Obeying Evil: The Mockingbird Hill Massacre Through the Eyes of a Killer (True Crime) Read online

  Obeying Evil

  The Mockingbird Hill Massacre through the Eyes of a Killer

  by Ryan Green

  © Copyright Ryan Green 2017. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author. Reviewers may quote brief passages in reviews.

  Polite Note To The Reader

  This book is written in British English except where fidelity to other languages or accents are appropriate. Some words and phrases may differ from US English.

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Part 1: The War on Chaos

  Part 2: Mockingbird Hill

  Part 3: Open Warfare

  Part 4: The Last Stand

  Part 5: Guilty as Charged

  Part 6: Conclusion

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  Introduction

  It was a crisp winter's morning in Arkansas. Sunlight was just starting to peek over the treetops. Behind the car, a trail of vapour streamed. The air was still, a little slice of the Peace on Earth that was the perennial promise of this season. The world was in its usual pre-Christmas lull, the dead time where nothing much happened except the building excitement of children who still thought too much of it all.

  Ronald Gene Simmons, in all his years as a father, had never enjoyed it. He preferred for everything in his household to be calm. To have order. There was no order to this time of year, with people coming and going at all hours. Traitors. That was what they were. Traitors who would abandon their own flesh and blood if they were given half a chance. They were all against him. After this, there would be no more wayward sons or wayward daughters. There would be no more wayward wives for that matter. His mind slid away from thoughts of family and home. He knew the cost of distraction—you had to keep your mind on the task at hand. Not to mention the way that thoughts of them made the corners of his eyes prick and itch. He squeezed tighter on the steering wheel of the car and bit back a sob. Even his own body was trying to betray him. This was enemy territory; he couldn't afford to show weakness. Not even for a moment.

  The people in the town were all against him, too. That bitch of a secretary who had cost him a good job shuffling paper around. All those liars and penny pinchers at the store who wouldn't pay him a fraction of what he was worth. He saw the way that they looked at him eyes void of respect. They thought that they could treat him like he was nothing. Like Ronald Gene Simmons wasn't a man to be reckoned with. Well, the reckoning was coming now. All the traitors were going to pay for what they had done to him. Every last person who had betrayed him was going to learn what the price of crossing a real man was.

  From outside the car, the turbulence within was invisible. He drove along the Interstate to Russellville, carefully abiding by the speed limit. He slowed as he came into town, taking the time to look out along Main Street at all of the Christmas shoppers, scurrying about their business, trying to find the perfect gifts for their friends and families. Ronald already had the perfect things picked out for his children, for his wife, for the others who were coming around with them. He had given Becky permission to put up a tree without his supervision. He had given her the last of the money he had earned from odd jobs, bar the skinny bundle of bills in his wallet, to buy everyone presents, too. She should have been happy, but the more he lavished on her, the more he felt her drawing away. It wasn't Becky's fault of course. Becky was too simple to come up with anything like this for herself. Becky couldn't wash a dish without him there to hold her hand the whole way.

  Becky was being led astray by the other one, by the foul temptress who was dragging them all down to Hell with her. She had been the start of it. The temptress had poisoned them all against him, sent them off wandering through the desert on their own without their father's hand to guide them. It was enough to make a grown man weep. When he pulled into the busy Walmart parking lot, Ronald had to steer around the bustle of bodies, stopping and starting, until he found a space. He sat for a time in the car with the engine still running, trying to force his white knuckles to loosen their grip on the wheel. He had to be calm. Now wasn't the time to be emotional. He knew his mission. He knew what needed to be done to complete it. Anything other than that was just going to hurt him, and he had been hurt enough for one lifetime.

  He turned off the engine and hauled himself out into the cold. It wasn't a long walk. Even the biggest store in this small town didn't justify more than a few rows of parking spaces, but he had to brush past the other parents to get inside. They didn't look at him. They very deliberately didn't look at him. It was a small town, so it was no surprise that they knew him. None of them were fool enough to try greeting him, of course. Here in town he willingly suffered their stares so long as there were no whispers. Back in New Mexico, there had been whispers and worse. That was what drove him up here into the biting cold. He didn't even trouble to look at them. They had no respect, but they feared him, and that was close enough in a pinch. They wouldn't cross him if they could avoid it. Not like the traitors and the tricksters and her.

  Inside the store, he practiced every courtesy that he had ever been able to fake. Smiling to the sales girl, chatting away calmly to deflect any questions, counting off the dollars and pressing them into her hand, ignoring the flinch as his dry fingertips brushed over the soft skin of her palm. Savouring that flinch, too. He took his package back to the car in a bubble of silence. The time was drawing closer now. The pieces were all in place. As it came closer and closer to the final moment, Ronald found the rest of the world falling away. There must have been more stares, carefully averted, as he walked away. There must have been more soft-faced mothers rushing to spoil their children and blank-eyed fathers rolling their eyes at every purchase, but as he walked back to the car he could not recall a single one of them. He slipped himself back behind the wheel, set his present down on the seat beside him, and carefully fastened his belt before drawing in a steadying breath.

  All the false cheer and decorations might not have brought any fondness into Ronald's heart, but that little parcel beside him drew him back into happy memories. Back to that brief window, the good years, when everything made sense and people respected him. He had his medals, still squirrelled away in his room up on Mockingbird Hill, where prying eyes and thieving hands couldn't find them, but the medals didn't mean half as much as the memories. In those days, one thing followed on from the next naturally. There was no need for jarring pauses to weigh up his options. There were no fleeting ghosts. There were his orders, and there was order. He followed his own orders now, made his own rules, and followed them strictly, but it just wasn't the same. Ronald quickly double-checked his mirrors and his seatbelt then pulled away. That happened all the time now, that juddering pause as he had to stop everything and check that he was following the right routine. He knew why it happened; it was her. She would distract him if she could. She would make him forget to do the things that he needed to do. Ronald had a plan in place to take care of that little problem along with every other one. Ronald had lots of plans. It was still only barely morning and all of his errands were run. That was what order, efficiency, and planning ahead could do for your life. With a satisfied nod, he headed for the safety of hom
e.

  The bubble of silence started to fade by the time he hit the highway. When he was acting or planning, it was like a switch was flicked. He was safe from all the chaos, safe from her. But in these quiet times with nothing to do, it was all that he could do to hold back a scream. The traitors had wounded him in a way that he had never believed he could be hurt. It wasn't just that it was so unexpected; it was like they had chosen the one place where he was softest to dig in their knives. His grip tightened on the wheel again as static on the radio drowned out the Christmas carols. Ronald was surrounded by the static as he drove. That prickling chaos drowned out the whole world beyond the ragged sound of his own hot breath, the only warm thing in this godforsaken place, beading droplets on his moustache hairs.

  Mockingbird Hill was up a winding dirt track off the main road, carefully fenced off from intruders and prying eyes. Ronald had to get out to move the gate aside, the cold metal sticking to his fingers. He rolled the car forward and then turned back to close up the gate behind him. Another pointless stutter. He drove on up his driveway, past the rusted carcasses of abandoned cars on either side until home reared up in front of him. Home was nothing but two mobile homes, welded together, but it was his and he was damned if anyone was going to take it away from him.

  He brought the car to a halt and willed the calm to come over him again. The children were off to school. Becky would be pottering around the house, doing next to nothing as usual. He had all the time in the world. Out in the yard, he could see the turned soil of the new cesspit. In the seat beside him was his present. Everything was in place. There was no reason to feel anxious or guilty anymore. That time had passed.

  Ronald unpacked his present and loaded it carefully. It was the same size as the one he had used back in the good old days to win his awards for marksmanship. It felt right in his hand. It was cool, but not cold, not like the metal outside. Even now, it warmed in his grip, becoming more alive with every moment. He drew in a shaking breath and let it out slowly. The static started to fade away. He was exactly where he needed to be. This was where his plan came together. This was when the temptress lost her grip on him, when he wrestled free of her, when he set his family free. With the gun in his hand, he stepped out into the chill morning air and drew it all in. It was steady now. There was no more time for doubt or fear. No more time for chaos. This was his time. This was the order that he was going to instil in the world. He strode across his yard and drew the sliding door open gently.

  Part 1: The War on Chaos

  It is grimly appropriate that Ronald Gene Simmons' story does not properly start with his birth, but with a death. While he was born on a hot summer's day in Chicago, Illinois, in 1940, it was a little under three years later that his world began to spin off its axis, starting him down the path that would lead him to his defining moments. Details about Loretta and William Simmons have mostly faded from history. In light of their son's infamy, the family has become reluctant to discuss them with outsiders, but it seems that for those first three years Ronald lived as normal a life as any other baby might. But in January of 1943, chaos arrived into Ronald's life for the very first time, striking down his father with a lethal stroke. The bubble of familiarity and safety surrounding Ronald popped in an instant. One of the two most important figures in his life vanished in an instant, for no apparent reason beyond the obscene fact that sometimes people just die.

  Along with William, the economic stability of regular income also vanished. Loretta had lived through the Great Depression. She could remember all too keenly what hunger and desperation felt like. The 40s were not a time when a single woman could easily make a life for herself and an orphaned boy, so she worked quickly using the only means that were at her disposal to secure her future and that of her toddler, Ronald. By the end of the year, she was remarried.

  If that had been the only moment of instability, then it is possible that Ronald could have recovered his sense of balance and order, but his new stepfather, William D. Griffen, served in the US Army Corps of Engineers. The family moved to Arkansas when Griffen was deployed there, then they moved again, and again, and again. For ten years the family, was in a state of constant flux, never settling for long in one place.

  The disruption had a marked effect on Ronald. He was always the new kid at every school he attended, never staying in one place for long enough to make any friends, and showing a stark lack of the social skills that would have been required to make friends anyway. Ronald quickly developed a reputation as a troublemaker and a bully. He struggled with his schoolwork and lashed out at his classmates with little provocation.

  If he had stayed in one place for long enough, it is possible that his teachers might have found the underlying cause of this behaviour and helped him to adapt, but anything resembling stability eluded him until he was sixteen years old. By that time, his violent outbursts had progressed to the point that even the school system of the 50s couldn't go on considering his behaviour to be ‘boys being boys.' Having rapidly blown through their entire arsenal of disciplinary tools, the school was left with no option but except to expel Ronald. In a last ditch attempt to punish the boy into good behaviour, his parents shipped him off to military school, where they hoped that martial discipline might finally bring him to his senses.

  To everyone's amazement, including Ronald's, military school had the desired effect. He didn't break under the strict order and pressure of the school's rigorous routines. He thrived. As the boys around him had their spirits crushed by the relentless routine of military school, Ronald found a sense of peace and purpose that he had been lacking his entire life. Within the military structure, his aggressive impulses were turned to constructive goals, and his desire for complete control of the world around him was mirrored in his environment for the first time. He rose before the sun, went through a routine of preparing his clothes and bunk for inspection, showering, exercising, marching and drilling. Every moment of his day was filled; every moment of his day was ordered. When his time at the military school came to its end, he was unwilling to leave and return to his civilian life outside of that safe cocoon of order. He dropped out of high school at the age of 17, severed ties to his family, and joined the Navy as quickly as possible.

  His first posting was Bremerton Naval Base in Washington, where he met a young woman by the name of Bersabe Rebecca Ulibarri. Becky, as she was known, was considered to be the local beauty, her long black hair was the envy of all the local girls. Expectations were high for her. Their courtship was slow in the beginning, but unwavering. With the disciplined structure of the Navy behind him, Ronald was calm enough to express himself with some degree of charisma, and he won Becky over. The couple began living together, which was when Becky first caught a glimpse of Ronald's dark side and the shape that the rest of her life was going to take.

  *

  The bowl shook in Becky's hand when she heard the door slam, but she wrote off the nervous flinch as a sign of excitement. Ronald was home. What did she have to be unhappy about? She turned to greet him with a smile. Ronald had never been one for smiling, but he gave her the firm nod that usually served as a greeting between them. He sat down at the kitchen table and lit a cigarette without saying a word. Becky didn't mind some companionable silence. They were comfortable together, that was all. Not every minute of the day had to be filled up with chatter. She turned back to the sink and started over on the bowl. She could feel his gaze on her. The intensity of it had been half of the draw of Ronald when they first met. You could tell just by meeting his eyes that he had some passion in him. The boys that she had considered dating before Ronald had been just that, boys. Ronald was every inch a man, and if that meant that he was a little stern sometimes, well that was just a part of his charm.

  She lifted the bowl out of the water and set it aside before turning her attention to the pots. They had already been washed once, but now she was rinsing them off so that there was no residue. Ronald was very particular about how things were
done around the house, and there was nothing wrong with that either. It was nice to meet a man who was house proud instead of slovenly. If it meant that he was unhappy with her once in a while, then that was her failing, not his. If she could just do things the way that they were meant to be done, he wouldn't have to scold her. Some days, she could swear that she was doing exactly the same as the last, but somehow her work was always slipping below his standards. He had the patience of a saint. Becky knew that most men wouldn't treat her so gently when she kept on making mistakes all of the time. Ronald had never raised a hand to her, just his voice, and barely even that. She knew how lucky she was. Don't let anybody ever say that she wasn't lucky to have found a man as kind and caring as Ronald.

  When she lifted the pot out from the clear water she caught a glimpse of a stranger reflected back in the stainless steel. The girl who she used to be had vanished. She was growing up, and the way that she dressed and the way that she behaved had to reflect that. Having hair all over the place was fine when you were out courting, but now that she was settled down it was time to bring her jezebel locks under control. Her hair had been her pride and joy, but pride was a sin, and with his gentle words, Ronald had helped her purge herself of that sin. It wasn't lopped off or anything so drastic. It was just pulled back from her face and tied away modestly. She still had her beauty, but it wasn't something to be flashed at any man who walked by the window. It was for her husband to be. The face beneath the hair was much changed, too. The makeup that she had once laboured over for hours was gone, long gone. Ronald couldn't abide vanity, but in his soft whispers, he appealed to hers inadvertently, telling her that she was beautiful without all that makeup, that other girls might need it, but not her. If it made Ronald happy and it was a lot less work for her, then whom did it hurt if she just did what he wanted? Her clothes had to change, but that was just being practical. She wore her button-down shirts with pride. They may not have been as fancy as the clothes that she wore when she was younger, but she wasn't some young thing out on the prowl now—she was a settled woman. Ronald had to wear his uniform every day to do his service to the country, so how was it any different when she put on hers?