DOVER, Ark. -- Letters from the eldest school-age daughter of Ronald Gene Simmons speak of the teenager's yearning to the escape the hell of a harsh family life dominated by the man accused of killing her and 15 other people.
Simmons, 47, is expected to be charged in the Christmas holiday slayings of 14 relatives in the worst family mass murder in U.S. history. He already stands charged in the subsequent slaying of two people and wounding of four others in a rampage in nearby Russellville.
Pope County Sheriff James Bolin, meanwhile, retracted Thursday earlier statements that authorities had a letter written by Simmons wife Rebecca that detailed her plans to escape from her husband, who has been described as an abusive tyrant who isolated his family from others.
Bolin said that despite earlier statements by Chief Deputy Billy Baker no correspondence had been found in the Simmons home and investigators had no correspondence from family members that indicated Mrs. Simmons planned to leave her husband.
Reporting on preliminary findings in the investigation, Bolin said family members revealed that Simmons and his wife stopped having sexual relations in 1981 when he was charged with incest by New Mexico authorities. Family members and friends of Simmons' children believe he fathered a child by one of his daughters.
Bolin said Simmons censored the family's mail by maintaining sole access to their post office box.
Simmons also discouraged his wife and daughters from wearing makeup and 'didn't want them looking good, especially his wife,' Bolin said.
Abundant evidence of an unhappy household is contained in letters written by Simmons' daughter, Loretta, 17, to a close friend and schoolmate, Karen Warnick, also 17.
In two letters she managed to get to Warnick last summer, Loretta reported that she was depressed by her home life and limited access to friends.
'We don't have to go anywhere,' Loretta wrote. 'I really just need to be with just a friend and try to cheer up. I'd rather be dead than go on like this.
'My dad hates me, says I'm not good enough, yet he claims I'm conceited,' Loretta wrote. 'And you can't talk to my mom about anything, she doesn't understand.'
Warnick said Loretta was cut off from contact with friends because her father would not let her drive and the family had no phone service. Bolin said there was a phone in the house, but Simmons would not let it be hooked up.
Loretta, an honors student in the senior class at Dover High School, was one of seven family members found in a shallow grave near the Simmons home on Tuesday shortly before the bodies of two children were found in the trunks of cars on the property. Earlier, five family members were found dead inside the house.
Bolin acknowledged that authorities have no tangible evidence to link Simmons to the slayings of the family members, but said he expected such evidence would come from tests being conducted by the state Crime Laboratory at Little Rock.
Simmons is currently undergoing 30 days of court-ordered psychiatric examination at the State Hospital at Little Rock.
