Beoria Simmons

Simmons went to trial 20 months later. He admitted to killing the three women but claimed to be insane, attempting an insanity defense. A psychologist reviewed him and diagnosed him with depression, but said he was not insane. In the end, Simmons was found criminally responsible and guilty of murdering the three women, with the jury imposing the sentence of death. In 2010, his sentence was reduced to life in prison after a successful appeal. In a deal with prosecutors, Simmons agreed to waive his right to parole.

On March 12, 1983, three boys discovered the body of 39-year-old Nancy Bettman laying in a creek beside a golf course. 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.

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. 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. 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.

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. 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. 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.

On June 10, 1982, a woman named Phyllis Downes was accosted by a black man welding a gun at a bus stop in Louisville. The man attempted to force Downes into his car, which was a lime-green Chevrolet Camaro, but instead of getting in she ran to a nearby bus attempting to get it to stop, and the man drove away. She described her attacker as a black man with large arms, a heavyset build, a big head, and no facial hair. Police began investigating Paul Davis Thomas, a black man with a similar build who owned a dark green vehicle. They arrested him after Downes identified him from a series of photos, and he was also charged with the rape of a woman that occurred days prior to Downes' attempted abduction. Thomas was tried under an all-white jury and was convicted, receiving a three-year sentence, and was acquitted in the rape case. Following Simmons' arrest five months after Thomas' conviction, the prosecutor involved in Thomas' case became overwhelmed after seeing Simmons' picture and ran a report to the Louisville homicide office, where it was learned that Simmons drove a light green Camaro and owned a semi-automatic pistol.

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. 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.

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. 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.

Beoria Abraham Simmons II (born May 17, 1954) is an American serial killer who kidnapped and murdered three female victims in Jefferson County, Kentucky between 1981 and 1983. He also attempted to abduct another woman and a teenage girl, and one other man was wrongfully jailed for one of Simmons' crimes. Simmons was sentenced to death in 1985, but his sentence was reduced to life in prison in 2010.

Beoria Abraham Simmons II was born on May 17, 1954, in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of a retired Army sergeant. Although not much is known about his upbringing, as a young man he attended Louisville's Spalding College and graduated with a bachelor's degree in social work. Afterward, a supervisor netted him a date with his sister-in-law. Six months before his 1983 arrest, Simmons was granted a job as a halfway-house counselor. Though he was considered an upstanding young man by his peers, a psychiatrist who would later evaluate Simmons before his trial diagnosed him with mild depression.