He tells the officers that he observed a white male sitting in a yellow Toyota, which by the way, Simmons has a yellow Toyota. In a yellow Toyota, apparently watching Joanna Price's car, he went to the fucking mall to stalk her. This guy took down the license plate, same as the bank dollar, and it turns out coming back to Thomas Simmons, okay. Then at 245, Burrell Price called the cops. Number to Burrell Price had called the cops, told police to check which Simmons tried to retrieve was written on his son's clothes to count, and he, 'cause they showed him the check after that from the bank, and he said the signature was forged as well. - That's not my boy's signature. - Not my boy's signature. Now, a little bit of history, 'cause there's more, we're gonna talk about a guy who saw some crazy shit. One of the neighbors saw someone, well, we'll describe it when we get there, never mind. Okay, now a little history of Thomas Simmons. First of all, he's one of 11 children in rural Arkansas. - Yeah. - So that's never gonna be good. - Couple to hide, yeah. - I would think so, just from Ricketts and Scurvy or some shit, some weird preventable diseases. - Some wild grass disease. - Yeah, he spent the most of his adult life in prison. He's from hot springs. He'd been living in Kibler for about two and a half months before the murders. He had moved in with a sister after being paroled in October of 1979. After serving part of a 20 year term for assaulting a federal agent. - Oh, 20 years. - That's what he was on parole for then, but there was more shit to do before that. When he was 16, he was arrested in 1960 for stealing cars in hot springs. Started early. So picture him, greaser, the fucking, you know, that look, this is 1960. So, like, greaser set in 1959. So I picture him doing like that, you know, looking like that, stealing cars. - Right. - Or as they call it, boostin, probably, that gun. - Boostin, yeah, yeah, boostin. - He's boostin to hop it up, paint it all black and. - Hop it up, put some new, what the hell, like up? Put some new, put some new rings in it. That's what Travolta's always talking about in that movie. So. - What does my thing, by the way? - No, no, he's just that stuck in my head of him talking about rings. I don't know why. So on August of '62, he was sentenced to six months in prison on a Texas conviction of theft by a belly. So he was on bail and he stole something. He also serves a one-year sentence in 1963 in McHallister, Oklahoma for a salt with an intent to commit a felony, which sounds like gonna rape a chick. - One of that, yeah. - That's what that sounds like. That was after he had joined the Air Force in 1966. After his auto theft arrest, he went and joined the Air Force, but was. is discharged for bad conduct in 1961. So they said the military will fit, you know what it'll straighten this punk out? Just like they say back. Some punk kid will put him in the army. They said, nope, he's too much of an asshole for us to. - He's already so far gone, we can't fix it. - We've broken. - Yeah. - He'd been arrested. - Can't make push-ups get it out of him. - Yeah, he won't even do push-ups. We can't make him. How do you do it? He's been arrested twice in Amarillo. They said and served six months for each crime of theft and arrested a couple times in Oklahoma City for attempted robbery with a firearm and assault. - She's surprised. He's done enough to get a 30-year sentence already. - Already, and he's still young. And along the way, he's a real catch. Somebody just had to sink their hooks into him and he gets married somewhere in there and has some kids too. Because also we need his genetics persisting. A fucking skinny bald guy with a skinny bald ugly guy who's a fucking career arch criminal. We need him to reproduce. We really need him. - Who's a shovel boy in his late 30s? - A shovel boy. Wow, he was unable to find jobs other than cooking or dishwashing or things like that. I'm telling you, the kitchen is where anybody can get a job. It's great. - Kitchen or sand and draughtful. - Yes, shoveling or a kitchen. You can either wash dishes or shovel a sand. He never stayed at a job for more than a couple of months. In 1965, he was sentenced to two years in Cummins, prison near Pinebluff, Arkansas, for forgery and uttering. - What is that? - He said some shit that wasn't right, apparently. - Yeah, we're speaking about a cow's titties. - Yeah, and that's it. And he was getting down there, really. Really, I just picture him laying under a cow just feeling like, "Is that uttering?" Like when you put your mouth under the slurpee machine. - Oh, I hit him. I picture him hitting it like a spoon. - He grabbed all the way there. Or he could be, "I've got double water in." (laughing) He could be double, double milking and it was down. (laughing) He just looked like a porn star afterwards. It's just buccacchi, all over his fucking head afterwards. It's really-- - Is that uttering? - But loving it, just to be it on the ground, be like, "Yeah, big small town." That's how he got caught. It was the screams of passion for caught him. - It was the gargling. - The hell's going out there. - I hear a boy yelling with joy and gargling. I don't know what's going on there. I think that screams of joy through unpasturized milk. - That sounds like unpasturized ecstasy to me. I'm not positive, but, I mean, I'm no doctor or nothing, but seems like it. - Yeah. - So uttering. (laughing) - For joy. 98% fat. (laughing) - So he's paroled in January of 1967. Then he was returned to that prison in July of '67 on a new three-year sentence of forgery and more uttering. He's been uttering again. (laughing) - He keeps uttering. He was paroled in July of '69 and was returned to the prison again in November of '70 for violation of parole. - Goddamn. - A violation of his parole was also a crime that he'll be sentenced to as well. In September of 1970, he and his wife and three children drove to Little Rock. - Three, he needs three kids. - He's just fucking guy. Three, there is three people with this dipshit's genetics role in fucking just screaming through their veins, man. Oh my God. - Who for the last 10 years has been out of prison long enough to fuck three times, and that's it. - Barely enough to not pull out three times. - Barely. - I mean, close. So they end up checking into a motel for the night, left the wife and kids in the motel while he tried to go out and rob a few places. - Wow. - He's really learned his lesson. - No luck with the robbery. So the next day, he took his family to the Salvation Army to stay while he slept in his car. I did not know the Salvation Army had like quarters. - Barracks? - Yeah. - You can just donate, I know you can give him like old coats. Can you give him like your wife and kids and say, put these out in the showroom for a while? - Put these up also. - Yeah, just put, I'll come back and get him. Don't worry, he's like a consignment thing or what. - I mean, I have heard that that was a thing that people did stay at the Salvation Army, but every time-- - It's like the YMCA. - What is it? - It was like the YMCA. - Yeah, it's kind of like that, but every one that I've ever seen was just like a second-hand store. There was no, it's just goodwill. - Yeah, yeah, essentially that. - Goodwill with an army slant. That's all it is. - And I guess that makes sense why there's a-- - It makes sense why there's a fake Santa out front of places paying for shit, 'cause what the fuck else, do you need all that money for? You got a storefront for Christ's sake. - Yeah, here, take care of my wife and three kids for a minute. So he slept in the car, and on the 6th of September, he robbed a gas station on West 3rd, and kidnapped a 17-year-old boy in the process. - Why? - Gary O'Willaya, who was working there. So rather than be identified by him, he said, "I'll just take him with me." He put a knife to his ribs and ordered him to sit on the floorboard with his head between his knees, his own knees, like sit down there on the floorboard. He was intending to let the boy off somewhere apparently, but everywhere he looked, there was cops all over the place. So instead, he drives for miles into Sailing County where he spotted a wooded area. He forced the boy out of the car and tied him up with a piece of cloth. He'd torn from one of his own kids clothing. He tore up a fucking onesie so he could tie up a goddamn 17-year-old gas station clerk, which is insane. He then stabbed him several times with a hunting knife. Oh, fuck. Moving it back and forth until he felt that the boy had blood enough to die. He'll probably, he's bleeding pretty good. He'll probably die out here. So then he grabbed his hair, pulled his head back and slid his throat to this young man, the 17, who for the, the egregious, the egregious fucking action of working at a gas station. This is what he deserves. This is crazy. So he left the boy for dead, covered him up with leaves. All of this for $80. Oh Lord. 80. Somehow the boy survived. Being stabbed many times with a hunting knife and having his throat slit, he survived. And jiggled back and forth. He survived, dug himself out of the leaves and somehow stumbled till he found somebody and got help. Oh man. Which is the war that's almost worse than killing him because now he definitely knows who you are and he can tell you, tell the court, all the horrible things he's done to you. And the scars that you're gonna have from that. You're never gonna forget this piece of shit. Some poor 17 year old kid up on the stand talking about just trying to work my shift and oh, I'm saving up for a car. Yeah. Saving up to marry my girl. Or whatever the fuck they would save up for in 1970. So yeah, he got 45 years for that. Which based on his history. Yeah. Yeah, based on his history that sounds like a right sentence. Yeah. You have escalated to the point of now you're hurting people. You're not just stealing things anymore. Maybe you're trying to kill people. As far as you know, you've murdered. Yeah. That's the thing. He must have shit when he figured out that kid is alive. Oh my God. So nine years later, he's out of prison. Absolutely. And the prosecuting attorney was a guy named Jim Guy Tucker who later became the governor of Arkansas before Bill Clinton. And he wrote the parole board that Simons was vicious and shouldn't be set free. He's a particularly vicious asshole keep him as long as possible. Yeah. So he was convicted of that 1971. It was kidnapping. Wow. So that's when he gets you, sir. May fuck off 45 years. Okay. He was held until May 3rd, 1979, eight years, which is 20% of his sentence at which time he was released. Now he was released to the US Marshal Service so he could serve a 20 year sentence at Leavenworth for assaulting a federal officer. Okay. Somehow he was paroled 17 months later. Holy shit. Which is how he ends up in October of 1980 in living in Kibbler with his sister. So he got 65 years total, state and federal. And he did about 10 in change at a 65. That is wild. Wow. That's crazy. And he was only out three months before this quadruple murder that they're suspecting him of a year. That's crazy. Crazy that they paroled him and then transferred him to the federal prison there like that ought to be. Okay. By the way. And the kingly sum of $350, 50 up front, waiting on the other 300 to clear. Well, I mean, for 85, he'll fucking carve a boy up. So he does not care. By the way, the FBI agent, he assaulted. He also stole his car. Nice. He assaulted an FBI agent and stole his car, which is fucking crazy. So he's paroled for good behavior and how good do you gotta be? to be him. He blew all the guards like you have to be the best. He went out and painted the fucking prison. Yeah. He scrubs the fucking floors with his toothbrush. He's incredible. Like they call him steel jaw around here. Yeah. Never gets a cramp. We know he's a hard worker though. That's the thing. So if he goes into prison and if he's in a situation where he has to do well, he does well. He's a hard worker. They might have said, Oh, look at this kid. He's really trying. But no, that's a bummer about prison though. You're not allowed to have shovels. No, they don't give you any shovels. So his sister let him live with her and her kids because he's going to be a great influence him. You know, an excellent father figure, I would say. We know no word on whether he ever saw his kids again. If that woman was smart, she fucking ran away and never looked back at this asshole. He was only out for three months. Yeah. It's crazy. So by the end of October, he'd gotten a job, bought a car, put the job at the plant at the, you know, sand place was closed for Christmas and he was running short on money and he had some checks out that we're going to bounce. Yeah. He had taken classes while he was in Leavenworth and he'd already enrolled for the spring semester at Westark. Remember we talked about Westark? That was supposed to start in January 81, but he couldn't pay the tuition so he didn't do it. Okay. Now what he says about the check here. All right. He tells them this is a check he received for weed and quailudes like we said. So they said, all right, let's run through your thing. Where have you been? He said, well, on the fifth, the day of the murder at 10 30 AM, he was at the bank, which we know of by the bank, depositing a $350 check asking for $50 cash back on Larry Price's account. Then the taxi driver picks up a man matching his description in front of the Oscar drug and get the central mall. And then a short while later, one of the neighbors at the apartment complex, he's a man fitting his description, get out of a cab in front of Price's apartment. Right. That's pretty good. At 8 30 PM, he made a call. Okay. That night, that was half hour after the search had started for everybody. He had he was in at 8 30. He stopped at a convenience store in Van Buren and called his sister for a ride from there. She said, why don't we be driving your car? And he said, that's a long story. Yeah. And so that was that. Now January 6th, 1981 at 9 AM, he goes into the bank. Obviously, they tell him he wants to check back. They said it's going to be till Friday. They write his fucking his number down. And there we go. Now January 8th, 81, now they're starting to get evidence and we'll talk about this. What they think here is that he didn't expect the wife to be home. He expected basically Larry would be home. He'd inquire about the car. As we find out, he's he already had a buyer for the car. A stolen car buyer. He already had somebody that was waiting on this car for him. He said, I'm going to go steal this L. T. D. Basically. So when he showed up in the morning to look at the car and get coffee with Larry, she came out of the bedroom and he was like, fuck, fuck because when he showed up, he knocked on the door. So let's go for a test drive. No problem. They went for test drive. Came back and now all of a sudden there's a woman in the house. Oh, no. So he's like, fuck, he thought he was just going to rob this guy, take the car, maybe kill him, who knows, but whatever. But there's a guy who was, he had already promised a guy had already promised him 1500 cash if he delivered it to him on Monday afternoon, this car. Yeah. So he thought that everything would go well and turns out now there's extra people and he can't figure it out. Then a witness comes forward. That is the craziest witness of all time. And he go, well, why the fuck didn't he do this? The day this is happening, one of the apartment complex neighbors. And it's because he didn't want to come forward sooner because he had a warrant. Uh oh. So the warrant kept him from calling the cops and telling them what he saw, which was the thing that is, explains everything pretty much. Um, he first went to his lawyer. By the way, this guy Davis is his name, not to be confused with detective Davis who went looking for retake. This Davis guy, James Davis, his lawyer who he called to say, should I come forward with this information? Will I get arrested? Happens to be the same lawyer that has been assigned to Thomas Simmons. Oh no. Small town. So now they have the same lawyer. So Davis, the neighbor came to the lawyer. His name is settle. That's his name, his last name and related the story saying that, you know, well, this is what happened when I saw and he said, you got to tell the cops you have to. And then in a couple of weeks, I'm going to be, yeah, really fucked on cross exam. That's the thing he thought about it. And he said he didn't know whether he continued to represent Simmons and view of the fact that this, his other client is now going to be, you know, on the record and all this type of shit. And I have to fucking, I'm going to have to cross examine him and he's my client. So that's not right. So, um, they said James Davis, the neighbor across the street saw a man who appeared to be officer Tate, detective Tate, arrive at the Price's apartment complex in a blue on mark car. He saw man. Yeah. The man looked briefly at the truck. Holly Gentry's large truck was parked in front there. Sideways in front of taking up two spaces. Uh-huh. Because it's his complex. He can do it. So he was looking at the car. Well, he had heard that this guy had one of these cars. So he was just looking, okay, that's that car. So that's what's going on cop was presumably detective Tate looking at a car then going into the apartment complex. Shortly after that, a different man, not detective Tate, made three trips from the apartment to the blue car, Tate's car to the cop car, different guy. Yeah. Um, the first time, it's, it's what he brings out to the car. That's the crazy part. The first time he brought out a man whose hands were tied behind his back and made him get into the car. Someone is watching this. I'm not calling anybody, by the way, for days. What? He could call the cops right then and saved everybody's life. But this fucking guy was like, I got a warrant. Yeah. Okay. He saw a detective with his badge on his waist and a gun and all that shit. Go in the door. He didn't know it was a cop going in the door. Later on, he assumes that so it was based on the facts, but he just saw a guy go in with a blue car and go in the fence. But he still saw a man come out a handcuffed or a sport coat and tie, you know, and then he sees a different man go to the car with a man tied up a man with his hands tied behind his back. So he brings out him getting in the car. Next, he brought out another man also tied and or hands behind the back and put them in the car. Then he brings out a crying woman and forces her in the car. Oh my God. And drives away. And this guy went, well, price is right is on and fucking went back to what he was doing. Well, that ramen only takes three minutes. I better really get in there. Um, that's what this guy saw and didn't come forward until the eighth. That's what warrant will do, huh? Wow. Holy shit. I wouldn't even think about that for a minute. Holy shit. I would do it anonymously. Either I would think maybe this will get this warrant wise washed away. I'm gonna be a fucking hero. Yeah. You can't send me back. Send me to jail now. I'm a hero. Now, by the way, uh, scientific evidence, a hair from Simmons body was discovered on an officer takes shirt. So they got to be pretty close to each other for it to get inside of a shirt. And another hair from Simmons body was found on Larry Price's sock. So that connects him. I mean, this is not DNA, by the way. Back then this was microscopically similar, consistent with so we have no idea if it's his hair or not, but it's a hair that matches the deal there. And they found out that semen that they got from Joanna's vagina, which sounds like a the worst porn movie of all time. Um, this matched Simmons blood type, but not Larry's blood type. So like they can't the defense can't say, well, she had sex with her husband that morning. No, she didn't. Now, they can't match this definitively to Simmons because it's only by blood type, but it's not hers, obviously, and it ain't fucking Larry's. Yeah. So and they have this, it's type O, which is the same as Simmons. So there you go. Um, now there's blood as well. Here. There's a blood, um, blood found on Simmons work pants that he was wearing at work. This war's workout fit, um, could be matched to the blood types of both Larry and Joanna, because they're both the same type, um, which is type A, which is about 40% of human beings are type A. Um, but they said that the only conclusion could be formed from the test was if the stain did not come from Simmons, who is type O. So he didn't bleed on his own pants. This is someone else's blood on his pants that matches the same blood type as victims that he has. Um, and speaking of type O, the like I said, Seaman sample is type O, which is her and which is him. Now handwriting as well, an FBI handwriting specialist concluded that the handwriting on the check drawn on Larry's account was that of Thomas Simmons as well. He wrote it out. Um, now the gun here that they found under the bodies that they believe is the murder weapon. go, well, where the hell that come from? They figured out the serial number and figured out it was purchased by a guy named John Neal Bryant in 1976 in Vamburant, which is the town next to us. We've done Vamburant as a town. He said it was law either. He couldn't remember if it was lost in the woods or stolen from his pickup truck, but he thought it was sometime around 1978. That happened so loose with weapons. And he's a neighbor of Simmons, by the way. So he could have lost it in the woods and Simmons could have picked it up. We don't know. We're struggling under this truck either way. Either way, well, he was in prison during 78. So it makes sense. He lost it in the woods and then he picked it up because he couldn't have been there in 78 because he was in prison. Now, another testimony later on an investigator at the state crime lab said bullets recovered from the victims were officially too mutilated to make an accurate link to the 38, but they said that they could neither verify or rule out the possibility that they came from the recovered gun. But logically, a Jerry's going to look at that and go, I'm going to the body's on the gun. I'll throw them all in place. It doesn't make sense. Otherwise, so he is arraigned on four counts of kidnapping, four counts of murder. Now they send him for a competency examination, first of all, right away. Okay. He's been being he gets sent for a few days and gets returned back to his cell. When he gets returned back to his cell, there was a deputy sheriff who made the transfer and they asked him, you know, did it go okay? Was he crazy? Was, you know, just drooling and fucking insane. And he said, quote, he didn't say anything and I didn't have anything to say to him. That's that. So will he be competent? Well, they expect to receive a written report in a couple of days. However, one local official said that basically he's probably going to be found fit to stand trial. He said, quote, I've never known of them to send one back that have been determined mentally unable to stand trial. So they sent him back to jail, which means he's probably fine. He's he's going. He's going. Now the competency results, Dr. A.F. Rosendale, who's a psychiatrist, wrote that Simmons was found to be without psychosis, but does exhibit anti-social behavior. I would call raping and slitting throats and murdering cops, slightly anti-social behavior. Copies of the findings are sent to the prosecutor. The evaluation said he's probably not suffering from mental disease or defect of such a degree as to make him unable to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirement of the law. So they literally took that copy pasted from a law book of what they have to be and said that's what he is. The findings also concluded that he has mental capacity to understand the proceedings against him and has capacity to assist effectively in his own defense. Therefore, he is considered fit to proceed at this time. Very good. So they want to change a venue to events. Yeah. Because they're like, everybody's heard about this. There's a small town and he killed a fucking cop and raped a chick and killed. It's bad. So the thing is it came on the heels of an unconnected series of murders in the immediate area. There were four separate capital murder trials pending in Fort Smith or Van Buren. So this little tiny area had five death penalty agile eligible murders at the same exact time, pretty fascinating, which is it's got to be the water or something. Overwhelming. You can't try that, right? It's a while. There has to be environmental or some shit. Like, I don't know what's going on. Right? There has to be like a, I don't know. Maybe it's like Widow's Bay like it's like the island that's doing it. I don't know what's just sucking, sucking in evil. The area just like wants to be fed. I don't know what it is. So local citizens here, they say we're appalled by what appeared to be a reign of violence unprecedented in this century. Because this is a small area. They don't have this one editorial on a TV station on January 7th, worried that quote, this most recent in a series of violent killings has raised concern about the quality of life in Western Arkansas. That's what it took to raise your concern about quality of life in Western Arkansas. You didn't look around and go, Jesus, this is shit. What are we trouble? What the fuck are we doing here guys? We're in a lot of trouble here. Tornado season just ended too. That's a bad time of life too. At least nobody was robbing us while Tornado was going on. So that was actually safer for a minute there. So they had a bunch of men on the street interviews, a gun dealer whose business had increased substantially in the last year. He said that enforcement of the death penalty is, quote, the only way to stop violent crime and make the streets safe again, which we know mathematically is a huge load of horseshit. Well, that and selling a shitload of guns. Yeah, you should buy more and then shoot people with them and then get the death penalty for all our care. I'm already paid. It's all. I give a shit. Look at the, look at states with death penalties and compare them to murder rates. And they're the highest ones all of them. It makes no difference. It doesn't fucking matter. That's just the way it is. So that's not, when someone's killing someone, they're not thinking, ooh, I better not do this because I could get the death penalty life without that would have been fine. You know, I'm totally cool with that, but the day I'm afraid of needles. Like no one says that. It's not the way it works. They say I might get away with it every time. That's what it is. They don't plan on getting, every time. Yeah. And if they didn't mind getting caught, they didn't give a fuck then they don't care what happens to them. So a people poll, those quote unquote, aired on January 9th on K L M N TV and said, quote, we, this is some of the comments, we ought to have more capital punishment. Yeah. Not enough murders are being solved. What does that have to do with capital punishment? Nothing. We got to kill more people because they're killing a lot of people. We won't be able to find them unless we can kill them. That doesn't make any sense. It's dissolving and the convicting are two separate things completely. And the murders aren't being solved because you have no scientific shit to go on. Yeah, but you're not rewarding the DNA, you know, to spawns to, you know, you're not rewarding the detectives James with the ability to just go in there and mow them down. Yeah, there's not even a punishment. Just do it. And then they said something should be done about keeping these people in prison and also judges are too lenient. So just, I mean, whatever, whatever horseshit they heard from some idiot who'd never been read the paper either, well, they talked or sat and talked over the grits. I certainly agree that this man should not have been out of prison. No, no, how in the fuck they did this? This is what I mean. This is a crazy case. This is like they blew it. Yeah. A Fort Smith police department major who was involved in the investigation was quoted in a statewide newspaper saying, quote, we've lost two police officers in the last four years. If we don't get something done and kill some of the people for kill and others, the whole society is doomed. It was a tragic, senseless execution style killing by a very ruthless individual who had been serving time. So also they said that immediately upon his arrest, the news reported extensively of his prior criminal convictions, which, you know, pollutes the jury pool. The Arkansas Gazette articles of January 7 through 9 described his extensive criminal record, including his 1960 juvenile arrest, which is where I got all that shit from. I found all that in those papers based on these court documents. I was like, let me look that up. There we go. Now I got some background, a bad conduct discharge from the Air Force and convictions for large larceny forgery, kidnapping, assault, uttering, as we know, the fact that he was a recent federal parole, he emphasized, was emphasized in virtually every article. There's a shitload of them. Several media sources remarked on the parallels between this case and the 1977 of Fort Smith police officer, Randy Baznet, who was killed by a former federal inmate about a week after the inmates release on parole. So to them, it's all, it all fits together. He said, this was a particular source spot with local citizens who felt the parole system was not effective. The views of the police officers, prosecutors and others were prominently aired as what he's saying to try to get this change of venue. One, the Fort Smith chief of police said the state's handing out parole is left and right. And that's what we got. Dead cops, James, because we've dead cops. He cops lives more than anybody else's. That's right. Otherwise kill everybody else though. Kill them all. Now, wow, trial comes around. Okay. He says, I'm innocent as a young, just a young, brand new baby boy. And so I just came, like, I'm still covered in fucking placenta. Just tiny little shovel boy. That's it, just tiny little shovel boy. Now defense opening during the opening statements, the public defender John Settle who didn't, who decided to stay on the case. He decided that it wasn't a conflict of interest to have to cross examine one of his clients in this case, which is crazy. His strategy is he admits that his client was at the price apartment and stole a check. But that's, he said, that's all he did. That's it. He's not involved in these murders at all. He said we do not know what happened to these people. January 5th. And we do not intend to try to solve this. But we do know, Tom and Simmons is not guilty of kidnapping and murdering these people. Well, you better fucking solve it because you're in an OJ situation where it's like, we're all going to think you do it unless it's solved a different way. This is, there's no, it's just the way it is. So, and then they talk about him not thinking he's a suspect as well. They said, you know, when the cops brought him in, it's bullshit that they didn't think he was a suspect. That's ridiculous. Yeah. They said that their client has always been a suspect and was by technical definition under arrest from the time they placed him in the squad car. So, quoting from a statute book, the public defender stated that a person under arrest at the time he is placed under restraint or submits to custody. So, but they're saying, no, no, no, we asked him to come to the station. He voluntarily came down. We were just chitchat. But did they put him in cops because he's saying he was in restraints? No, no, no, they said is placed under restraint or submits to custody. Got it. Oh, so that, but they're saying submitting to custody. The prosecution says submitting to custody doesn't mean being asked to go somewhere voluntarily and you going. That's not cut them saying you have to come. Let's go. That's custody. Yeah. So, they also, he also added that the Fort Smith officers who detained him had no jurisdiction in either in any of the places they were in where the check was tender. Van Buren or Jenny Lind, which is an area town, Jenny Lind. Okay. So, the witness is they bring up old James Davis there, the guy whose lawyer has a conflict of interest. Yeah, he said he then picked out Thomas Simmons and said, that's the guy I saw lead three persons from the apartment to the car. Why do you wait to report it? He said, well, you know, I had criminal charges against me and a war, you know, it is, you know, I'm dumb. So, I'm dumb. I'm cross examination, by the way, because he's a prosecution witness. Now, his own lawyers got to come up and represent a new assault. Yeah. So, on cross examination, he tries to discredit Davis's memory of the incident by pointing to several discrepancies between his courtroom testimony and earlier sworn statements. The cross examination, by the way, he was really aggressive on this cross examination. The cross examination sparked repeated objections from the prosecution and numerous sidebar conferences to figure out, you know, what line of questioning they can do. They have another ID witness, earning cramers who identified Simmons as the man he observed with Larry Price on January 5th looking at the car. The defense challenged the accuracy of cramers identification due to the brevity of his observation of the two men. But the car is pretty clear. You're going to see that and see the two guys and two and two. So, the medical examiner does a mock recreation of the scene by basically throwing a coat over the prosecutor's shoulders and pulling it up over his head to show him how these people were taken in the shot and then trace the path of the bullet on his that way too, which the jury's fucking love those demonstrations. They love those things and makes everything so much clear. Under cross examination, the medical examiner stated that based on the evidence, proof positive of a rape is not possible, but the fact that she has some other person seeming in her and had looped her belt just fine and probably put her pantyhose on correctly before she was kidnapped. We have to assume the kidnapper did this. So that's just logic. Then there's a crazy fucking delay in the trial. Why? The jury is waiting for his sister. Thomas's sister is going to testify. So, I'm not letting them stay with her. The ones who stay, exactly the one who's staying with them. Apparently, it's her day to testify. She never takes the stand because she collapsed at the foot of the stairs at her house or had to collapse at the foot of the stairs from the Crawford County Courthouse when she arrived. And then her doctor said she would not be able to return that afternoon. So the prosecutor said, "Well, she'll be there on Friday because she failed to appear." So they said that they sent the sheriff to go get her. And when he arrived at her house, she wasn't home. So after that information was relayed back to the Courthouse, there was a conference called between everybody where it was revealed that she was at the home of a family friend. When the sheriff gets to the family friend's house to take her to court, she wouldn't go. She refuses to go. The sheriff said he was greeted by her brother, Ron, who just refused to allow Ron Simmons, by the way, like the old wrestler, first black heavyweight champion in the history. Ron Simmons, who flatly refused to allow his sister to go to the Courthouse due to her medical condition. He said she's in the house and to get her, you better bring a stretcher. What is she having? She has a heart condition or something? We have no idea. She just collapsed due to her medical condition. She has, I don't want to testify against my brotheritis, I think is what it is. She's allergic to this. Yeah. According to ball here, the detective, they that Ron Simmons then threatened to sue both him and the others in his car if any further action is taken. Who you got in there with? Y'all sue them too. Okay. Anybody in the court? Wow. So the sister had been expected to take the stand and tell of a collector, sister in law, this is and tell of a collect phone call she received that night. So it is her sister, sorry. The night of the murders to ask for a ride home from the convenience store. The call came from a location close to where Ray Tate's car was found. They came up with a solution, which is the state would simply read a series of facts that all the attorneys could agree on. She's going to say this in this. Do you both stipulate to that? Fine. Then just put it in the fucking record. She didn't have to testify if we all agree to it. If we all agree to the, yeah, you'll take a little bit off the edges that someone might have objected to and take the core of it and just put it in. That's it. They said if they would have not stipulated to the facts, then she would have had to testify. Now closing arguments, the defense attorney tells the jurors, quote, the only conclusion you can draw from this testimony was that it is a fabrication, meaning the James Davis testimony, where he saw him leading people to the car. The only conclusion you can draw from his testimony is that it was a fabrication from beginning to end. It was not a matter of being mistaken. James Davis just flat out lied. Really? That's his lawyer saying that. Okay. I also a newspaper account of both closing says, quote, both prosecutor Ron Fields and public defender John Settle admitted in their summations that many of the bizarre circumstances surrounding the murders often termed the most sensational north, often termed as the most sensational in Northwest Arkansas history are still unexplained. They said, basically, there's a lot of shit we don't know. We're pretty sure about A B and C. So the verdict comes in and it is five or seven man five woman jury. That's what we got going on here. Less than three hours of deliberation. Is this three charges of murder? This is four murders kidnapping you named. No, this is bad, bad, bad. Oh, this is death penalty is on the table. For sure. Absolutely killed a cop and raped a chicken in the raped a woman in the in the course of killing her. And then rob people while they killed while he killed them to this is every aggravator you can find on parole while on parole. Yeah. Wanton horrible shit. It's it's fucking aggravators based on, you know, it's well on parole for 65 years worth of charges. Yeah, this is bad. That dude should not have been jaywalking. No, honestly, this he should have been fucking keeping it between the lines 10 and 2 all time. So the verdict comes in less than three hours of deliberation. And he's found guilty of every goddamn thing possible. Oh, just guilty of everything. So now the sentencing comes around. And like I said, death penalty is is here. Fairly. Yeah, during this death penalty thing here, prosecutions clothing, not clothing clothing clothing was beautiful. They're clothing. They were dressed immaculately. Jimmy the ties on these men. Oh, yeah, the best. Well, one prefers Gucci's little flash here. Yeah. Following the return of the guilty verdict here, they that's when the jury was immediately pressed to return and, you know, debate about the sense. So in the arguments, the prosecutor said Simmons sealed his own fate when he committed the crimes. He said, he's the one who executed himself out in that field and and Kybler and in that creek and clear creek. Oh, yeah, he executed himself. So does he have anything to say for himself? Is he going to talk? He is going to talk. He stood there and gave a poker face when the judge said, what do you want to say? And he said, quote, on January 8th, I stood in this courtroom and said, I was not guilty. And I repeat now, I am not guilty. Sir, that's what he said when he's been found guilty of murdering a cop in cold blood on duty and raping and killing a woman. And annually too, throw that in for a little fucking, you know, just a lecture for some extra fuck, fuck, fuck. Thank God. Yeah. Yeah. and two other men who just, he was robbing. So this is a hundred percent anti-society behavior. Yeah. So after an hour and a half of deliberation, which is barely enough time to fill out the paperwork for this such type of thing here, the jury comes back and says, "You, sir, may fuck off death by electrocution, electric chair, electric chair for you." And then, so he's got four of those, four death sentences, and then an additional this and an additional that and years tacked on to this and you name it. I mean, it's a lot. He won't live that long. So we'll talk about it. So the reactions here, from the victim's families, one of them said here, "We're just so relieved while they were crying and all that kind of thing," and Mrs. Prices' Larry's mother said, "They treat the defendant like a person, but what about the victim? We should have, we would have loved to have gotten up and told that jury about our kids. We had such dreams and aspirations for those kids. They would have been such an asset to our society." And yeah, she said that the victim seemed almost unimportant to the case, which isn't really true. I mean, it's just that the reason we're here. Yeah, exactly. We're just concentrating on what are we going to do with this guy. So it's got to kind of be about him. A close friend to the Gentry family who admitted he wrestled with the decision to even attend the trial said he'd never be the same after the loss of Holly Gentry. He said, "It affects you more than you realize it will. It changes your priorities." Yeah. And then he talks about the Lord, a whole bunch. I'll skip that. Then Simmons leaves the court and he's led to the car to be taken to prison, right? Somehow, now they take them out through a private thing and they put them at the Sally Port there. They do all that. Back then, they just take them out the front door of the court to the parking lot and all the press would be around them and they would walk down these super steep steps. Stone too. Yeah. Don't trip over all those cords or anything. All those camera cords. Yeah. Cuffed back. Exactly. He they said Simmons appeared to be in good spirits as he was led from the Sebastian County Jail, shackled in handcuffs and leg irons for his transfer to death row and leg irons and leg iron. Oh, very shallow. He vowed he would return to face a new trial as the officials ready. He said, I will this will get overturned and I'm going to have a new trial soon. So don't worry about it. He said this is during a little little press conference out in the parking lot he had that he was confident that his conviction would be reversed and he would be granted a new trial. Wow. He said, we'll have to do it all over again. I'll be back. Okay. Yep. He praised his defense attorneys, which that'll come up later and appeals. Well, they won't be so great then. But at the time, he praised them. He said John Settle and Garner Taylor. He said, I am satisfied with the effort of my attorneys. I think they did a magnificent job. Which will then be, you know, piss, piss, poor, ineffective assistance of council and a future appeal. Simmons said he did not regret his decision not to take the stand in his own defense when asked about it because speculation kept mounting, but he said the final decision was reached jointly by him and his attorneys. They asked him, do you think you, you got a fair trial in Crawford County? And he says absolutely not. No, well, he said the prosecution was allowed to introduce evidence in their case against him that would be struck that should have been struck from the trial and asked what he believed to be the most damaging evidence introduced about him because there's so much. I mean, what, what one piece was the, the crux? He said, quote, I hesitate to call it evidence, but the most damaging thing was the obviously perjured testimony of the state's key witness, which is James Davis. Together saw me. Meanwhile, there's like five other people, the cab driver, the other one who saw him going in and out. This is just the guy who happened to watch him walk people out. I mean, we didn't need him to put this together of what happened, you know. So because the crazy thing is, I guess the detective walked into the apartment, I assume, he probably hid and then popped out with a gun. And that's how he subdued the detective is all I can imagine. There's no other way to have to. Yeah. There's no other way. The cop had like his, his flashlight out and he was looking around. Yeah, probably popped out from behind the door, but a gun to his head and said fucking Stan still motherfucker took his gun from him and whatever. And we don't know what he did with his badge has gone any of that shit. None of it. We have no idea. Never, never recovered. He later said he was referring to James Davis. And here's an interview with a, what I like to call a pompous douche of a juror. Yeah. This guy, um, he says he wouldn't take the money that jury duty pays. Just, it's, it's, it's his civic duty. I won't even take that. It was like a $53 check for like two weeks. I don't even cash it. Won't even take it. I returned it to them because I'm that good of a citizen. Yeah. Fucking shut up and take your 50 bucks to take your goddamn wife out the dinner. You ask all what is fucking asshole? This guy, Robert Roberts. He never had a chance. His parents are so stupid. They forgot their last name was already that name. Well, they're going to call him Bob. Fucking named him that. He said he was so proud to do his civic duty and sit on one of the juries here. He said he was so fat proud. He's a career military man. He refused to accept the $52.50 he received for his six days of service on the panel. Wow. He said his gesture of returning the check was not meant to be significant. It's merely the thing to do. He said it was my civic duty. Yeah. I don't know. We have a thing. You show up. We give you way less money than you deserve and you take it and that's your civic. The fact that you show up for $52.00 for six days, that's your civic duty. That's got a dollar now. You fucking moron. Yeah. You're already putting out like there's no need for this shit. Um, so he said the recently retired Crawford County man said he sat on the jury panel and viewed the evidence in the murder case and was overcome by the greatness of the American judicial system. Oh, it never fucks up. Yeah. I was overcome. Oh, great. I was just overcoming an eagle flew through the room and like that was pretty distracting. You know how it is, right? I cried. One eye stripes of tears. The other one stars of tears. I just took the flag from the corner of the courtroom and wrapped it around myself. That's all I do. I was an abomination. He said, I think our system is the greatest in the world. We're number one. Oh, that's a ballsy, especially in 1981 to say that. We were a disaster as a country by that and a fucking mess. Is that a Reagan's fault? That was everybody's fault for fucking 68 on. Yeah. He was the guy that was taking the rap then, though, right? No, they were no. The way he I want to get into politics and people complain, but he made it like, no, it's all different. Everyone went, oh, no, it's all different. It was the same shit. Still kind of for the thing. And there's no gaps. Economy was shit till 85. And then it was good for a year and a half. And then the market fucking crashed and we had a goddamn. So that's what trickled. It's a year and a half. You'll be good. And then it'll be worse than it was before. Great job. Did such a bad job that they elected a fucking governor of Arkansas to be the president. That's how bad of a job for 12 years they did with the economy, as they were like, this is so fucked up. That guy helps us. That's fucking fixed. A dude from Arkansas bangs his wife's hairdresser. That guy'll fix it. That's they didn't care. But he's so good at this. Excellent. So this guy said after 21 years of service in the army from which he was retired for a sergeant, he set his patriotic stirrings are there. He said, I don't know. Back when I was a child, it was a more automatic thing. You know, the old flag and star-spangled banner bit, bit. But he's bit. I don't know what they, you know, the old, the old soft shoe, you know, flag and fucking banner shit. That's not made the greatest contra on the planet of it, don't we? Do you? He said that the Simmons case was the first he had ever heard as a juror and he could not help but be in awe of the proceedings. He's in awe a lot overcome by greatness in awe of a courtroom. Yeah. You're in awe of a bunch of civil servants doing their job. This is what you're in awe of. I was in awe when I went in a court that that we have a courtroom that looks like that. My taxes are being pissed away on shitloads of wood. A tons of wood and tons of fucking fancy chairs and garages and shit. And they feed those jurors really well too. I'd love to know what a state pays for in jury launches. It's obscene with their fucking bayon jury launches, but we got to feed him. He said, we all learned it was an education. He said that his duty was not an easy one deciding the fate of another person, but it needed to be done. He said it was a difficult decision, but when the evidence points to the defendant, there's nothing else to do. He said during his own mental deliberations, there was nothing specific which tipped the balance to a guilty verdict. He said, I can't think of any one thing. There was just so many that pointed to his guilt. He said, he sat and listened to the parade of evidence about the murders and the other jurors were conscious of being under the watchful eye of the defendant. This is from the article with fingertips pressed together. Simmons frequently peered emotionless into the jury. panel as the testimony was presented, possibly checking reactions. Yeah, he's seeing other reacting. But the jury finds it extremely unsettling when the defendant just stares at them, especially they're up for quadruple murder, with staring at them as one thing. Emotionless is an entire difference. When you're being accused of being a terrifying emotionless killer, and then you stand there like this. It's just emotionless. What does the most emotionless look like apart from just blank face and horrifying? That's it has to be fucking dead eyed. So yeah, they said the emotional issue of set and sing another person to die did not cause any inner conflict that he might have imagined it would have. He explained that the panel was locked away for deliberation. Some discussion did arise over the often painful decision. He said we discussed it, but it's really not a decision that jury makes. It's the law, and we're just following the steps. Oh, that's how he does a guilt free, one way to do a guilt free. Okay. I didn't really kill a guy, you know, the loss that I had to when you pull a trigger, then physics takes over. It's not really you, you didn't, you didn't kill them. The bullet killed them. You're just, it was just a, you know, the law was written and said, you have to kill them. All right. Yeah, do it. Now, this is all in reaction. Like I said, to other local death penalty cases, an 81 that'll go over real quick. They said there's five men cat facing capital murder charges in 81, but some of them from older crimes, Eugene Wallace Perry and 23-year-old Richard Philip Anderson were in custody on January 1st, 81 awaiting trial on two counts of capital murder in the deaths of Kenneth Staten and 24-year-old Suzanne Staten Ware, who were discovered in a work room at Staten's jewelry store in Van Buren on September 10th, 1980, a jury convicted Perry of capital murder and sentenced him to death. Anderson was convicted of a lesser charge and sentenced to life. December 10th, 1980, Wilbur and Anthony Henderson was arrested for capital murder in the November 26th, 80 fatal shooting of a 50-year-old named Willett Dean O'Neill at a used furniture store in Fort Smith that she operates with her husband. What are you getting from a used furniture store? I guess a little bit of cash, right? I mean, I bet a lot of people paying checks with 1980 with that because it's, you know, what do you mean? What are you getting? And I'll take this fucking old love seat too, throw it on my, what the fuck do you want? After a certain time, there's not really a lot of cash, right? No, there isn't. I mean, in 80, people had a lot of cash, but for bigger items, they wrote checks, like furniture. You didn't pay for furniture and cash, you wrote checks back then. People used to do weekly grocery shopping, pay with a check. Oh, for sure. Yeah. That was with my mother always did that. Also she didn't have any money. That also helped. Oh, I have these because in three days, we're going to have money in that account. That's right. Either way, I have these and no food. So here you go. There you go. Henderson's first trial ended in a mist trial, then a jury convicted him and sentenced him to death and a U.S. district judge court overturned his conviction and sentenced citing ineffective counsel. Okay. Henderson was retried and convicted on a sentence to death the second time and he was executed actually in July 8th, 98. Marion Albert mad dog, a proit mad dog, that's that's not one you want to go into court with. Nope. The defendant mad dog. Yeah. That'll get you every time. That's like I always feel bad, not that I don't feel bad, but it's always odd when like, you know, young thugs on trial. Yeah. I wonder what the jurors are going to think of young thug. It's not going to go over well, mad dog, young th, and he, it just never works out well when you, they bring your professional name in this case in there. It's all wrong. Twopox is real name, but yeah, he was very well known for some words that he'd said for sure. I don't think Snoop doggy dog helped himself much there either, but at least it didn't have the words thug or killer or what do you think when sea murder went up for his charges? What was the jury thinking about? He's not around. So there's an answer. There's your answer. So mad dog was charged with capital murder in 81 for the abduction and murder of 30 year old Bobby Jean Rome Robinson, who he kidnapped from a convenience store and he remained at large. They said somehow, through it, by the way, prior to this killing had killed his wife, then kidnapped and killed a bank teller and Mississippi. And after he killed Robertson and fled for Smith, he killed two more men in Colorado. God dang. Never been a more apnic name than mad dog. He was returned to Arkansas on 82 after he was sentenced to death in Mississippi and two consecutive life sentences in Colorado. And then in 82, he was convicted and sentenced to death in Robertson's murder in Arkansas. And he was also sentenced to life in New Mexico for the murder of his wife. Who gets to kill him with all of that? That's what I mean. They don't show you. Go for the shit. Yeah. If you don't know, I'm Roth paper scissors. To Jimmy. What do you think here? They're doing a coin flip tournament for Christ's sake, a bracket. 50 yard line. They're going to need a bracket for all those days. May 82 was an attempt to reduce his sentence. Public defender John Settles bid to reduce the penalty in charge as facing Thomas Winford was rejected Monday during court hearings. Circuit court judge John Holland to Fort Smith denied motions asking the Capitol murder charges against Simmons be reduced to first degree murder and the death penalty be lowered to life and in life imprisonment. So he's settled maintained the Capitol murder charge carrying with it the maximum penalty of death by electrocution should be reduced because quote, there is no provision for automatic appeal within Arkansas state statutes. I think federal law fixed that later where you had to the public defender added without an automatic appeal. There's no provision to guarantee due process of law, which is true. The prosecuting attorney said though, the US Supreme Court has reviewed Arkansas state statute several times and has found them not to be or has not found them to be unconstitutional. They said that the same argument they echoed when Settle asked the possible penalty be reduced. Settle claimed electrocution was cruel barbaric and painful punishment. And they said, well, the Supreme Court says it's great. So who is he always fucking doing that? Yeah. Real high electric bill. Oh, fuck yeah. This they're going to put in the where you could choose to get like if you get, they're going to put it make lethal injection the, the main thing, but then if you got sentenced to electrocution, then you get to choose, which is fun. I like that. How do you want to die? I don't know. Real stuff, these jokes. It's a tough one. I got to let me think about it for about, I don't know, 30 years or so. What do you say? I'll consider this over three squares over the next several several decades, hopefully. So he said that the Settle alleges that the kidnappings in Sebastian County are closely linked to the alleged murders in Crawford County and therefore to try his client on both would constitute double jeopardy. I said, it is our, our contention that the kidnapping is included in the Arkansas capital murder statute. Now feel the prosecutor counter that the defense argument of double jeopardy trying a guy twice for the same thing is unfounded. He said, I don't think you can argue double jeopardy until you've been in jeopardy once. He said fields explain that he would need to have been found guilty of one of the offenses before the motion could be valid. Okay. The defense is also asking for $130 in costs, and that was denied. We'd also like $130. Well, the costs are one of the TV stations refused to turn over material without paying for copying costs. Oh. So it's safe to get the car. Okay. So they're like, can you have that? And they said, no. You can pay one of our editors to make you a copy, but you can't have this one. It's just for paper because he wanted all the shit for all the interviews they did with all the people to say that the venue, the change of venue should have been done. So that's, that's, he got to tell him to keep fucking off 83. He appeals to the Supreme Court, the big one, the Arkansas Supreme Court, anyway, you know, which is, you know, three guys named Bubba and their hands around a tire fire. Well, warming their, I was going to go all sitting on toilets that aren't hooked up to anything. The chairs they use. Yeah. That's their thrones. They're like, those are called thrones. Yeah. That's what they call them. They've been calling it that since I was a bully. It's a little shovel boy. Since they started getting them around these parts, honestly, it's on the tire fire. So the lawyer here, public defender John Settle filed a 715 page petition. Wow. That is a long fucking thing with the Arkansas Supreme Court appealing the debt sentence. Settle said in an interview that he filed the petition in Little Rock. And he said it took two weeks to write and raised 22 legal points. There's 22 points here. So five points relate to the admissibility of evidence. The prosecution did not unfairly withhold evidence merely because the deputy sheriff who received the telephone call about the discovery of Larry Price's body at the first protect, at first protected the caller's request for anonymity, but disclosed the caller's identity at the trial after the caller had been given permission. Okay. So they ended up finding out that there's no indication that the author. officer acted in bad faith that he had disclosed the name to the prosecutor or that the defense was handicapped by not knowing earlier the identity of the caller. Yeah. They also point 10, the court correctly refused to admit proof that some of Simmons relatives had blood type A, which was the price's type and the type found on his trousers. So they're trying to say there's no proof that relative's blood could have gotten on his trousers. If he said, "Hey, my sister Marsha got hit in the nose with a football and shot over and bled all over me," that would be one thing, but he never said that. He just goes, "Well, I mean, I have family members of type A. They could have bled on me. Might have been them with fresh blood on my legs." My cousin uses supers. You never know. You never know, it's possible. Any possible gaps in the chain of custody of blood samples were inconsequential and there is no substantial indication of tampering. During the penalty stage of the two-step trial, the court correctly refused to allow the defense to introduce pictures of a gas chamber, a gallows, and an electric chair, none of which can be regarded as a mitigating circumstance. They're trying to appeal you. We should have let them show the jury how bad that type of thing is. Show them what it does? They don't care. Yeah. But they know. They like it. They'd be like, "Good." That's what they're doing this. Stars and stripes, man. Not it. Yeah. Whether to send the jury, there's also a point of whether to send the jury to the scene of the price's apartment to determine how well the witness Davis could have seen the three victims being taken to the car at some imprecise time after sunset was a matter addressed to the trial judge's discretion. There's no abuse there. The court was right in submitting to the jury the various charges of Capitol murder that we have already seen that there were substantial evidence to support each verdict and points 21 and 22. The court refused to instruct the jury that it had to presume if Simmons were sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. He would spend the rest of his life in prison and refused to rule that if the defense council made such an argument to the jury, the prosecutor should be prohibited from mentioning it in reply the possibility of executive clemency. Okay. That's okay. So the high court denies the state. Okay. Okay. Now, problem is the execution is stayed by a federal court. Yeah. And superseed Arkansas. So they get, they get, you know, put on that. So the stay was scheduled, the execution was scheduled like soon, like it was coming. And so they said, this is from the Times record. The stay of Friday scheduled execution of Thomas Winford Simmons is one example of why the public has become disillusioned with the judicial system. That's what the prosecutor of the case said. The federal judge granted a stay of execution for Simmons. The prosecutor said in this type of, it is this type of action routinely granted without giving the state a chance to be heard, that has caused the disillusionment of the public with the judicial system. I think it is time for the federal judiciary to start executing some responsibility and not just its authority. State jury's opinions and state Supreme Court opinion should not be lightly dismissed as it seems to be the rule for the past several years. It's because you're in fucking Arkansas. And we proved over time that you fucking people in certain states weren't fair to a lot of people. That's why we have to do that. And if you didn't do that, you're the ones did to yourself is what I'm saying. Just like you said about him, the murder. You made it. So it has to be that way. It has to be. I can't trust 50 individual states to all be fair at the same time. Can't trust that. Gotta have a standard. So Simmons request for a stay was denied by the Arkansas Supreme Court, but then you know, granted here. So there's a guy named Ron Heller, who's his new lawyer. He said he'd be just become Simmons lawyer like a week ago and hadn't been Simmons lawyer long enough to prepare anything. He argued that the penalty was too severe and that it demonstrated passion and prejudice and the state Supreme Court said it knew of no other case involving multiple murders. No cold blooded brutal or lacking any trace of humanity. That's the Supreme Court, the state Supreme Court. There is a letter to the editor now and there are people of this, this pretty much reflects the public sentiment quote, no justice for victims is the title of it. The Arkansas State Supreme Court was quoted as saying that it knew of no other case involving multiple, multiple murders, so cold blooded, so brutal, so lacking in any trace of humanity as those committed by Thomas Winford Simmons. The state Supreme Court issued Simmons a stay so that his conviction could be appealed by the Arkansas Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court. The appeal has been found to be without merit and the Supreme Court refused to issue a second stay, finding no just cause to do so. Your sympathy and compassion for this barbaric criminal is overwhelming. This is to the newspaper because they might have written an article that they didn't like. Are you fully aware of the facts of these murders, would pictures of these four innocent victims' bodies lying in a hole with their limbs hanging over a tire covering the hole? Be proof to you of just how heinous these crimes were, convince you that Simmons does not deserve the consideration you've given him. He did not give his victims a stay of execution, nor did the victims have the opportunity to argue that their penalty was too severe and that it demonstrated passion and prejudice. Such as Simmons is now declaring, no. These four God-fearing people had absolutely no choice. Holly Gentry happened to be a very dear friend of mine. Holly, nor any of the other three victims deserve this ill treatment. See, this is personal. You can't write. If you knew him. It's personal. Yeah. Much less suffer the brutal barbaric treatment at the hands and whims of Thomas Winford Simmons. He is no better than a mad dog, but that nickname is unfortunately already taken. So taken. Very unfortunate because he would have been perfect. Several states, mad dog, it's not you can't get it. He's national band. It's just like when you're, when you're first starting out and you're an opener comic and you hear some fucking famous comedian do a joke that you do when you know you did it first, it's theirs now because he's been telling it from the mistsip to the Colorado. You're in trouble. Even if I did it first, fuck nothing. He said it appears that you and the other bleeding hearts must feel our trial judges and Arkansas Supreme Court are incompetent. I mean, probably, but that's a separate issue. So you issued, so you wish you'd to stay for this quote animal. The consideration you have given Simmons and overruling the state Supreme Court appears that you are condoning multiple murder, Holly, as well as detective, oh, he may misspelled Tate. A detective whose name is so important to me that I don't even fucking take the time to make sure it's correct. How did he spell it? P-A-T-E. P-A-T-E. Nice, P-A-T-E. Yeah, the P-A-T-E. Detective P-A-T-E. At least he can take it. Listen and call him Tate. Yeah. His name is Tate. Let's give him the respect he deserves and call him his fucking name and not P-A-T-E. Serve the Lord Jesus Christ. That doesn't matter. I'm court. Bitch. Sorry. That doesn't matter. That matters to you in your house. Outside those doors. Yeah. That's what it matters. Nothing. It's not making these four murders about you. You weren't even there. That's what it is. He's a fucking animal who is a dangerous person who killed these people for no fucking reason. That's enough. That's funny. Don't bring up the Lord and everything up. That's too Lenny. Why don't we? Doesn't even need to be your friend. I don't know these people. Well, I hate him. He's a fucking scumbag. I'm sure they are in heaven this day. However, this does not lessen the pain and suffering their families are going through. Will justice ever be served with your compassion for murderers and rulings such as judge G. Thomas Isles on death-qualified juries? We have only a system serving the criminal, poor shit. Criminal justice. There's certainly no justice for the victims and it's sign Marilyn Moore, justice for crime victims, Fort Smith. God, I hope you're dead by now. You sound like a fucking insufferable asshole. Okay. I mean, yeah, whatever, but you, you know what I mean? To use this exaggerated terminology and you, you don't care about this, you only care about that. All they talk about in court is the fucking victims as they should. They never talk about the poor defendant. That only comes up in sentencing mitigation as one little slice where he gets to go, "Oh, poor me." And then they never listen to him. So who cares? What's the difference? He's probably named after that godless Marilyn Monroe. Oh, godless. Godless. Oh, boy. So 1986, appeal about not changing venues. He has one of those here. So they moved for the change of venue. They go over all the different people's statements and quotes and all that and they say, "No, thank you." Back there again. So he's denied that. 1888, the 8th, the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a federal judge to determine whether Thomas Winford Simmons was ineffectively represented by his former attorneys. Okay. Now, let's get into this shit. They said the same public defenders who represented Simmons, therefore, cross-examined principal witness James Davis had been representing Davis on a criminal charge of his own when Davis offered them his testimony. So that's what we're talking about. The stuff about James Davis, they said, Davis was not unknown to settle at the time of Simmons trial. This is right from the court document. August 5th through 1981, that's some of the trial. On December 30th, 80, Saddle had been appointed to represent Davis on a felony charge of theft by deception. At the time he was appointed in municipal court, Saddle talked to Davis for about two minutes. In a second conversation between, uh, occurring between December 30th and January 8th sometime in there, Saddle learned about Davis' record as a Vietnam veteran and that he was taking with him. He may have learned that Davis had a service connected discharge, but he did not recall obtaining this information from him. Saddle's examination of Davis at the trial, Saddle questioned Davis about his court marshal in Vietnam, but did not recall where, how he obtained that information. So they said he also cross-examined Davis about a conviction in Memphis. Saddle said he almost, he's almost sure he obtained this information through discovery, not from knowing it because he's his client. He also had an FBI rap sheet on Davis. This could well have been the source of information concerning the Vietnam court marshal. Saddle does not recall whether he knew about Davis' treatment in the VA hospital in Fayetteville. Okay. So they said the criticism, the main criticism that is leveled at Saddle is his failure to bring out the fact that Davis was taking with him and that he was being treated for depression by the VA on an outpatient basis. Lithium is a widely used drug to counter manic depressive back in the day. So the problem is I think here is, I don't think it, I don't think unless that was in discovery, it's not something he can know. He can't just know it because he knows the guy and bring it up. That wouldn't be fair. It has to be something that came into discovery. He's saying though it definitely came from discovering, not from knowing him. He's saying some of the stuff, the Vietnam stuff, the other stuff, but they're saying Simmons is saying, look, you knew this shit about this guy. It was up to you to bring it all up to try to get me out of jail and he's like, well, it wasn't really fair. So it's not really fair that he was cross-examining this guy is what's not fair. So they said, after all that, this is an examination of Davis where they said, I see no signs of schizophrenia. He smiles. He has full range of affect. He senses his behavior as sociopathic and is a self-reflective no hallucinations or delusions. He may have given the diagnosis. He may have been given the diagnosis in a spell of temporary fury sometime. The overwhelming impression is of an emotionally discontrolled person of dull, normal IQ who avoids responsibility for his decisions and compounds his own circumstances by running or going into temper explosions. We'll use lithium to start. Now the other thing here, so they said, settle should have never been a part of this case in one way or the other, then his second lawyer didn't bring that up in the last filing when they were appealing. Didn't bring up this overlap of client issue about the first lawyer and you know why he didn't do that? Because he's a fucking drunk. That's why. Oh, is he? That's what they say. He's an alcoholic. He's an alcoholic. This is heller. Mr. Heller. And they said that he was a drunk, a judge though, said, I find that Mr. Heller was not suffering from alcoholism and his faculties were not impaired when he made the decision regarding the overlap issue and filed his brief on June of 1986 and argued the case November 86. He surrendered his license to practice law in November 87. A year after he was this guy's attorney, he filed an affidavit and testified that during the previous year he had problems with alcoholism. The problem would have us arisen 11 months after he filed his appeal and five months after he filed his brief in the court of appeals, that would be if you take him at his word of when he started drinking and didn't drink before, which I wouldn't say that probably. The case was argued in November 86. Mr. Heller testified he never did enter a courtroom when his faculties were impaired. Didn't get drunk and come into court. So he's got one on F. Lee Bailey who drank his lunch. So they said that isn't it true or couldn't it be correct that the 12-month period prior to November 87 is just when you began to recognize the problems and that you actually had problems sometime twired prior to that. And the lawyer says, I can't say exactly. I don't think in November 86 I realized I was having that much of a problem in retrospect in November of 87 when I surrendered my license. I certainly could see that over the last 12 months there had been a pattern not meeting my overhead obligations and things like that that were certainly outward objective symbols of the problems. So that's what he said. Now they said denied by the way because of yourself. Now June of 1990 Arkansas hasn't been executing people but now they're ready to start executing people again. Yeah. So they're saying when is he going to fucking die basically they executed Ronald Gene Simmons no relation and also not the Ron Simmons from the apartment that his sister at a sister's house over there. And not Gene Simmons, we covered Ronald Gene Simmons I'm pretty sure. Think we did. Yeah, he killed a bunch of people. He killed 16 people including 14 family members. I think. Oh. Yeah. So there are several people up for this. There's a list of 32 men on death row in Arkansas and they're basically going to execute them in order of how long they've been on death row. The crimes they were sentenced to death and the status of their appeals. September 1990 is the final appeal. Here we go. USA's 8th Circuit Court of Appeals denies him in September 90 moving him to the front of the line. Oh, execution table. He is. He got a fast pass. Hold on, baby. This is no, no, no, really. I got no, no. I've been having my place held in line. It's good. This is my spot. Yeah. A fast pass around. All you bitches. The Arkansas Assistant Attorney General said if the US Supreme Court refused to intervene, Simmons could be executed by mid-January 91. So he is scheduled for execution mid-January 1991, yeah. They say that by the way, there's going to be a, it can be lethal injection. It can be electrocution. They have a backup executioner by the way. Oh, shit. Just in case this guy gets a stomach flu, yeah, heart attack, trips and falls. The backup is a precautionary step taken in case the appointed executioner cannot able to carry out the execution. At the execution, the executioner and his backup, both will be in a small control room located to the right of the inmate. A small window will allow the executioner to view the inmate. The identity of the two people will be kept secret. Okay. So that's how they do this here. They have media present. They have people coming. They said they don't believe, they said they don't anticipate any family members of either the inmate or the victims being present for the execution. That people used to never go for that. Now it's like, I want to see them. And some people have gotten wacky, man. People have fucking sick. If you can't wait to see it, it's sick. You're kind of a little sick. I feel bad for both sides. I want to see it. The only people that should be here are journalists. Yeah. That's your job. You do that shit. But either family, it's probably bad. It's for normal people to watch people be killed is a bad thing. That's not good for your psyche. Whether it's justified or however you want to put it, but it's just not good for your mental state. I don't want to watch a dog put down. I don't want to see anything. I don't want to see anything you killed. No. December 31st 1990, less than two weeks away from his execution day, Simmons body was discovered in his cell at the Tucker maximum security unit as the guards were delivering lunch trays. See, he was in his bunk, covered with a blanket, didn't answer the guards. They summoned a supervisor and they said there was lots of blood. So the medical personnel were called. There were towels in the bed soaked with blood. And they said Simmons died from a self-inflicted laceration to his neck, apparently made with the blade of his disposable razor that had been melted into the handle. Damn, he jammed it in there. Yeah, melted it. It's fair. This is somebody from the prison said it's fair to say this much as much this, this as much surprised the staff as everyone else. They said Simmons was not prone to cause problems for the staff, other inmates, or himself for that matter. He seemed to do really well in any environment, except freedom. That's where he really had a problem when he could just do whatever he wanted. Except for it. Except for it. Yeah. Except for it in the military. Yeah. I couldn't do that. If to suicide note, maintaining his innocence in the suicide note, they said, quote, with the exception of John Edward Swindler, who was executed in June of 1990 for killing a fort Smith patrolman, Thomas Simmons was the most dangerous person I've come in contact with. That's one of the, that's what the prosecutor said. They said the type of disposable razor that a death row inmate apparently used to kill himself is available to all 6,500 state prison inmates, the spokesman said. They said he appeared to have a self-inflicted laceration to the neck area that was inflicted we believe from a disposable razor. The blade had been removed and it had been set in the handle. He said, we don't have any reason to believe it was anything else but a suicide. All inmates are allowed to have one unadulterated disposable razor, and they said we're talking about a disposable razor, not a straight razor. It's still a razor, I mean, it's a razor's a razor. Does that create a danger only when an inmate chooses to use it improperly? Yeah, they're inmates. They shouldn't have anything that has a choice to be used improperly. It's a problem. He said, the fact that it has the option to be means they will fucking do it. Absolutely. We said pencils and pens. are common weapons. So, you know, if they can have that, but look at an elementary school. You'll hand the kids pencils and pens, but will you hand them fucking razor blades? Never. Probably not. You know, it's the same thing. They said bed sheets could be used as a rope. We issue bed sheets. Oh, what's the difference? I mean, I don't know what else you do. The guys have to be able to shave. You can't. And you can't be able to shave. Start a line and shave people every fucking morning. Fuck no. Fuck no. I mean, you could do electric razors. That works. Then you'd have to provide those. They're a lot more expensive. Maybe over time, maybe cheaper though. Yeah, but in an electric razor, there's a fucking razor inside there. And you could pull that out. Yeah, true, true. It's just not a, no, it's a very small chip, but it's the same as the same as that one that they fucking cut people with in wrestling. It's bigger than that razor. Yeah, they, they, they just do a razor blade. It's anything like that. Just tape it up. Well, at some time, it's half a razor with tape on it, but depends on who's doing it. Sure. So they said that Simmons has no record of mental health problems. And they said it's fair to say this as much surprise the staff is everyone else. So one said this is the prison staff police sergeant from the state. It was nothing whatsoever, but self-inflicted. He made elaborate preparations to kill himself. Now, why did he kill himself? I don't know because they were going to execute them in two weeks probably W a gypsy Henderson knows why he killed himself on gypsy Henderson knew him in jail before they were both on death row. And he said that he didn't want his family in the spotlight. So he killed himself to save his family. He said, if I don't get, he said, I talked to him years ago and he said, if I don't get a new trial and they don't reverse this thing, I'm not going to put my family through that. Gypsy, Gypsy said, you know why he took his life. So his family didn't have to go through the media newspaper, radio and television and all the hype that would have come about it probably sometime this year. It was well planned by Tom Gypsy said, I do not believe the prison guards could have stopped this unless they happen to be in the right in front of his cell at that particular moment. Everybody's burials here. The price is share of headstones, very nice. It's like a heart where they each have one side of the heart there at the Brock Cemetery in Johnson County, Arkansas. Holly Kim Gentry is buried in Rudy, Arkansas at the Morrison Cemetery in Crawford County. And William Ray Tate is buried at the Oak Hill Cemetery in Benton County, Arkansas there as well. So there you go, everybody. That is Arkansas and holy shit, that places. Yeah, he wasn't going to he was going to go out on his own terms, no matter what, I think that was the start from the get, you know what I mean? I think that's yeah, I honestly if I think if he knew the damn cops were coming to the sand place, I think he would have blew his brains out in the sand. I think he, I think he's that kind of guy. I think he thought he was going to get away with it. Oh, he definitely thought he was going to get away with it. Then when he deposited the check and he said, oh, fuck, why did I do that? I'm going to get the check back. Then he was fucked. All he had to do was not steal that check and it would have been very hard to identify this guy. Although he went to a goddamn bag and said, my name is Thomas Simmons. Can I use my bank account number? I'm a dead guy number first. Wow. If you like the show or anything about the show, get on whatever app you're on, give us five stars and help so much. So thank you for doing that. If you're on Netflix, give the old thumbs up. That helps a lot too. Thank you for doing that. You can you can definitely go to shut up and give me murder.com. That's where I suggest you go. What's there you may ask? Well, merchandise. Sure. Yeah. Tickets to live shows or what we really want to talk about because our live shows are fucking awesome. They are. We're not going to be humble about it. They're goddamn good. They're great. And we know that because people tell us that they go to the shows and we know it because even other comedians that see it go, Jesus Christ, that was fucking incredible. 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And you also get everything we put out. Add goddamn free, baby. Add free. And on top of that, you also get a shout out, which is right goddamn now. Jimmy hit me with the names of the people who would never do any of the shit that happened in this episode because it was just disgusting. Hit me with them. Right. Fucking now. This week's executive person are Gary Howard and Alan Town P.A. Good for you. Hey, hey, he's living in here in Allen got singing fucking Billy Joel songs. Good for you, Gary. Claude Cavallo. Happy hours in Galveston, Texas. Oh, don't get washed away. Aaron Webb, Kelly Becker, Shay, Housemon, Kristi Malcolm, Chris Bowers, Vanessa Brailey. Thank you all so much for doing what you're doing. Also, real quickly. Thank you. Fucking love you guys. These shout out to you guys. We try to do them. We started this to try to give you guys credit for what you're doing because we really feel like you are the backbone of this and you deserve the credit. So we just want to mention your name at once. And so people are there may be a little confused. I can only do this on the initial sign up. If you hear anybody repeat it, it's because they donate every week. And I don't fucking know why they do it. But boy, am I grateful for those people. Thank you for doing it. Yeah. So I can only do all the first one because otherwise this would this would take longer than the show. It's thousands of people. It's crazy. We'd have to put out a separate show, a separate two and a half hour show every week of just me stumbling through the fucking different ethnicities of this country. Hey, that'd be easy for me though. That would be good. We should do that one. We could replace a regular show with that. That you guys what? Is that what other producers this week? So the point is giving you credit. You deserve it. We appreciate it. Thank you. So we love you for. Thank you. But I'm not going more than once. Fucking god damn it. It's so possible. We what if we good? But we can other producers this week. Peyton Meadows, Liz Vasquez, Janice Hill, Bill McClellan, Casey Tompton, Megan and Mabel Fred, Scarlett Horby's the third. Thank you all so much. Dustin Kelly, Elise, Elise, no last name, Elise, I think Sam Hodges, Tracy Fontaine, Sarah Sanders, Kendra with no last name. Katrina Bell, Danny Errett, Todd Wallenbeck, Heather Morce, Craig Garland, Courtney Griggs, April K, Joe Whitaker, McKenna Matthew, Megan Block, Kimberly Wattwato, Joe White, Ryan Delgado, Brandon Wilson, Lauren Murphy, Deena Hoffman, Joe with no last name, Benjamin Gears, Brooke Paige, Amy Linnebarger, Linnebarger, line. All right, chance with no last name, Natalie Fia, Flora, Floreon Chitch. So that's your game. Bridget Reverez. Reverez. All right, Alison with no last name, Pam with no last name, SP, no last name, Justin Yetzer's, Megan Davis, Adam Hess, Jenny, Janine, Janine, my god, Mallory, Megan Fallette, Denny with no last name, Denai, Lewis with no last name, Misty with no last name, Gavin Beary, Joseph Florkely, life is better with dogs, I couldn't agree more, Denise Bebionno, Ronnie with no last name, Tanika Beaver, Alia, Megan Termesia, Termesay, hey, what's, uh, how do you say her name? Termesay, because it's It's like Torre May. - Yeah, it's like Mel or Marissa. Jessica, but it's. All right, Jessica Perky Perk, Derek Stewart, Leslie with the last name, Katie Bourne, Jan Sims like Phil, Abigail Batar, Julia Davis, Trina Childe, Child Shaw, Amber Spencer, and then Laura Spencer, or is that chorus Spencer? I don't know what I did, I may have missed it, Laura. Bruno, last name, Kay Bui, Lindsay Trent, Shay Housemon. I said that. Johnny Rhodes, Luregon, Chistell. Nope, that's Crystal. Crystal Gilbo. Chistell. Is it Chistell? - You should go by Chistell, though, right? Is there an R in there? - I don't know. (laughing) - I love it. - Fuck it, awesome. - Dave Dorn, James Buggler, Chris Schoening, Shannon Leary, Brittany Greene, Mama 5150, Todd Fischel. - She's crazy. - She's crazy, James Buggler. Crazy mom. - It's crazy mom. - It's currently not last name. - Robert Smith, Holly, De Cren, De Cred, Chizanzo. - Oh. - Cred, Chizanzo, Chizanzo, I'm right. Please hammer, let's hammer, let's hammer. God dammit. - Coralie with no last name, Beth with no last name. - Robert Burke, Cessely with no last name. Killer state of mind, Tina Tiago, Jeff Gomez, Tuck, 1195, Jessica, Meijelich. Meijelich, Meijelich. - I don't think something's boring. - What's that? - Yeah. - It's a meijelich. Rianan, Rianan, Rianan, Henry, Abbey, Danko, Smooth C. Not, no try, just hard. I don't know. What does that mean? (laughing) - I have no idea. - Trying to get out of me. - Something Yoda, Yoda, no try, just hard. - No try, just hard. - Jamie Meera, Penis just hard. (laughing) - Sorry. - Say it was some nondescript accent. Brendan with no last name, Chuck Lankford. Ike Bryant, Liska with no last name. Tara Quizoo, Quozo, Jennifer Lee. Melissa with no last name. Mandy, or maybe Leah. Mandy Latir, vegan me. Rebecca with no last name. Melissa, Melissa, oh no, ah, me, oh, Janek. Jeremiah Gray, Neb, Neb Nob. Nav, Navsoft, it's on Nob, right? Nobody's name is Nob. Connie Ryan, Christopher with no last name. Jeff Millick, Katie Keller, Mike Doherty, Sara, Suman, Ryan Dede, Andy Kiki. Susan with no last name. Miranda Kulho, Luminatier, Luminator. Charles Williamson, what is it? - There's a, there you go. - That's Prominator, CW. Laura Bishop, Cody with no last name. Ryan Hanning, Pierre, Pierreette. Pierreette, that's the girl Pierre. I, I do, I do yoga, I do, I do yoga. Pierreette, Pierreette, Pierreette. Is there a Pierreette? - That is a little yes. Pierre's daughter, Pierreette. - There's a gal named Pierre. Yolanda Foltz, Kimberly Howie, Carla with no last name. Money or Mooney, Christian Muir, Leslie Cullen. She gets, she has two and she did that on purpose. Two paid, thank you Leslie. Vanessa Bwundel, Chris Odell, Crystal Osborne, Lazio. Nope, that's Lazlow, Marks, Sloan Skillman. Deborah Logan, Ben Mills, Dana Kilcoin. - That's probably not right. Kelsey Terrell, Meg with no last name. Gary with no last name, Leland Helms. Leland is such a cool old man name. - It is, crossing garden name, Leland. He was the best, he hit by a car and died. - Oh, holding a little sign out there. - That's a heartwarming story. - Yeah, a sweet old man just got blasted by a Honda cord. - Perfect, that's how I want to go. - Christy DeChilo, Brian Hansel, Debra Glazer, Justin with no last name, Lynn Lynn and Steve Andina Morin. Jennifer Strozner, Heidi Anderson, Sam with no last name. Ashley Smith, Christina with no last name, Amber Robinette, Alexandra Mietrefan, Micah Reynolds, Katie Gabbagold. Gabbagool. - Gabbagool. Michelle Miller, that's probably, we need to probably know her, Michelle's terrific. Martha, all right, Araceli, Martha, Martha. Joan Roland, Ryan Young, Tracy Craig, Karls Barkley. All right, Patriot babe. Better be the Patriots, New England variety. Brandon Brooks, Fern Dragon, Christine Bridges, Rick, Selvera, Mackenzie Green, Angela Jones, Sarah with no last name, Beth Ward, Pete with no last name, Heather Zerpell, Zerple perhaps, Brett Whitaker, Amber Hodorski, Michael Ducey, Heather Montalvo, Garlic Thought. All right, Drew Miller, Amy Guyton, and all of our patrons, you're the best. - Thank you so much, everybody. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for all that you do for us. We really got to appreciate every last little bit of everything that you do for us. So thank you for hanging out, telling your friends, posting on social media, and just for listening alone in a room, staring at the wall. Thank you for that. Thank you for everything. But definitely if you want to find us on social media, shut up and give me murder.com. As men use it, it'll take you everywhere you need to go. So come out and see us, come to a live show. Keep coming back, inch in every week, no matter what though. And also, until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. - Bye. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)