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Speaker 4: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 4: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 4: written about them. Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker, Dck. Every
Speaker 4: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 4: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 4: journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 5: Good evening. On a cold January morning in nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 5: a knock on an apartment door began what would become
Speaker 5: one of the bloodiest crime sprees in Arkansas history. In
Speaker 5: the coming days, the bodies of newlyweds Larry and Juwanna Price,
Speaker 5: businessman Holly Gentry, and police detective Ray Tape were discovered.
Speaker 5: They had been executed in cold blood and discarded like
Speaker 5: so much trash. What kind of person murders four people
Speaker 5: in cold blood? Did the right one go to prison?
Speaker 5: The book that we're featuring this evening is Cold Blooded,
Speaker 5: a chilling truth tale of terror, rape and murder in
Speaker 5: the Arkansas River Bottoms, with my special guests, author Anita Paddock.
Speaker 5: Welcome to the program and thank you so much for
Speaker 5: this interview. Anita Patock.
Speaker 6: Oh, thanks, thank you, Dan. I'm happy to be here
Speaker 6: talking to you.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much. This is an incredible tale. Let's
Speaker 5: just start with where this Arkansas River bottoms that we're
Speaker 5: speaking we refer to in the title, Well, where this
Speaker 5: area is, and then introduce Johanna Price.
Speaker 6: Okay, from the area is in northwest Arkansas along the
Speaker 6: Arkansas River, and there's an area called just a little
Speaker 6: area called Kibler, the Kibler Bottoms, and a whole lot
Speaker 6: of people lived there, and the land had been theirs
Speaker 6: for generations and generations. But the Kidler Bottoms would be
Speaker 6: not a good place you wanted to go to at
Speaker 6: night time. Okay. So Johanna Price was this real cute
Speaker 6: little girl from Flat Rock, Arkansas, and she married a
Speaker 6: boy that she met in high school. That was where
Speaker 6: she attended in Lamar, Arkansas. And Lamar's not very much
Speaker 6: bigger than Flat Rock, Arkansas. But Johanna had always wanted
Speaker 6: to be a nurse, and so she and her husband
Speaker 6: married right after high school, and they moved to Fort Smith, Arkansas,
Speaker 6: where there's a community college there with a nursing program.
Speaker 6: So she started that nursing program there and her husband
Speaker 6: got a job at Baldoor Electric and they just were
Speaker 6: real happy together. And they lived in a real nice
Speaker 6: little apartment that was close to the campus so she
Speaker 6: could walk, and it was owned by this fellow named
Speaker 6: Holly Gentry. He was a really nice guy and they
Speaker 6: just hit it off his friends and so Larry Price
Speaker 6: as you want to manage these apartments, and Holly Gentry
Speaker 6: father owned this really nice big a It was a
Speaker 6: big mall in western western Fort Smith called Phoenix Village
Speaker 6: and uh and so during the during the Christmas vacations,
Speaker 6: they asked Hollie if she they asked Joanna if she
Speaker 6: would like to work part time, how she's out of
Speaker 6: school and be like a secretary there farm at Phoenix Village,
Speaker 6: and she said yes she would. So on this morning,
Speaker 6: Monday morning, the door, she heard a knock on the
Speaker 6: door and she answered the door and there was this
Speaker 6: guy standing outside and he said he wanted to look
Speaker 6: about this car that was being for sale, and the
Speaker 6: car belonged to Holly Gentry, but Larry was selling it
Speaker 6: for him a friend. So she said, Johanna said, we'll
Speaker 6: just wait here and I'll get my husband. He still
Speaker 6: he's still a sleep. So she got her husband and
Speaker 6: they came out and they took a test drive with
Speaker 6: his car, and when she was getting ready to leave
Speaker 6: to go to work, they got back and her husband said, well,
Speaker 6: this is mister Simmons and he wants to buy the car.
Speaker 6: And so she said, well great. So it was time
Speaker 6: for her to leave for work, and Larry walked her
Speaker 6: out to his out to her car like he usually did.
Speaker 6: It was real. He was a real sweet, good kind
Speaker 6: husband and walked her out. And so she left to
Speaker 6: go to work at Phoenix Village. And before she left,
Speaker 6: she and Larry decided that they would have lunch together
Speaker 6: and go eat lunch at a Mexican restaurant and he
Speaker 6: had picked her up at noon at the Phoenix Village.
Speaker 6: So she went on. She went on to work, and
Speaker 6: when it came time for lunch, she went out and
Speaker 6: waited for Larry and he didn't come. And he didn't come,
Speaker 6: and that was really unlike him, and so she went
Speaker 6: back in and she told her the people she worked
Speaker 6: for that her husband hadn't, you know, wasn't there to
Speaker 6: pick her up, and that was strange, and so Holly
Speaker 6: Gentry said, well, why don't you call Larry's work at
Speaker 6: Baldore that was an electric company, a big electric company,
Speaker 6: and see if he's at work, And so she did,
Speaker 6: and the lady who answered the phone there the secretaries,
Speaker 6: said no, but he called in said he was wouldn't
Speaker 6: be there today. Well, that really scared her, so then
Speaker 6: she called his parents, and she called her parents to
Speaker 6: see if perhaps Larry had gone down there for some reason,
Speaker 6: and no, they hadn't heard from him. So Holly Gentry
Speaker 6: insisted that they go and make a report about Larry
Speaker 6: being gone, also gone with the and this car was
Speaker 6: gone also the car that was in for sale. So
Speaker 6: they went to the police station and they told they
Speaker 6: gave all the particulars and they talked to these two
Speaker 6: police officers. One was named Poncho and the other one
Speaker 6: was named ray Tate, and they took all the particulars
Speaker 6: and said, why don't you all go on. You and
Speaker 6: Holly gone back to the to the apartment, and we
Speaker 6: will we will follow him and come back and get
Speaker 6: all the information about the car that has been no
Speaker 6: longer around. So they did. They went back to the apartment,
Speaker 6: and she was of course really concerned about her husband
Speaker 6: where was he? And Holly Gentry was concerned about his
Speaker 6: friend and where was his car? And they got into
Speaker 6: the to the apartment, and there they were met by
Speaker 6: this Simmons guy who had come to look at the
Speaker 6: car to begin with, and he he he took ray
Speaker 6: Hate's gun, and he took his handcuffed, and he handcuffed
Speaker 6: him and Joanna and Holly had already been tied up
Speaker 6: with some real heavy twine that he found in their house.
Speaker 6: And so there there was the guy who looked at
Speaker 6: the car that morning, and whose name was miss And
Speaker 6: then there was Holly Gentry, and there was Joanna, and
Speaker 6: then there was ray Hay and the fellow named Pancho
Speaker 6: Pancho Davis. He had to go to a meeting and
Speaker 6: so he he couldn't go with ray Hay, but he
Speaker 6: was going to come later. And so they were here.
Speaker 6: They were in this apartment. It was on January the fifth,
Speaker 6: nineteen eighty one. It was real, real cold, and Joanna
Speaker 6: was crying and she didn't know where her husband was.
Speaker 6: And Holly Gentry was he was a real he was
Speaker 6: a real real Christian fellow and was always always talking
Speaker 6: about Jesus and wanting people to get right with the Lord.
Speaker 6: And so Holly was given this same fill to this
Speaker 6: mister Simmons. And Ray Hay was just thinking that any
Speaker 6: minute now, Pancho's going to be there. And Pancho got
Speaker 6: held up at his meeting or he would have been there.
Speaker 6: So here we have we have a man. We have
Speaker 6: a husband, Larry Price, missing and the car that he
Speaker 6: was selling is also missing. And then we have Joanna
Speaker 6: who is crime and hysterical because she doesn't know where
Speaker 6: her husband is and she's scared to death. And then
Speaker 6: we have Holly Gentry, and we have Ray and rach
Speaker 6: Hay was the kind of policeman who always said he
Speaker 6: could talk his way out of anything, and that was
Speaker 6: his that was his persona that he could he could
Speaker 6: always talk and he could talk his way out of
Speaker 6: any kind of trouble. And he told his fellow police
Speaker 6: officers sad and so anyway, Ray Tate and Holly Gentry
Speaker 6: and little Joanna. When I say little Joanna, Joanna was
Speaker 6: about five set tall and weighed probably about ninety five pounds.
Speaker 6: She was a real tiny little girl. Anyway, mister Simmons
Speaker 6: decided that he would take all three of them and
Speaker 6: put them in ray Tate's vehicle, his police car, and
Speaker 6: they would all leave. And so they headed down. They
Speaker 6: had mister Simmons, his name was Thomas Simmons, and they
Speaker 6: called him Tommy or Tom and his He had Joannas
Speaker 6: in the front seat with him, and he had the
Speaker 6: tape and Holly Gentry lie down on top of each
Speaker 6: other and the backs forboard and ray Tate thought he
Speaker 6: would be able to get the ropes untied around Holly
Speaker 6: Gentry's arms and legs and then he could give them
Speaker 6: untied around his. But that didn't happen anyway. They ended
Speaker 6: up down in the Kbler Bottoms, and so Simmons took
Speaker 6: them down there in the police car and he shot them.
Speaker 6: He shot all three of them and raped Joanna and
Speaker 6: then they were He put their bodies down in this
Speaker 6: kind of like a little trash heap that was on
Speaker 6: a farm belonging to mister McClure and mister mcluar. The
Speaker 6: next day is who found the bodies of them. So
Speaker 6: they had to leave the bodies there at the crime
Speaker 6: scene until the State Police was able to send a
Speaker 6: team there to take the bodies out and do all
Speaker 6: that they have to do. I'd like to read you
Speaker 6: a little bit about that crime scene. And while people
Speaker 6: are waiting, okay, yes night night had fallen. By the
Speaker 6: time the crime scene was roped off with yellow tape.
Speaker 6: A cold wind whined across the Arkansas River, which was
Speaker 6: just south of the murder scene. Men huddled in groups
Speaker 6: of four or five, quietly talking, shaking their heads and
Speaker 6: wondering most ang who and why. The Arkansas State Medical
Speaker 6: Examiner's office in Little Rock had already been called, and
Speaker 6: nothing could be done until they arrived. Nothing but wait.
Speaker 6: The minutes dragged by into three hours, the time it
Speaker 6: took for the medical examiners to travel to the scene.
Speaker 6: The Kettler Fire Department drove the fire truck over the
Speaker 6: shine light on the murder scene, and later the Sebastian
Speaker 6: County Red Cross brought over a generator to supplement the power.
Speaker 6: A farmer delivered an empty barrel and a load of
Speaker 6: firewood in the back of his pickup so fire could
Speaker 6: be built to warm those who waited. The news media
Speaker 6: was there also newspaper and television reporters shocking for positions
Speaker 6: where the lawmen tried their best to keep them at bay.
Speaker 6: Some of the locals who had farmed in this community
Speaker 6: for generations arrived with the feeling that their farmland was
Speaker 6: somehow desecrated. What has happened in our peaceful little community,
Speaker 6: folks asked, we all look out for each other, go
Speaker 6: to church, support our schools, try to raise our kids right.
Speaker 6: And now this It was a scene few of them
Speaker 6: would ever forget. As they stood in there, ensuated overalls
Speaker 6: and camouflage hunting coach, the flames in the barrel cast
Speaker 6: eerie shadows on their faces while they hunkered over the fire,
Speaker 6: holding their hands palmed down, stamping their feet to get
Speaker 6: circulation moving, cursing the person or persons who would try
Speaker 6: to conceal bloody bodies inside a tractor tire. When the
Speaker 6: bodies were removed, everybody expected there to be four bodies
Speaker 6: because they needed Larry was missing, But there were only
Speaker 6: three bodies. It was Johanna and Holly Gentry and Ray Tate.
Speaker 6: And so then that left one other person and where
Speaker 6: was he? Where was he? Uh? And so they had
Speaker 6: a man hunt for the for Larry. And finally the
Speaker 6: next day or two, uh, they got they got a
Speaker 6: message from somebody who had been on a drunken tout
Speaker 6: out and uh out close to the river bottom in
Speaker 6: this Clear Creek park where people could go duck hunting.
Speaker 6: There was a uh you could set your your boat
Speaker 6: out and come in and out, and that was a
Speaker 6: good place for duck hunting. But anyway, they they got
Speaker 6: this tip before this body was and that was where
Speaker 6: Larry was. And so then they figured out that Larry,
Speaker 6: that this Simmons guy had stolen the car and taken
Speaker 6: Larry out to this Clear Creek park and he had
Speaker 6: shot him. And the strange thing, this guy Simmons, he
Speaker 6: went he had stolen a check out of a check
Speaker 6: book at the apartment and he wrote himself a check
Speaker 6: for three hundred dollars, signed it forged the Dame by
Speaker 6: Larry Price, and stopped on his way from killing Larry Price.
Speaker 6: He stopped at the bank and deposited this check and
Speaker 6: it was three hundred dollars, and then he asked for
Speaker 6: fifty dollars in cash. And so then he left. Well,
Speaker 6: he took he was doing all sorts of back and forth,
Speaker 6: back and forth, taking a taxi cab here, taking a
Speaker 6: taxi there, putting this car here, putting his own personal
Speaker 6: car there and he was just all over the place.
Speaker 6: I doubt that he could have done any of this
Speaker 6: by himself, but he was arrested because he was when
Speaker 6: the next day, I'm getting ahead of myself. The next day,
Speaker 6: after these murders, and even before Larry Price was even found,
Speaker 6: they knew that all these people had been killed, and
Speaker 6: that Larry Christ has been they were looking for him.
Speaker 6: And this Simmons guy, he very foolishly went back to
Speaker 6: the bank and said that he had deposited a check
Speaker 6: the day before and he found out that it wasn't
Speaker 6: any good and he wanted to get that check packed.
Speaker 6: And so the lady who was waiting on him said,
Speaker 6: just a minute, I'll have to I'll have to check
Speaker 6: on that. And by chance, her boss at this branch
Speaker 6: bank was the wife of the chief of police, the
Speaker 6: assistant chief of police, and so she of course had
Speaker 6: been hearing about everything from her husband, and so she,
Speaker 6: you know, she got the license number of this car,
Speaker 6: and she called her husband and he said, honey, you
Speaker 6: may have solved a car the crime of the century here.
Speaker 6: And so that's how they found this Thomas Simmons. He
Speaker 6: had a job and they have his the license number
Speaker 6: and knew where he worked, and so they went to
Speaker 6: his place of employment and picked him up and took
Speaker 6: him to jail and arrested him.
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Speaker 5: Now you talk about his arrest. Now you talk about
Speaker 5: his arrest. They get his license plate number, they track
Speaker 5: him down, they get him at work. But now in
Speaker 5: your book you recount the reasoning behind all of this
Speaker 5: and his criminal background, the things that he was on parole.
Speaker 5: So now we go back to Now we go back
Speaker 5: to Thomas and we talk about him being paroled and
Speaker 5: his sister Leona Powell tell us about the clim that
Speaker 5: he was on parole for and then tell us about
Speaker 5: the details and the idea that his original plan was.
Speaker 5: He says later that was his original plan for this car.
Speaker 6: Well, his original plan. I'll start. He came from a
Speaker 6: real dysfunctional family, and he had been arrested many times
Speaker 6: since he was in you know, for stealing the car
Speaker 6: when he was seventeen years old, and his crimes just
Speaker 6: got worse and worse, and he was he had he
Speaker 6: had kidnapped this young man who worked at a filling
Speaker 6: station in Little Rock, and he made this man and
Speaker 6: he was working for him and filling up the tank.
Speaker 6: He had that guy get in the back seat of
Speaker 6: his car and lie on the floorboard, and off they went,
Speaker 6: and he ended up by He thought he killed this
Speaker 6: fellow out in the country outside of Little Rock, and
Speaker 6: he tried to kill him. He tried. First of all,
Speaker 6: he tried to tried to stab him to death, and
Speaker 6: that boy didn't die. Then he tried to slit his throat,
Speaker 6: and that boy didn't die. So finally he just buried
Speaker 6: him under some leaves and thought that he had left
Speaker 6: the boy that he was dead or going to die well.
Speaker 6: The boy he was like eighteen, and he was strong
Speaker 6: and healthy, and he was able to drag himself to
Speaker 6: a nearby farmhouse and they called the police and the hospital,
Speaker 6: and so this Simmons guy was identified and was arrested,
Speaker 6: and he was sent to prison for forty five years
Speaker 6: for kidnapping and a robbery and kidnapping and attempted murderer.
Speaker 6: But he got out in eight years for good behavior.
Speaker 6: So he had to find a place to stay. So
Speaker 6: he had assists who lived down in Arkansas in Kibler Bottoms,
Speaker 6: and so he asked her if he could come and
Speaker 6: live with her while he was on parole. And she
Speaker 6: was an unwed mother had five children. In fact, the
Speaker 6: youngest child actually belonged to Thomas Simmons, but she had
Speaker 6: adopted this little girl because Thomas Simmons was such a
Speaker 6: terrible person. Anyway, she had these five girls and she
Speaker 6: was trying her best to give them a good start,
Speaker 6: and she did. The girls, the girls, the pale girls,
Speaker 6: all were very capable young women and were One girl
Speaker 6: was already going to school at the University of Arkansas
Speaker 6: in Feddale, the other girl other two girls were in
Speaker 6: going to West Dark Community College. And then there was another.
Speaker 6: The other girl was very popular in high school. She
Speaker 6: was very uh, she was head of the annual staff
Speaker 6: and put out the newspaper. Anyway, they were nice family
Speaker 6: and they got an old Simmons came to live with them,
Speaker 6: and he thought that he he thought that he could
Speaker 6: maybe redeem himself from his criminal ways. And he had
Speaker 6: gone to when he was in Levenworth Prison. He had
Speaker 6: gone to some classes and did very well in computers classes.
Speaker 6: So he wanted to he tried to go. He wanted
Speaker 6: to go to the Community College west Ark in Fort Smith,
Speaker 6: and he got accepted as a matter of fact, but
Speaker 6: he didn't have any money to pay the tuition or
Speaker 6: buy his books. And so I think that when he
Speaker 6: when he saw his car for sale, he thought he
Speaker 6: would steal that car, sell it to somebody he knew
Speaker 6: from prison days who would buy it, and then he
Speaker 6: would have the money and he could start his college education.
Speaker 6: That's that's that was what that was what the rumors
Speaker 6: sort of was.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 6: But I do know that Simmons hung out at the
Speaker 6: west Ark in the stud union. He hung out there.
Speaker 6: People remembered seeing him out there, and he had you know,
Speaker 6: signed up to take some college courses. He wasn't he
Speaker 6: wasn't dime. He was he when he was taking these
Speaker 6: college courses, he was. He read, he took some English
Speaker 6: classes and literature classes, and you know, he was he
Speaker 6: knew who he you know, he knew who you know,
Speaker 6: the Grapes of Wrath. He knew all these American authors
Speaker 6: and Warren Peace, and I mean he was he was.
Speaker 6: He was not dumb, but he was lived a life
Speaker 6: of crime and there was no way he was gonna
Speaker 6: get out of it, no way whatsoever. So when they
Speaker 6: found Larry Price's body and that that accounted for all
Speaker 6: the four people, and those those were all sent down
Speaker 6: to for autopsies down in the little rock, and there
Speaker 6: there was a this was a really sad thing. Will
Speaker 6: Jawanna's face while she was buried in that tire pit.
Speaker 6: There were some dogs down in there who had had puppies,
Speaker 6: and her little face was eaten off by those dogs.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about Leanna Powell, Thomas' sister.
Speaker 6: But she has gained she has a boyfriend. Yeah, she
Speaker 6: has a boyfriend. And the sleeve was from this big,
Speaker 6: large family, the Bryant family in Kibbler and he didn't
Speaker 6: do much but just hunting fish. And he was a
Speaker 6: real little guy and we weighed about one hundred and
Speaker 6: twenty pounds and he was about five seven or so.
Speaker 6: And but he and Leona were girlfriend and boyfriend. And
Speaker 6: when Thomas Powell moved into lot Leona's house, well they
Speaker 6: did some drinking together. And so everybody the community, the
Speaker 6: Kibbler community, when this happened, they all thought that Squib
Speaker 6: was behind it because he knew that they were friends.
Speaker 6: And and uh, but Squib was at he was in Missississippi, Mississippi,
Speaker 6: on a on the duck hunting thing with four or
Speaker 6: five men from around there. And so Squib could not
Speaker 6: have done it unless those four or five men just
Speaker 6: made it, you know, been an alibi for him. I
Speaker 6: don't know, Uh, but.
Speaker 5: It was what about the what about the gun? What
Speaker 5: about the what was discovered by the passion in terms
Speaker 5: of his connection to the gun?
Speaker 6: Oh? Okay, there was a gun at the bottom of
Speaker 6: the bodies that were found, Uh, in that dit or
Speaker 6: that little pet thing, There was a gun in there.
Speaker 6: And it was the same kind. It was the same
Speaker 6: gun that had been used to kill the people. And
Speaker 6: that gun was traced back to Squib Squeb and Squeb
Speaker 6: had he two years earlier. He had gone and to
Speaker 6: the police department and declared that that gun had been stolen.
Speaker 6: That was two years before. But uh, you know, someone
Speaker 6: can say a gun has been stolen and then not,
Speaker 6: and then it really hadn't been. And so one of
Speaker 6: missus Powell, the sister's daughters, said that that Squeb had
Speaker 6: given her mother a gun because there were some prowlers
Speaker 6: around there. And so then her mother said, no, no, no,
Speaker 6: that didn't happen. Squeeve said, you know, he said no,
Speaker 6: he'd never given her gun. But you know, certainly the
Speaker 6: gun was available for Thomas Simmons to have used. They
Speaker 6: found all sorts of things in Oh, this is one
Speaker 6: interesting thing, you know. Thomas Simmons took everybody out to
Speaker 6: Tibbler Bottoms in Tate's police car and he left. He
Speaker 6: left the police car at this filling station at truck stop,
Speaker 6: and so a Van Buren policeman was patrolling the area
Speaker 6: and he saw this, he saw Tate's police car. Of course,
Speaker 6: there was all sorts of bulletins out to be looking
Speaker 6: for all these various cars, and so they looked under
Speaker 6: the They looked under the acids chassis of the car
Speaker 6: and saw all this dirt and saw all this these
Speaker 6: kind of weeds and mud and sand. They knew they
Speaker 6: knew this had come from the bottoms, but they didn't
Speaker 6: know if it was the bottoms on the Van Buren,
Speaker 6: the Kibler side of the river, or on the Oklahoma
Speaker 6: side of the river. The Arkansas River divided Arkansas from
Speaker 6: Oklahoma right there at that particular area. So they were
Speaker 6: having they were looking all over the place. They had
Speaker 6: police cars patrolling, they had airplanes up patrolling seeing if
Speaker 6: they could see anything. So it was it was quite
Speaker 6: a man hunt and quite a quite a quite a
Speaker 6: thing to have happened in Van Buren. However, as it
Speaker 6: turned out, it was the third crime that had happened
Speaker 6: in a nine month period of time in Van Buren,
Speaker 6: and had I had written about the other two crimes
Speaker 6: and it wasn't I didn't realize that there had been
Speaker 6: that many crimes in one time, But when I started
Speaker 6: working on it, I realized that, hey, this all happened
Speaker 6: in a nine month period of time in sleepy little
Speaker 6: dam Brea in Arkansas. Population then it was about eight thousand, right.
Speaker 5: So let's get back to Pancho Davis and now he's
Speaker 5: been arrested. Now this Thomas has been arrested. I certainly
Speaker 5: have a lot of circumstantial evidence. They also have witnesses
Speaker 5: that placed him looking at the vehicle prior to this,
Speaker 5: to the abduction of Larry Price in the first place, witnesses.
Speaker 5: They even had a couple witnesses that identified him in
Speaker 5: the lineup. So they have some strong circumstantial evidence. Tell
Speaker 5: us a little bit more about the prosecution and their
Speaker 5: idea about what happened. Despite you mentioning that it looked
Speaker 5: like to anybody that looked at this and anybody had
Speaker 5: heard about this crime, that there certainly was the possibility
Speaker 5: that Thomas Simmons had a partner.
Speaker 6: Well, yes, because I don't know how one man could
Speaker 6: corral a policeman Ray Tight and then Holly Gentry, they
Speaker 6: were both in fine physical shape. Let's see, Holly Gentry
Speaker 6: was twenty eight, as the type fell I think was
Speaker 6: thirty two. And then this little, this little Joanna, I mean,
Speaker 6: anybody could you know cast her around? She was so little.
Speaker 6: Here is one kind of a little anecdote about Joanna.
Speaker 6: Joanna was scared to death. To be in that apartment
Speaker 6: by herself. She was always scared. And her friends who
Speaker 6: were in nursing school with her, they would study together,
Speaker 6: and she would all always ask the friends to walk
Speaker 6: home with her and go into the apartment with her.
Speaker 6: And while she looked in the closet and looked under
Speaker 6: the bed, and so this little girl she had, she
Speaker 6: had some kind of premonition that something was bad gonna
Speaker 6: happen to her. You know, you can imagine how scared
Speaker 6: she was. She didn't know where her husband was. The police,
Speaker 6: the police found in the in the police car, in
Speaker 6: Tate's police car, they found some match books. Uh, and
Speaker 6: they found some cigarette packages. It was a Vantage cigarettes.
Speaker 6: I don't even remember advantage anymore. This is, you know,
Speaker 6: back in nineteen eighty one. And then some matchbooks that
Speaker 6: said good value on the matchbook covers, and those were
Speaker 6: found in Thomas's Thomas Simmons trunk of his little car.
Speaker 6: He had this little orange, little orange little Toyota. And uh,
Speaker 6: those that was found in there, those match books and
Speaker 6: the cigarettes. They never found any bloody clothes to tie
Speaker 6: Thomas Simmons in, but his if his sister, if his
Speaker 6: sister had washed his clothes as she normally did, because
Speaker 6: he worked at a sand and gravel company and got
Speaker 6: you know, every day when he came home, he was
Speaker 6: covered with you know, sand and stuff and so and
Speaker 6: she always did that, or so she said. She always
Speaker 6: said that she might have been lying for him, she
Speaker 6: might have been scared of him. I had a.
Speaker 5: Good point though. You might have made a good point though,
Speaker 5: in that he seemed to have the technique because as
Speaker 5: you're read in the book, Lee Gentry was a very
Speaker 5: fit guy. And I and cryptically he had a conversation
Speaker 5: with his other physically fit brother and they were talking
Speaker 5: about Iran Contra hostage affair, and they talked specifically about
Speaker 5: that they would rather, they knew that would be better
Speaker 5: to die where you were taken hostage, rather than to
Speaker 5: go with the kidnapper. And they had this strangely cryptic conversation.
Speaker 5: And the thing is that the detective Tate was another
Speaker 5: person that wouldn't have went without a fight, wouldn't have
Speaker 5: stopped right to the very end to be able to escape.
Speaker 5: And then you write as well that Juanna was the
Speaker 5: last to die, and so you talk about her personality,
Speaker 5: So imagine the horror and as you write in the
Speaker 5: book too, he rapes her and that as you write,
Speaker 5: and I want to talk about this a little bit.
Speaker 5: She is not only she's raped anally and vaginally. Let's
Speaker 5: talk about this John Dickerson, because you you zero in
Speaker 5: on this person as this person that was willing to
Speaker 5: be an accomplice in terms of this stolen car of
Speaker 5: Larry Price. Tell us what you want happened.
Speaker 6: John Dickerson was someone I just gave a name to
Speaker 6: because all the time I was writing, when I was
Speaker 6: writing this book, I always always felt like he had
Speaker 6: an accomplice because he had to. He wanted to get
Speaker 6: this he wanted to he wanted to steal this car,
Speaker 6: and then he had to sell it because he couldn't.
Speaker 6: He couldn't he himself couldn't be driving around with this
Speaker 6: car when he was wanting to go to college and
Speaker 6: had already signed up and I already gotten admitted, and
Speaker 6: so I just thought, well, there has to be somebody
Speaker 6: who's helping him along. And there was. There was one
Speaker 6: man who Earlier in the book, he is interviewed by
Speaker 6: some police because he claims that he he claims that
Speaker 6: he saw Simmons escort these three people out to get
Speaker 6: in the car, he said. He claimed that he was
Speaker 6: there taking care of someone's apartment while they were gone,
Speaker 6: and he claims that he was walking out there and
Speaker 6: saw it all. But not much. Nobody really believed him
Speaker 6: all that much because he actually was a schizophrenic and
Speaker 6: had been in and out of mental hospitals, and so
Speaker 6: they sort of the prosecuting attorneys, they claimed that he
Speaker 6: didn't you know that his memory could not have been
Speaker 6: that perfect. I don't know. I don't know about that, fellaw.
Speaker 6: I do know that just a few months ago, I
Speaker 6: visited with Holly Gentry's sister, and I had gotten all
Speaker 6: of the Gentry information from the brother Mark, who told
Speaker 6: me everything that I knew about the Gentries. Anyway, his sister,
Speaker 6: his little sister, had she wanted to meet me. She
Speaker 6: and her husband live up in Missouri, and so she
Speaker 6: told me that she'd like to meet me, and so
Speaker 6: I met her. It's been a month ago, I guess.
Speaker 6: I met her at a book store and she told
Speaker 6: me that after all this happened, that the vanbur And
Speaker 6: police had found up in a vacant house up on
Speaker 6: Highway fifty nine. They had found Holly Gentry's wedding ring
Speaker 6: and the Holly Gentry's wallet and takes wallet up in
Speaker 6: this house, up in this house that was for sale
Speaker 6: and was taken. And so somebody connected with Simmons was
Speaker 6: in that house. And that further and makes me think
Speaker 6: I was correct and thinking that some excuse me, somebody
Speaker 6: staying in that house and you know, helping out Simmons
Speaker 6: because serious and again said, hey, was chilling killing people
Speaker 6: left and right.
Speaker 5: Jesus has an opportunity to stop for a second.
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Speaker 5: For these messages. How you talk about this and you
Speaker 5: talk about this and new information coming out, like you
Speaker 5: say just recently. This book was published in twenty and nineteen.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about this trial. This is a capital case
Speaker 5: trial in Archestrast. So let's let's talk about what happens.
Speaker 5: You have the prosecutor has a story and of course
Speaker 5: the defense has a much simpler, much different story.
Speaker 6: Well, the defense Simmons was, uh, he had a court
Speaker 6: appointed attorney and that was John Settle. Uh and John Settle,
Speaker 6: you know, a court appointed attorneys and didn't really keen
Speaker 6: on having to do that. They only get two hundred
Speaker 6: dollars sent their case and at that time they did
Speaker 6: and uh, and so he doesn't think he can do
Speaker 6: a very good job and uh. And then the prosecuting attorney,
Speaker 6: Rob Field, he uh, he interviewed all these people who
Speaker 6: had had seen Simmons and come and look at the
Speaker 6: call and had seen Simmons at uh, hanging out around
Speaker 6: West Are, had seen Simmons hanging out at the Osco
Speaker 6: drug store and the shopping center where he was going.
Speaker 6: Hearing yonder from with from a taxi cab. He interviewed,
Speaker 6: He interviewed lots of people. And they were he he
Speaker 6: in the really the ones who were really the most interesting,
Speaker 6: I thought. And I had the court, I had the
Speaker 6: court try. I had the transcript of the trial. So
Speaker 6: I was, I was, I was. I had a really
Speaker 6: good treasure chest of notes to use. Uh, and so
Speaker 6: I had all the transcript of all the questions that
Speaker 6: were answered. And uh, Simmons did not take the sand
Speaker 6: this this is an interesting aside from that, they fouled
Speaker 6: the force all sorts of appeals that are automatically filed.
Speaker 6: And then Simmons he wrapped himself up in a blanket
Speaker 6: and slit his throat and committed suicide. Now, I don't
Speaker 6: know why in the world you would wrap yourself up
Speaker 6: in a blanket. And I don't see how in the
Speaker 6: world you could slit your own throat. I think he
Speaker 6: might have. Now have you heard of the Dixie Mafia.
Speaker 5: Yes, it's been discussing.
Speaker 6: Okay, okay for thee Okay, The Dixie Mafias is a
Speaker 6: group of bad folks who originated down in mississipp Hippie
Speaker 6: And uh. They I know that they I know that
Speaker 6: they killed a judge down there and and uh, but
Speaker 6: they're just a bad. They would be like the mafia.
Speaker 6: The Dixie Mafia is the bad folks who live in
Speaker 6: the South and and commit crimes and and are they're
Speaker 6: just bad folks. And and now Simmons was in prison
Speaker 6: so many years obviously with somebody who was probably I mean,
Speaker 6: it was standard reason that he might know somebody in
Speaker 6: the Dixie mafia. And so it could be that this
Speaker 6: whoever he was going to uh sell the car to,
Speaker 6: was part of the Dixie Mafia. I don't know, but
Speaker 6: I could just you know, toss that out from a thinking.
Speaker 6: And so it also could be that Simmons took the
Speaker 6: rap for killing everybody and instead of it really being
Speaker 6: some Dixie Mafia people. Now that's another thing to toss out.
Speaker 6: And he was he Simmons was a cell mate of
Speaker 6: this fella who I wrote about in my second book
Speaker 6: who had killed these people who he had robbed at
Speaker 6: jewelry store, and he had killed a man who owned
Speaker 6: the store and his daughter. And supposedly that fella killed
Speaker 6: those people was part of the Dixie Mafia. And so
Speaker 6: if he was, if he was a you know, if
Speaker 6: he was a cell mate of this Simmons guy, who
Speaker 6: might have you know, gonna you completed that they You know,
Speaker 6: he took the fall for these other guys. You know,
Speaker 6: he could have killed him, He could have wrapped him
Speaker 6: up and just let his throat. I don't know.
Speaker 5: You write that you have your doubts about whether it
Speaker 5: was an actual suicide, and then you talk about the
Speaker 5: Eugene Perry and that his connection to the Dixie mafia.
Speaker 5: I don't know about the ideas that you that you speculate,
Speaker 5: but there are various reasons for being killed in prison,
Speaker 5: but I think your idea that it's unlikely a suicide.
Speaker 5: You write that they why would he wrap himself in
Speaker 5: a blanket beforehand? So there was some at least some
Speaker 5: questions as to that as well. Ironically, if you were
Speaker 5: to commit suicide this way by slitting his own throat,
Speaker 5: it's very similar to what he tried to do with
Speaker 5: the young boy. Unfortunately didn't care kill that by slitting
Speaker 5: his throat. You talk about the trial itself capital punishment.
Speaker 5: The prosecutor did an admirable job. John Settled. The defense
Speaker 5: attorney basically said that all they could really prove that
Speaker 5: he had forged a check, that that initial check, that
Speaker 5: his gold on that blank check, but you say very
Speaker 5: much that that was his undoing and that trial, along
Speaker 5: with the circumstantial evidence and the witnesses that placed him
Speaker 5: in various places, that he did receive that capital punishment
Speaker 5: and then once seeing his appeals were exhausted, that's when
Speaker 5: you say that this slitting of the roast, slitting of
Speaker 5: the throat suicide occurred.
Speaker 6: Well, hate tells somebody, Simmons sell somebody that he was
Speaker 6: going to commit suicide because he didn't want his family
Speaker 6: to have to go through maintain talked about when his
Speaker 6: when he was, when he's, when he's, when his uh
Speaker 6: electrocution date was set. He didn't want them to have
Speaker 6: to go through all that again, which seems sort of
Speaker 6: flimsy to me. Uh, because when he did commit suicide,
Speaker 6: that was, you know, that was that was that brought
Speaker 6: about some speculate speculation as well. Uh Uh, I don't
Speaker 6: I don't know, you know. After Now, I'm from around here,
Speaker 6: and so I mean I grew up I was I
Speaker 6: was born in Crawford County. My daddy had a store
Speaker 6: and all of his customers were farmers and kibler and
Speaker 6: so I know a lot of people around here, and
Speaker 6: which is sort of made it easy for me to
Speaker 6: be able to write these books about time to have
Speaker 6: been committed here because I don't know people whom I
Speaker 6: can talk to and they'll tell me things, and so I, uh,
Speaker 6: I don't I don't know, I really you know, I
Speaker 6: just I really don't know how. I really don't know
Speaker 6: if if Ron feels the prosecuting attorney, if he knew
Speaker 6: some things, but he just you know, he might have
Speaker 6: just not want to God have gone through it all
Speaker 6: and just said, oh, this guy did it and be
Speaker 6: done with it, because he was he was taking care
Speaker 6: of some other there was a trial that was coming
Speaker 6: on after him after this was completed. With the Uh,
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 5: Sometimes sometimes what we're seeing I said, what in my
Speaker 5: experience I've seen is that what happens with the prosecutor
Speaker 5: is that very much like anyone that could look at
Speaker 5: this look like that there was likely a partner. If
Speaker 5: you looked at Squeb and Scueb had a people willing
Speaker 5: to testify and did testify that he was in Mississippi hunting.
Speaker 5: I'm pretty sure because of that connection with the gun,
Speaker 5: they would have liked him to be that second person.
Speaker 5: Now the other person to car thief. The car thief,
Speaker 5: as you're right, really didn't have any other record other
Speaker 5: than car theft. But the other thing that I see
Speaker 5: over and over again is that the prosecutor does not
Speaker 5: want to introduce a possible other person to throw again
Speaker 5: the prosecution, or they'll give the witness an opportunity, pardon me,
Speaker 5: the defense an opportunity to say, well, how about this
Speaker 5: other person, and to cast the focus off of their
Speaker 5: own client and any social confusing manner, because you only
Speaker 5: need one person to hang a jury. So very much
Speaker 5: so I think that what this is they have a
Speaker 5: clear prosecutorial focus. This is the person, we have the
Speaker 5: evidence against him. He certainly did do it, and we're
Speaker 5: going to deal with that person. And they can always
Speaker 5: and they do have the opportunity to charge somebody further
Speaker 5: if they gain more information. Especially I think that would
Speaker 5: be the case when they're dealing with making sure that
Speaker 5: this guy, unlike the very first time when he got
Speaker 5: forty five years, that this person was going to not
Speaker 5: exit jail anytime period.
Speaker 6: The guy, the guy who was the prosecuting attorney when
Speaker 6: when Simmons got out, in my ears, when he was
Speaker 6: to serve forty five that prosecuting attorney just incidentally was
Speaker 6: the governor of Arkansas at one time.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, it was interesting. At the Advent of Parole
Speaker 5: tried to intervene and say that this person was at
Speaker 5: least beyond rehabilitation and dangerous not to be let out,
Speaker 5: and they went against his recommendation.
Speaker 6: Right right, I don't, I don't, Uh, I don't know.
Speaker 6: One person told me, Uh, this lady who used to
Speaker 6: be who used to work at the courthouse. She she
Speaker 6: thought there was a lot of skull duggery going on,
Speaker 6: and and and and that why did he get to come?
Speaker 6: Why did Simmons get to come and stay at his
Speaker 6: sister's house? And why did this happen? And and the
Speaker 6: scleeve was, uh, he had all these fish fries all
Speaker 6: the time for people county of fish shows, and and
Speaker 6: uh maybe you know, there was all sorts of like
Speaker 6: how come he how come this guy really got to
Speaker 6: go to his sister's house. And this is one more thing.
Speaker 6: The sister every time she was sub pointed to testify,
Speaker 6: she didn't show up. She said that she was sick.
Speaker 6: She said that she had fallen down. And so they
Speaker 6: just forgot, They just forgot. They just said, well, we
Speaker 6: just won't leaders won't testify against her. But now and
Speaker 6: they had somebody cross examined her pretty well, they might
Speaker 6: have found something out.
Speaker 5: Yeah. What's what's very disturbing too, is when you take
Speaker 5: the reader into the crime scene and we didn't get
Speaker 5: into it, but you talk about what likely Juanna said,
Speaker 5: what likely was said to Thomas from Holly Gentry being
Speaker 5: the Christian that he was, and but Tate one of
Speaker 5: the most most disturbing things was that his own handcuffs
Speaker 5: were used to subdue him. And yeah, and all of
Speaker 5: these people were shot in the back of the head
Speaker 5: by the perpetrator putting up the coat of the jacket.
Speaker 5: And you write in the book that all of them
Speaker 5: were likely, if not for certainly begging for their life,
Speaker 5: asking if they would be killed, and he would assure
Speaker 5: them that no, I'm not going to kill you. Of
Speaker 5: course I wouldn't kill you. I'm not going to kill you.
Speaker 5: And it was a cold blooded.
Speaker 6: The books cold blood. It came from one of the
Speaker 6: Supreme Court when they ruled it. They he had his
Speaker 6: last appeal. The Supreme Court ruled that they had never
Speaker 6: seen a more cold blooded killer than this. Fellow laws
Speaker 6: and so that's where I got to, uh where I
Speaker 6: got the title cold Blood, and not that I've never
Speaker 6: heard of cold blood before, but that the Supreme Court
Speaker 6: had used it, so well, this is this this I
Speaker 6: might know some more later on, you know. Uh uh
Speaker 6: it's like I've found out from the sister that uh,
Speaker 6: they had found his wedding ring and his wallet and
Speaker 6: mm hmm.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah. I've also wanted to mention too that you
Speaker 5: are the author and you had alluded to it, that
Speaker 5: you are the author of Closing Time and also Blind Rage,
Speaker 5: which just happened to be about this area Van Buren
Speaker 5: where you're from, and also particularly murderous time in the
Speaker 5: history of this area, because this happens in a short
Speaker 5: period of time, These sensational three murders that you chronicle
Speaker 5: in your books Clo Time, Blind Rage, and now called
Speaker 5: Blooded a very interesting time. And yeah, the history of
Speaker 5: this little area.
Speaker 6: The blind Rage was that was the first one I wrote.
Speaker 6: I just wanted that was just a good story. I
Speaker 6: knew because I knew everybody involved in that, and I
Speaker 6: just remembered when it all happened. I thought, oh man,
Speaker 6: I'm going to write this book sometime, And so When
Speaker 6: I wrote that book Blind Rage, I really wasn't thinking
Speaker 6: I'm going to write a true crime book. It just
Speaker 6: ended up by being true crime. Well, that book did
Speaker 6: so well that I thought, well, maybe maybe I will
Speaker 6: write another true crime. And then you know, they kept
Speaker 6: a parent and a pearing and I'm working. I'm working
Speaker 6: on this. I've got another one that I'm working on
Speaker 6: right now that that actually it takes place over Fort
Speaker 6: Smith too far not too far now.
Speaker 5: Fort Smith's plays prominent in this story as well.
Speaker 6: Yeah, uh huh, Well, Dan, it's been fun talking to you, boy.
Speaker 6: I'm telling you so much. You're a thorough reader. Well,
Speaker 6: everything he brought up, I thought, oh, he is a
Speaker 6: thorough reader. That's amazing. How many of these books you
Speaker 6: have to read in order to talk to the authors.
Speaker 6: I'm impressed.
Speaker 5: Well, it's it's a pleasure though, that the book was
Speaker 5: so good and it was so so disturbing to bring
Speaker 5: the reader, like I say, right into these the kidnapping,
Speaker 5: the rape, and the abductions, and these people begging and
Speaker 5: pleading for their lives, and all the horror that Jawanna
Speaker 5: experienced thinking about her her husband and having that trepidation
Speaker 5: and premonition that something was going to go wrong, and
Speaker 5: it certainly it all did not a happy ending whatsoever.
Speaker 5: But I want to thank you so much and Anita
Speaker 5: Paddock for coming on and talking about the cold Blooded
Speaker 5: and I would I would recommend people go and look
Speaker 5: at your Amazon page for closing time and for blind
Speaker 5: Rage as well. Thank you so much, Anita, thank
Speaker 6: You, thank you, Bye bye,