Mockingbird Hill: Ronald Gene Simmons and the Arkansas Christmas Killings

On the morning of 28th of December, 1987, Ronald Gene Simmons drove into Russellville, Arkansas, with two revolvers and a carefully planned route. Over the next forty five minutes, he moved from one location to another with deliberate intent, targeting people he believed had wronged him. When it ended, two people were dead, four were wounded, and Simmons was waiting calmly for police to arrive. He surrendered without resistance, handing over his gun and offering no explanation.

What the authorities did not yet know was that the violence in Russellville was the final chapter of something far larger. Nearly a week earlier, Simmons had already killed most of his family on a remote property north of Dover known as Mockingbird Hill. By the time police began asking where his wife and children were, fourteen relatives were already dead.

The killings would become the deadliest act of familicide in United States history, but the roots of the case stretch back decades, shaped by control, isolation, and repeated institutional failure.

The remote property north of Dover known as Mockingbird Hill

Early life and the foundations of control

Ronald Gene Simmons was born on 15th of July, 1940, in Chicago, Illinois. His father died of a stroke on 31st of January, 1943, when Simmons was still a child. Within a year, his mother remarried a civil engineer working for the United States Army Corps of Engineers, a job that required frequent relocation. The family eventually settled in Arkansas, but the sense of instability remained.

Relatives later recalled that Simmons showed domineering behaviour from a young age. He bullied younger siblings and displayed cruelty towards animals. Family members described him as exploitative of weakness and quick to anger. Attempts were made to manage his behaviour through periods away from home and placement at a Catholic boarding school, but none proved effective.

At seventeen, Simmons left school and enlisted in the United States Navy on 5th of September, 1957. Military life suited him. Structure, hierarchy, and authority provided an environment in which his need for control could be exercised without challenge. After transferring to the United States Air Force, Simmons served more than twenty years, including investigative and administrative roles with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and a tour in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive.

On paper, his service record was exemplary. He retired on 30th of November, 1979, with the rank of master sergeant and a collection of commendations. Colleagues described him as quiet and diligent. At home, the dynamic was very different.

Marriage, isolation, and domestic captivity

Simmons married Bersabe Rebecca “Becky” Ulibarri on 9th of July, 1960. Over the next eighteen years, they had seven children. From early in the marriage, Simmons asserted rigid control. Becky was discouraged from wearing makeup, forbidden from driving, and prevented from using a telephone. Mail was censored through distant post office boxes. Contact with family was tightly restricted.

Simmons controlled all finances and household decisions. Over time, the isolation deepened into something closer to captivity. Becky’s sister later said Simmons systematically convinced her that everything that went wrong was her fault and that she deserved what she endured.

By the late 1970s, the control escalated into physical and sexual abuse. In New Mexico, Simmons began sexually abusing his eldest daughter, Sheila. In 1981, social services were alerted after Sheila became pregnant with his child. Investigators confirmed the abuse, and under threat of prosecution Simmons agreed to family counselling. He withdrew after five weeks when advised that disclosures could be used against him in court.

A grand jury subpoena eventually forced Sheila to testify against her father. An arrest warrant was issued in August 1981, but before it could be served, Simmons fled the state with his family.

The case quietly collapsed. By 1982, New Mexico authorities had dismissed the charges after being unable to locate the family and facing an uncooperative witness. The arrest warrant was cancelled. Simmons was no longer listed in national crime databases.

Crucially, Simmons never knew this. He continued to live as though capture was inevitable.

Mockingbird Hill and the tightening grip

In June 1983, Simmons purchased a fourteen acre property in Pope County, Arkansas, roughly six and a half miles north of Dover. The family named it Mockingbird Hill. The mobile home on the land was dilapidated, with broken plumbing, unreliable heating, and no connected telephone. A makeshift privacy fence rose around the property, and a no trespassing sign appeared almost immediately.

The isolation was intentional. Simmons ordered his children to perform heavy labour, including hauling dirt and stones to maintain the driveway. Weeks before Christmas 1987, he instructed them to dig a large pit near the house, claiming it was for a new outhouse.

By this point, the family was breaking apart. Several adult children had left home. Becky had stopped sharing a bedroom with Simmons. Letters later recovered showed she was actively planning to leave him, describing herself as a prisoner and discussing divorce with her older children. She wrote of wanting freedom, of having a telephone, of being able to go shopping or attend church without permission.

Her children supported her plans. The three eldest siblings were working together to persuade her to leave. Loretta, still at home, openly expressed her desire to escape as soon as she graduated.

For Simmons, this represented the ultimate loss of authority.

December 1987: the family murders at Mockingbird Hill

On 22nd of December, 1987, Ronald Gene Simmons began killing the members of his family who were still living with him at Mockingbird Hill. Investigators later concluded that the timing was deliberate. Schools had just closed for the Christmas break, and Simmons knew that his children would be returning home in predictable stages throughout the day.

The first victims were his wife Becky and his eldest son, Ronald Gene Simmons Jr., who was visiting with his young daughter. Becky was bludgeoned and shot at close range. Gene Jr. was also beaten and shot multiple times. Their three year old daughter, Barbara, was strangled. The killings took place quietly, inside the home, with no signs of panic or struggle beyond the immediate violence inflicted.

After disposing of their bodies, Simmons waited.

As the remaining children returned home from school, one by one, Simmons separated them. Investigators later believed that he killed each child individually, primarily by strangulation. Some were held under water in a barrel Simmons had filled inside the non functioning bathroom, ensuring they were no longer breathing. They were still wearing school clothes. One child had a lunch ticket in a pocket. Another had chewing gum in her mouth. Hair barrettes and small personal items were still in place, details that suggested there had been no attempt to flee.

Their bodies were carried outside and placed in a pit behind the house. The grave had been dug weeks earlier by the children themselves, under Simmons’ instructions. He had told them it was for a new outhouse.

After killing the family members who lived at Mockingbird Hill, Simmons spent the next several days moving freely in and out of the house. Investigators later found evidence that he drank heavily, punched holes in walls and ceilings, and prepared for what he intended to do next. The house showed signs of deliberate damage rather than chaos, suggesting agitation but also control.

26th of December: the arrival of the rest of the family

Around midday on 26th of December, 1987, the remaining members of the Simmons family arrived at Mockingbird Hill for their planned Christmas visit. It would have been the first time in years that the entire family had gathered together. None of them knew what had already happened.

The first to arrive were Simmons’ son Billy and Billy’s wife, Renata. Simmons shot them almost immediately. Their twenty month old son, Trae, was then strangled and drowned. Later that day, Simmons’ eldest daughter Sheila arrived with her husband, Dennis McNulty, and their children.

Sheila, whom Simmons had sexually abused years earlier and with whom he had fathered a child, was shot multiple times. Dennis McNulty was also shot. Their children were killed by strangulation. Simmons’ child by his own daughter, Sylvia Gail, was strangled, followed by his youngest grandson, Michael.

The adult victims were shot repeatedly, some as many as six or seven times. The children were killed quietly. There was no evidence of extended struggle beyond the moments of attack.

After the murders, Simmons laid the bodies of his family out in neat rows in the living room. All were covered with coats except Sheila, whose body was covered with Becky Simmons’ best tablecloth. The bodies of the two youngest grandsons were wrapped in plastic sheeting and placed in abandoned cars near the end of the lane.

That evening, Simmons drove into town and went drinking at a local bar. He later returned home and, over the next two nights and the Sunday that followed, drank beer and watched television in the house, apparently indifferent to the bodies arranged around him. Christmas presents remained unopened beneath the tree.

The Russellville shootings

On the morning of 28th of December, 1987, Simmons wrote several short letters and enclosed money in each. “Sometimes you reap many more times what you sow,” he wrote, framing the violence as consequence rather than impulse. He mailed the letters in Russellville before beginning his final actions.

Simmons then followed a deliberate route through town. His first stop was a law firm, where he shot and killed a former colleague, Kathy Kendrick, a woman he believed had rejected and humiliated him. From there, he drove to an oil company office, avoiding the main roads. He wounded the owner and shot a delivery driver, James David Chaffin, who had no prior connection to him, killing him instantly.

He then travelled to a convenience store where he had once worked, shooting and wounding two employees. His final stop was another former workplace, Woodline Motor Freight, where he shot his former supervisor, Joyce Butts, leaving her permanently injured.

At Woodline Motor Freight, Simmons ordered a secretary to call the police. “I’ve gotten everybody who wanted to hurt me,” he said calmly. He sat down and waited.

When officers arrived, Simmons surrendered without resistance. He handed over his weapon and complied fully. Asked why he had not killed himself, Simmons replied that he feared he would fail and be left disabled rather than dead.

Discovery and investigation

With Simmons refusing to answer any questions about his family, law enforcement officers travelled to the Mockingbird Hill property on the afternoon of 28th of December under emergency conditions. Officers testified that they feared family members might still be alive and in need of medical help.

Inside the house, they found bodies still wearing coats, suggesting the victims had been killed shortly after arrival. Unopened Christmas presents lay beneath the tree. Electricity to the house had been cut. The cold interior and lack of disturbance indicated that deaths had occurred days earlier.

The following day, deputies searching the grounds noticed freshly disturbed earth behind the house. Digging revealed a shallow grave containing seven bodies. Two additional bodies, those of young children, were later found wrapped in plastic and placed in abandoned vehicles nearby.

In total, fourteen family members were recovered from the property. Eight had been strangled. Six had been shot. Fish stringers were used as ligatures. Autopsy findings and crime scene evidence showed careful sequencing and method rather than spontaneous violence.

Trials and the demand for death

Simmons faced two separate capital trials, one for the Russellville shootings and one for the murder of his family. From the outset, he made clear that he wanted the death penalty. He rejected an insanity defence and instructed his lawyers not to pursue any appeal.

After conviction, Simmons addressed the court directly. “To those who oppose the death penalty,” he said, “in my particular case, anything short of death would be cruel and unusual punishment.”

During the second trial, Simmons assaulted the prosecutor in open court, striking him and attempting to grab a deputy’s weapon. The outburst occurred just before jury deliberations. Later, Simmons described the act as a “mitigation neutralising manoeuvre.” He wanted the jury’s final impression to be violence, believing it would ensure a death sentence.

Psychiatric evaluations found Simmons competent to stand trial and capable of waiving his right to appeal. He was diagnosed with a mixed personality disorder with narcissistic and paranoid features. He was not found insane. His refusal to explain his actions was interpreted as deliberate and strategic.

Simmons’ refusal to appeal triggered a legal battle that reached the United States Supreme Court. In Whitmore v. Arkansas, the court ruled that a competent defendant could waive appeals and that third parties had no standing to intervene on his behalf.

Execution and aftermath

Ronald Gene Simmons was executed by lethal injection on 25th of June, 1990. It was the first execution carried out by that method in Arkansas. Witnesses described a prolonged process marked by visible physical distress before death was pronounced at 9.19 pm.

While on death row, Simmons had to be housed separately from other inmates. His refusal to appeal his sentence angered fellow prisoners, who believed his actions undermined their own chances of avoiding execution. His isolation continued to the end.

No surviving family members claimed his body. He was buried quietly in Arkansas.

In the months that followed, crime scene videotapes were destroyed to prevent their circulation. The Mockingbird Hill house was later destroyed by arson. Simmons’ weapons were auctioned, drawing criticism for turning instruments of mass murder into collectibles.

An unanswered question

Simmons never expressed remorse and never offered a clear explanation for his actions. His silence appears to have been intentional, allowing him to retain control over the narrative even after death.

What remains is a pattern: lifelong domination, fear of exposure, and a final attempt to assert absolute control when that authority collapsed.

The violence didn't erupt suddenly. It was built slowly, in isolation and silence, long before Christmas came to Mockingbird Hill.

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