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This episode examines Ronald Gene Simmons, tracing his rigid rise through the military, the incest allegation that triggered a sudden move, and the slow construction of an isolated household on Mockingbird Hill. As control began to slip, children leaving, jobs unraveling, pension delays stacking up, Simmons’ fixation hardened into a plan that unfolded over several days during Christmas 1987.

Fourteen members of his family were killed, including children and grandchildren. Afterward, Simmons drove to Russellville and opened fire on former coworkers and supervisors, telling police he had “gotten everybody who wanted to hurt” him before surrendering without resistance.

We walk through the timeline and the psychology behind the violence. How coercive control, isolation, and a self-imposed hierarchy can turn a family into a sealed system. We compare Simmons to other killers shaped by abusive environments and note where those patterns fall apart. The evidence points less to a reactive trauma script and more to a man who weaponized order, then tried to erase anyone who threatened it.

The episode also examines the legal aftermath: crimes spanning jurisdictions, competency findings, an unusually fast jury process, and a defendant who refused all appeals. Simmons’ final statement, calling his actions “justifiable homicide,” raises uncomfortable questions about speed, certainty, and justice in capital punishment cases.

Along the way, we center the aftermath. How holidays change forever for survivors. How a community absorbs a crime of this scale. And why verification matters when even a killer’s childhood becomes distorted through repetition and rumor.

This is a conversation about control, domestic isolation, and the legal edges of the death penalty. It avoids gore, rejects mythmaking, and insists on clarity where silence once lived.

“Thank you for listening to Things I Want to Know.
You want these stories, and we want to bring them to you — so hit the support link and keep this circus, and the mics, alive.
Then do us a favor and rate and subscribe; it helps the show find more people like you — the ones who like their mysteries real and their storytellers unfiltered.
And if you want to wear a little of this madness, grab some Andrea-approved gear at paulgnewton.com.
We make t

Support the show

Things I Want To Know
Where two stubborn humans poke the darkness with a stick and hope it blinks first. If you know something about a case, report it to the actual police before you come knocking on our door. After that, sure, tell us. We’re already in too deep anyway.

If you enjoy the show, or you just like supporting people who refuse to shut up, grab some merch at PaulGNewton.com. It keeps the lights on and the caffeine flowing.

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Most true crime podcasts lie politely. We don’t.
So we decided to explain why.

After getting pushback for “disrespecting” a victim, Andrea and I laid out exactly how Things I Want to Know works. This episode is our playbook. How we research. Why we focus on underreported Arkansas cases. And why respecting victims does not mean turning them into saints or pretending uncomfortable facts don’t exist.

We start with primary sources. State missing-persons lists, archived newspapers, and public records. Wikipedia is never a single source. If we can’t double-check a claim, it doesn’t make the cut. FOIA requests help sometimes. Often they don’t. When information is thin, locked down, or too risky to publish responsibly, we shelve the case. That’s not fear. That’s restraint.

Victimology gets the hardest scrutiny. We don’t do saintly clichés and we don’t do cheap cruelty. Routine, relationships, place, and risk shape opportunity, but labels don’t define a person. When families or firsthand sources correct us, we update the record. And we don’t force famous killers into unrelated cases just to make a cleaner narrative. Method matters more than myth.

Along the way, we reference system failures that sharpen how we think. Hawaii’s false nuclear missile alert that sat unretracted for 38 minutes. The MOVE bombing in Philadelphia. Different stories, same lesson: small decisions spiral, and accuracy matters when real people are involved.

This episode is about balancing truth, empathy, and clarity without sanding off reality. If you’ve got documents, corrections, memories, or you just want to tell us why were wrong, email me, Paul G.
paulg@paulgnewton.com

You can find the show, the merch, and everything else we’re building at paulgnewton.com.

Subscribe. Share it with someone who’s tired of copy-paste true crime. And if there’s a case you think deserves real attention, tell me about it.

“Thank you for listening to Things I Want to Know.
You want these stories, and we want to bring them to you — so hit the support link and keep this circus, and the mics, alive.
Then do us a favor and rate and subscribe; it helps the show find more people like you — the ones who like their mysteries real and their storytellers unfiltered.
And if you want to wear a little of this madness, grab some Andrea-approved gear at paulgnewton.com.
We make t

Support the show

Things I Want To Know
Where two stubborn humans poke the darkness with a stick and hope it blinks first. If you know something about a case, report it to the actual police before you come knocking on our door. After that, sure, tell us. We’re already in too deep anyway.

If you enjoy the show, or you just like supporting people who refuse to shut up, grab some merch at PaulGNewton.com. It keeps the lights on and the caffeine flowing.

And when your curiosity needs a breather from all the murder, jump over to my other show, Paul G’s Corner, where history proves that saying it can’t happen here usually means it already did.

Get Bad Ass Merch!

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Things I Want To Know

Don’t Boil the Water | Charleston, West Virginia

A sweet smell coming out of the tap should never turn into a guessing game.

In this episode, we dig into the 2014 Charleston, West Virginia chemical spill that sent crude MCHM from a neglected storage tank straight toward a municipal water intake, forcing 300,000 people to stop using their water overnight. Not limit it. Not boil it. Stop.

We talk about how a century-old piece of infrastructure ended up sitting upstream from a city’s drinking water, why oversight failed, and how “safe enough” became the most dangerous phrase in the room. Residents reported rashes, nausea, burning eyes, and headaches, while officials tried to reassure the public with toxicology data that barely existed.

Accountability did come, eventually. Guilty pleas. Home confinement. Bankruptcy. But trust is harder to flush out of a system than a chemical you can smell.

We also zoom out, because Charleston isn’t an anomaly. From storage tanks to rail lines to aging intakes, this is what happens when convenience and complacency quietly stack risk in places no one is watching.

This isn’t panic radio. It’s a conversation about vigilance. What smells matter. Why boiling water can make some chemical exposures worse. What actually helps at the household level, and what fixes need to happen upstream where the real control lives.

Because the most unsettling part isn’t that something went wrong.
It’s how normal the day felt before anyone knew.

“Thank you for listening to Things I Want to Know.
You want these stories, and we want to bring them to you — so hit the support link and keep this circus, and the mics, alive.
Then do us a favor and rate and subscribe; it helps the show find more people like you — the ones who like their mysteries real and their storytellers unfiltered.
And if you want to wear a little of this madness, grab some Andrea-approved gear at paulgnewton.com.
We make t

Support the show

Things I Want To Know
Where two stubborn humans poke the darkness with a stick and hope it blinks first. If you know something about a case, report it to the actual police before you come knocking on our door. After that, sure, tell us. We’re already in too deep anyway.

If you enjoy the show, or you just like supporting people who refuse to shut up, grab some merch at PaulGNewton.com. It keeps the lights on and the caffeine flowing.

And when your curiosity needs a breather from all the murder, jump over to my other show, Paul G’s Corner, where history proves that saying it can’t happen here usually means it already did.

Get Bad Ass Merch!