Gene Simmons

Ronald Gene Simmons, Sr., (July 15, 1940 – June 25, 1990) was a retired United States Air Force master sergeant who killed 16 people over a weeklong period in 1987. Fourteen of the victims were members of his family, including a daughter he had sexually abused and the child he had fathered with her. He also wounded four others. Shortly before Christmas 1987, Simmons decided to kill all the members of his family. On the morning of December 22, he first killed his son Gene and his wife Rebecca at his home in Dover, Arkansas, by shooting them with a .22 caliber pistol. He then killed his 3-year-old granddaughter Barbara by strangulation. Simmons dumped the bodies in the cesspit he had made his children dig. Simmons then waited for his other children to return to the house. After their arrival, he told them he had presents for them but wanted to give them one at a time. He first killed his daughter, 17-year-old Loretta, whom Simmons strangled and held under the water in a rain barrel. The three other children, Eddy, Marianne, and Becky, were killed in the same way. Around midday on December 26, the remaining members of the family arrived for their Christmas visit. The first to be