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Chapter 1: What is the case about in 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, indeed, Jimmy. Yay, indeed.
My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. 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 shutupandgivememurder.com.
Now you go, well, 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 Pabst. There are not a lot of tickets left for that one. So 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. So it's very odd, Bill. Milwaukee is going to beat you guys. Don't do that. Yeah. Minnesota 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, Tarrytown, and Boston in October and November. So do that and get your tickets right now. Shut up and give me murder.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.
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. It's so fun. So check those shows out. Get yourself Patreon. That's the important part. Patreon.com slash crime in sports 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 you've never heard before. Huge feed to binge on. And then you get new ones every other week, too. One crime in sports, one small town murder. And you get it all, everybody. You get everything.
And this week, it's a banner week, actually, because it is prisoner dating game time again, everybody. Hey! 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-mole. That's what he's trying to do. It's very fun.
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Chapter 2: What did Joanna Price reveal to the detectives?
Jerked out of the back of the phone.
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 thing.
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. So now the Joanna 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 he could 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 asked to use their phone. He calls the police station and asks for an alert to be put out for missing people. Joanna Price, Holly Gentry, Larry Price, who's already reported missing. And now add Detective Ray Tate to the mix, too, because he ain't here. His car isn't here.
His flashlight's 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 to.
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Chapter 3: What evidence connects Thomas Simmons to the crime scene?
That's why he called on the phone because he didn't know if somebody had a scanner, whoever did this, and would know what 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 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 Detective Tate's police car is missing. His flashlight's on the coffee table. The phone is torn up and ripped out. I just called the station, and 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.
Don't sweat it.
My guess is we have four separate kidnappings, and this person's so badass they can get detectives kidnapped.
Even an armed detective and everything, which seems far-fetched. You know what I mean? That that would happen.
Seems like a tough kid. That's probably the hardest kidnapping.
An on-duty police officer?
Yeah.
Probably. Yeah.
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Chapter 4: How did the community react to the series of violent crimes?
You would think so. The trade and 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 or three missing people. But when there's a missing cop, then they all seem to really have a lot of energy about it at that point.
It's interesting, isn't it?
Yeah, it's interesting. So they start the search. At 10.45 p.m., two hours and 45 minutes later, a Holly Gentry's LTD is found.
The silver with the red top, that one.
Not bad. They find it. It is at the Central Mall in Fort Smith.
Oh, okay.
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. They also got someone to open the trunk because they wanted to see if perhaps Larry was in the trunk of that car. Anybody. And if he was, was he dead? He could have been alive.
They open the trunk, completely empty except for a spare tire.
Hmm.
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Chapter 5: What legal arguments are presented regarding the suspect's custody?
That's ridiculous. Yeah. They said 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 chit chatting. But did they put him in cuffs because he's saying he was in restraints? No, no, no. They said is placed under restraint or submits to custody. Got it. 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 them saying you have to come.
Let's go. That's custody.
Yeah.
So 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 tendered, Van Buren or Jenny Lind, which is an area, a town, Jenny Lind. OK?
Yeah.
So the witnesses, 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.
Yeah.
Why did you wait to report it? He said, well, you know, I had criminal charges against me and a warrant. You know how it is, you know? I'm dumb. I'm dumb. On cross-examination, by the way, because he's a prosecution witness. Now his own lawyer has got to come up and rip him a new asshole. Yeah.
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Chapter 6: What evidence is brought up during the trial against Thomas Simmons?
Then there's a crazy fucking delay in the trial. The jury is waiting for his sister. Thomas' sister is going to testify. The one that let him stay with her. The ones who stay, exactly, the one who's staying with him. And 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 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 call 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 NWA 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 does she have?
She has a heart condition or something? We have no idea. She just collapsed due to a medical condition. She has, I don't want to testify against my brother-itis, I think is what it is.
She's allergic to this.
Yeah. According to Ball here, the detective, 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 you? I'll sue them too.
Okay. Anybody in the car.
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Chapter 7: What led to Thomas Simmons' suicide before his execution?
Yeah. Wanton, horrible shit. It's fucking aggravators based on, you know.
While on parole for 65 years worth of charges. Yeah. This is bad.
That dude should not have been jaywalking. No. Honestly. He should have been fucking keeping it between the lines 10 and 2 the whole time. So the verdict comes in. Less than three hours of deliberation. And he's found guilty of every goddamn thing possible that you can imagine. Oh, boy. Just guilty of everything. So now the sentencing comes around. And like I said, death penalty is here.
Firmly square. Yeah. During this death penalty thing here, prosecution's clothing, not clothing, clothing.
Their clothing was beautiful.
Their clothing. They were dressed immaculately, Jimmy. The ties on these men. Fabulous.
D&G.
Oh, yeah, the best. Well, one prefers Gucci. He's a little flashier. Following the return of the guilty verdict here, that's when the jury was immediately pressed to return and debate about the sentence. 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 in Kibler and in that creek in Clear Creek. 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.
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