Beoria Simmons

On May 18, 1981, a fisherman discovered the body of 15-year-old Robin L. Barnes in a marshy area of south Jefferson County. Barnes was a former middle school cheerleader who had a history of running away from home and was known to hitchhike.[5] She was fully clothed, and police originally began investigating relatives and acquaintances of Barnes, reportedly conducted as many as 75 interviews with people with ties to Barnes. Eventually, detectives located a singular pubic hair on her coat, which suggested she might have been raped.[5]

Investigators collected three bullet casings from beneath her body and shipped them off to the Kentucky State Police Regional Crime Lab in Louisville, and experts concluded the bullets had been fired from a .360 caliber pistol.[5] Detective Pat Conkling made trips to three gun shops in the area and ran reports on customers who had recently bought or owned a .360 caliber pistol. However, each person had an alibi at the time of the murder. With few leads to go off of, investigators presented the case on Crimestoppers, and this fueled dozens of tips but none led anywhere. The case began to run cold.[5]

On March 25, 1982, over ten months after Barnes' murder, a roofer on his day off found the body of 29-year-old Shannon House in a wooded area near Iroquois Park in southern Louisville.[6] At the time, there was no connection police knew with House's case with Barnes'; House was twice Barnes' age, was shot once while Barnes was shot three times, and the murder scenes were 12 miles apart.[6] The only thing similar was that both had been raped, but police still had no evidence at the time to suggest that they were connected.

As with Barnes' case, police investigated acquaintances of House, but all were eventually ruled out.[6] During the investigation, detectives uncovered a bullet casing, which was confirmed to have been fired from a .360 caliber pistol, which investigators used to link both cases together.[6]

On March 12, 1983, three boys discovered the body of 39-year-old Nancy Bettman laying in a creek beside a golf course.[6] Bettman had been shot once in the back of the head, and unlike the previous victims, she was partially nude. Police suspected her murder was related to the others, and ballistics evidence confirmed it.[6]

In the early hours of June 11, 1983, a 16-year-old girl was kidnapped by a heavy-set black man at gunpoint, who later drove her to Iroquois Park.[7] When there, the man got out and ordered her to do the same, but when she did she stabbed him with a pocketknife and ran away.[7] She found shelter in a nearby convenience store and called the police to report the attack. At the same time, police became aware of a man who had arrived at Humana Hospital with a knife wound. The man, 29-year-old Beoria Abraham Simmons II, claimed he had been robbed and stabbed by three hitchhikers.[4]

Police made a connection; the girl said her attacker had driven a 1975 Chrysler Cordoba, which Simmons had also owned. The girl identified Simmons's vehicle and later Simmons himself. Simmons was questioned, and confessed.[4] Police also immediately linked him to the murders due to finding a .360 caliber pistol under the driver seat of his car, which matched the murder weapon used in the killings. When confronted he confessed, but claimed the killings were accidental after heated arguments with the victims.[4]