FACTS OF THE CASE OF SIMMONS V. STATE OF MISSOURI
STATE OF MISSOURI, RESPONDENT, VS. CHRISTOPHER SIMMONS, APPELLANT.
No. 77269
SUPREME COURT OF MISSOURI
944 S.W.2d 165; 1997 Mo. LEXIS 44
April 29, 1997, FILED
SUBSEQUENT HISTORY: Appellant's Motion for Rehearing Overruled May 27, 1997. Certiorari
Denied November 3, 1997, Reported at: 1997 U.S. LEXIS 6536. Writ of certiorari denied Simmons
v. Missouri, 522 U.S. 953, 139 L. Ed. 2d 293, 118 S. Ct. 376, 1997 U.S. LEXIS 6536 (1997)
Habeas corpus proceeding at State ex rel. Simmons v. Roper, 2003 Mo. LEXIS 123 (Mo., Aug. 26,
2003)
PRIOR HISTORY: APPEALS FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF JEFFERSON COUNTY,
MISSOURI. THE HONORABLE TIMOTHY J. PATTERSON, JUDGE.
DISPOSITION: Affirmed.
COUNSEL: APP: Melinda K. Pendergraph, Columbia, Missouri.
Honorable Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon, Attorney General, Cassandra K. Dolgin, Assistant Attorney
General, Jefferson City, Missouri.
JUDGES: EDWARD D. ROBERTSON, JR., JUDGE, ALL CONCUR.
OPINIONBY: EDWARD D. ROBERTSON
OPINION: en banc
A jury convicted Christopher Simmons of first-degree murder and recommended that he be sentenced
to death for the abduction and murder of Shirley Crook. The trial court sentenced Simmons to death.
Simmons appeals, raising numerous points challenging the propriety of his conviction and death
sentence and his counsels' performance. Simmons filed a timely Rule 29.15 motion which the trial
court overruled. This Court's exclusive appellate jurisdiction is founded on article V, section 3 of the
Missouri Constitution. We affirm the judgment of conviction and sentence and the denial of relief
under Rule 29.15.
I.
Facts
Simmons does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction. We recite the
facts only in sufficient detail to reconstruct the factual environment in which the legal issues arise.
In early September 1993, Christopher Simmons, then age 17, discussed with his friends, Charlie
Benjamin (age 15) and John Tessmer (age 16), the possibility of committing a burglary and murdering
someone. On several occasions, Simmons described the manner in which he planned to commit the
crime: he would find someone to burglarize, tie the victim up and ultimately push the victim off a
bridge. Simmons assured his friends that their status as juveniles would allow them to "get away with
it." Simmons apparently believed that a "voodoo man" who lived in a nearby trailer park would be
the best victim. Rumor had it that the voodoo man owned hotels and motels and had lots of money
despite his residence in a mobile home park.
On September 8, 1993, Simmons arranged to meet Benjamin and Tessmer at around 2:00 a.m. the
following morning for the purpose of carrying out the plan. The boys met at the home of Brian
Moomey, a 29-year-old convicted felon who allowed neighborhood teens to "hang out" at his home.
Tessmer met Simmons and Benjamin, but he refused to go with them and returned to his own home.
Simmons and Benjamin left Moomey's and went to Shirley Crook's house to commit a burglary.
The two found a back window cracked open at the rear of Crook's home. They opened the window,
reached through, unlocked the back door, and entered the house. Moving through the house,
Simmons turned on a hallway light. The light awakened Mrs. Crook, who was home alone. She sat
up in bed and asked, "Who's there?" Simmons entered her bedroom and recognized Mrs. Crook as
a woman with whom he had previously had an automobile accident. Mrs. Crook apparently
recognized Simmons as well.
Simmons ordered Mrs. Crook out of her bed and, when she did not comply, Simmons forced her to
the floor with Benjamin's help. While Benjamin guarded Mrs. Crook in the bedroom, Simmons found
a roll of duct tape, returned to the bedroom, and bound her hands behind her back. The two also
taped Mrs. Crook's eyes and mouth shut. They walked Mrs. Crook from her home and placed her in
the back of her minivan. Simmons drove the van from Mrs. Crook's home in Jefferson County to
Castlewood State Park in St. Louis County.
At the park, Simmons drove the van to a railroad trestle that spanned the Meramec River. Simmons
parked the van near the railroad trestle. He and Benjamin began to unload Mrs. Crook from the van
and discovered that she had freed her hands and had removed some of the duct tape from her face.
Using Mrs. Crook's purse strap, the belt from her bathrobe, a towel from the back of the minivan, and
some electrical wire found on the trestle, Simmons and Benjamin bound Mrs. Crook, restraining her
hands and feet and covering her head with a towel. Simmons and Benjamin walked Mrs. Crook to
the railroad trestle. There, Simmons bound her hands and feet together, hog-tie fashion, with the
electrical cable and covered Mrs. Crook's face completely with duct tape. Simmons then pushed her
off the railroad trestle into the river below. At the time she fell, Mrs. Crook was alive and conscious.
Simmons and Benjamin threw Mrs. Crook's purse into the woods and drove the van back to the
mobile home Park across from the subdivision in which Mrs. Crook lived.
Later that day, Simmons went to Moomey's trailer and bragged to Moomey that he had killed a
woman "because the bitch seen my face." In the meantime, Steven Crook, Shirley's husband, returned
home from an overnight trip and discovered that his wife had not gone to work as scheduled. When
he did not hear from his wife by that evening, he filed a missing persons report.
That same afternoon, two fishermen found a body floating in the Meramec River, three-quarters of
a mile downstream from the railroad trestle. The fishermen notified authorities, who removed the
body. The medical examiner identified the body from fingerprints, determined the cause of death as
drowning and noted that the victim was alive prior to being pushed from the bridge. The examiner
also reported that Mrs. Crook had sustained several fractured ribs and considerable bruising and that
these injuries did not result from her fall from the railroad trestle.
The next day, September 10, police received information that Simmons was involved in the murder.
They arrested Simmons at his high school and took him to the Fenton, Missouri, police department.
Police read Simmons the warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694,
86 S. Ct. 1602 (1966). Simmons waived his constitutional rights and, after a little less than two hours
of questioning, confessed to the murder. He also agreed to videotape a confession and to take part
in a videotaped "reenactment" of the murder at the crime scene.
The Jefferson County prosecutor charged Simmons with first-degree murder, burglary, kidnapping
and stealing. The trial court severed the last three charges for trial purposes. Simmons sought a
change of venue. The trial court refused but agreed to transfer a jury from Cape Girardeau County
into Jefferson County to hear the case due to the substantial publicity the crime had received in
Jefferson County.
The jury found Simmons guilty of first-degree murder and recommended the death sentence. The trial
court sentenced Simmons to death. Simmons filed a Rule 29.15 motion, which his appointed public
defender amended in a timely fashion. Following an evidentiary hearing, the motion court overruled
Simmons's Rule 29.15 motion. Simmons appealed the conviction, his sentence, and the denial of
post-conviction relief.
END OF FACTS OF SIMMONS' CASE.