Zero at the Bone, Story of Gene Simmons Mass Murderer - Hardcover

Bryce Marshall; Paul Williams

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671685112 ISBN 13: 9780671685119

Publisher: Pocket, 1991

Synopsis

Book by Bryce Marshall and Paul Williams

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

The story of Ronald Gene Simmons and his psychotic rampage, which in 1987 left 14 family members in a mass grave behind their trailer home, is presented here in detail. When his military days were over, Simmons, a former Air Force sergeant, began a torturous series of acts of violence and humiliation against his family. While a fierce presence to his wife, Becky, and six of their seven children, he became exceptionally tender with his favorite daughter, Sheila, and forced her into an incestuous relationship that culminated in the birth of a child. Simmons went through a series of menial jobs and, after several moves, finally settled his family in the foothills of the Ozarks. But faced with growing frustration of his need for control, along with his daughter's rejection of him and marriage to another man, which he claimed had ruined his plans to have a happy life alone with her, he prepared the ritual killing of all those who had made his dream unworkable. While for the most part, Williams ( Tankwar ) and Marshall, a journalist, tell the story convincingly, they fail when they attempt to re-create and explain Simmons's thought processes.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Between December 22 and December 28, 1987, former Air Force Master Sargeant Ronald "Gene" Simmons, alienated from his family and unable to hold a job, committed what was perhaps the worst family killing spree in the United States, not only murdering all 14 members of his immediate family but also slaughtering five other people. Coauthors Marshall and Williams have tried to reconstruct Simmons's life to give readers clues as to his motivations for the murders. Having no eyewitnesses, journals, or diaries, they used family records and effects and innumerable interviews with the remaining family, coworkers, and social service and law-enforcement personnel to extrapolate what there was to know of Simmons and his bizarre family life. Much of the book consists of speculative dramatic re-creations. While this "fictionalization" makes for exciting reading, so much is not based on the actual record that this book is not recommended.
- Sandra K. Lindheimer, Middlesex Law Lib., Cambridge, Mass.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pocket
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0671685112
• ISBN 13: 9780671685119
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 302