Posted on 02/01/2008 5:53:09 AM PST by KeyLargo
Time served, sex offender who killed 6-year-old girl has come to live in Derry
By PAT GROSSMITH AND NANCY WEST New Hampshire Union Leader
DERRY – A man who strangled, then sexually assaulted a 6-year-old girl and stuffed her body into a storm drain in 1981 is living near the Derry Montessori School, a park and the public library.
Douglas Allen Simmons, 47, moved into 71 East Broadway, Apt. 3, Derry, over the weekend, according to police. Yesterday, his name and photo were posted on New Hampshire's child sex offender Web site.
Simmons was a 20-year-old sailor when he lured freckle-faced Michelle Spencer, 6, into his apartment July 19, 1981, and murdered her in Norwich, Conn., according to The Hartford Courant account of his sentencing. Simmons lived with his wife in the same building as Michelle.
Simmons strangled Michelle with a paint-speckled gray telephone cord, then sexually abused her and disposed of her body in a sewer drain near her home, according to the newspaper.
Michelle was last seen playing in her front yard wearing green shorts and a red T-shirt with a "Wonder Woman" emblem on it.
At Simmons' sentencing, a prosecutor said Simmons hit the child's hand when she reached for his stereo and, when she began to cry, covered her mouth with his hand to quiet her. She collapsed to the floor. Simmons grabbed a telephone cord, wrapped it around her neck and strangled her, The Hartford Courant reported.
The 6-year-old lived in the same building as Douglas Allen Simmons in Norwich, Conn. On July 19, 1981, he strangled her with a telephone cord, sexually abused her and disposed of her body in a sewer drain, according to the Hartford Courant.
The prosecutor said Simmons then molested the girl before putting her body in a cardboard box and dumping it in a storm drain, the newspaper reported. Simmons, a Michigan native, was a fireman's apprentice aboard the USS Fulton in New London, Conn., and had just returned home from drinking with friends.
Amid controversy, Simmons was released on probation in 2003 in Connecticut after Michigan officials scuttled his attempt to move there to be near his mother, Jacqueline Dean, of Grand Rapids.
"The facts of the case suggest that Mr. Simmons is a serious predator who will likely commit similar crimes if released," Michigan Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm said at the time. A judge ordered Simmons to complete probation in Connecticut.
Simmons' mother spoke briefly with the New Hampshire Union Leader yesterday.
"He served his time. He's doing fine. He's been out of prison over five years," Jacqueline Dean said. "He just wants to live his life." Asked whether Simmons has friends in New Hampshire, Dean said she believes he does.
Simmons is free to live wherever he wants because his sentence and probation are completed; in New Hampshire, he is required to register for the child sex offender list. He came into the Derry police station Monday and registered, police said. There is no mention of his murder conviction on the New Hampshire state police site.
Simmons was never charged with sexual assault, but later admitted it. And there were errors in his original sentence when he pleaded guilty, according to Connecticut officials.
Philip Fazzino, of the New London, Conn., state's attorneys office, said the state erroneously added probation to Simmons' murder sentence, so he was brought back to court in 2003 and re-sentenced on a new indictment of second-degree kidnapping in connection with Michelle's murder.
Simmons essentially ended up with a 35-year sentence and five years probation, but earned time off for good behavior because of laws in effect when he was sentenced, Fazzino said. Simmons served about 22 years in prison and completed probation.
Yesterday, people in Derry remained on edge.
Cheryl Lynch, director of the Derry Public Library, said security at the library is already tight. "We're vigilant every day," Lynch said. "We ask the patrons to be aware of their surroundings."
Union Leader Correspondent Adam Benson contributed to this report.
...and what message does this send to the other potential child rapist/murderers. He should be mob lynched along with the judge who set him free
I get a couple of Canadian channels, and they went bananas when Karla Homolka (she set her own teen sister up to be raped & murdered by her husband) was released from prison after a relatively short incarceration, thanks to her plea deal to testify against her husband (boyfriend?).
yes it is...considering I live in this town...
huh?
“Simmons, a Michigan native, was a fireman’s apprentice aboard the USS Fulton in New London, Conn., and had just returned home from drinking with friends.”
Why, after serving his civilian sentence, was he not brought up on charges of murder according to the UCMJ??
I, unfortunately, live in Massachusetts and I hear that all the time. That type of response doesn’t even shock me any more. I just think that if something happens to one of their loved ones — or any child or female in their circle — they will change their tunes.
I am a Southerner and in my family we definitely don’t feel the same way a lot of these liberals up here do.
On the bright side, I ate at a local restaurant the other day and there were 2 other tables of people sitting in our section. All Republicans! I could not believe it, but I took advantage of the opportunity to give them FR’s website addy.
That’s what happens here in Massachusetts. I am labeled as a nut by the same neighbor who took my kids aside while they were out playing to fill their little Republican minds with Clinton-loving garbage. I went over there and pointed out that 10 year olds cannot vote — so if they want to Clintonize someone, try picking on me instead. They declined.
Yeah, they forgot all right. DP is not a disincentive to kill — it’s simply a way to get rid of the scumbags once and for all so there is no chance a CT can be pulled on the rest of us.
I sometimes tell libs that we are protected from criminals when they are in prison or dead, because they are not out on the streets preying on the rest of us.
Every time I say that, the libs look at me like dumb cows and have no response. It doesn’t change their thinking one bit, though.
I would get rid of him, but I sure wouldn’t call the cops on myself. I try to maximize my odds of not getting caught. If I was questioned by LE, first thing I’d remember is that I have the right to remain silent, and I’d actually shut up. I’d also keep it a complete secret — loose lips sink ships.
Please post what happens. I’d be interested to know if ya’ll can get this scumbag out of your neighborhood.
I agree with your post.
When I recall that ‘sex offender’ who was killed by some ‘vigilante’ out for blood and it came out that he was just some slightly older kid whose girlfriend’s parents wanted revenge and pressed charges on him.
I don’t really understand why legislators and activists don’t push for a focus on REAL predators, rather than label ANYONE convicted of a sex-’related’ crime as a sex offender.
You should be on the registry for the serious stuff that is difficult to treat or alter in an offender, not for some of the silly stuff you see listed on there. OR worse, stuff that is difficult to prove in a court and would have innocent people ruined for life by having to appear on the list.
Why are offenders out if they have to be a on a public list? Seriously?
In that case, it’s because the stupid cops were too quick to cut a deal before seeing the tapes that proved just how complicit she was.
As for prison survival, for all the talk about how child molesters and rapists are despised and killed in prison, ask yourself when was the last time you heard of that happening?
Now think on all the released rapists, child kidnappers and molesters who are back on the street and commit headline-making crimes. Why weren’t they ‘dealt with’ in prison?
I think it’s a big myth. You’d be worse off being a cop on the inside. UNless, maybe, MAYBE, the lawyers have forced prisons to seal these guys away from general population.
2003.
Former priest John Geoghan killed in prison; was center of church abuse scandal
(I followed the Bunny Law travesty, and remembered a defrocked priest being killed in a MA prison a few years ago.)
God has given Caesar (the State) the sole authority to bear the sword of justice here on Earth. If someone harmed my child, I would allow Caesar’s justice to take its course. If the State failed to render justice in the case, however, I would be obligated to take it upon myself to do so. At that point, however, I am duty-bound as a law-abiding citizen to stand before Caesar and accept his judgment upon my deeds. To fail in this duty would be to fail in rendering unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and thus would contradict the commandments of God.
When the State fails in its duty to establish justice, it sometimes falls to a citizen to exact justice in the name of the fallen. That being done, the citizen who acts on his own authority must be ready to place his or her own life on the line and submit his or her actions to the judgment of the law. If we do not, then we sever the connection between the act and justice.
Hiding from the law would reduce you to being just as bad as any other killer. The law must be respected; if we operate outside the law as vigilantes, we are disrespecting the law and harming the society we live in. An honorable man does nothing in secret; he stands boldly before God and his fellow man and says “I did what I thought was right. Judge me, and I will accept your finding.”
I am for justice; however, vigilantism is not justice, but mere revenge. To be a vigilante is to cast away the law — the only thing that separates a society from anarchy, from that condition where might makes right. No revenge is worth that risk.
Far more often than you might think, that is exactly the case. Since that elderly defrocked child-molesting priest was killed by his cellmate in a Northeastern state prison a few years ago, prison authorities have striven to keep this kind of garbage from being dealth with by other inmates, usually by keeping them separate...
the infowarrior
These 'enablers' now preside over our courts as well and hamstring law-enforcement at every turn. In short... the nuts are running the asylum.
Kudos for 'correcting' your neighbor's Goebbelsian behavior... but shoot for the longterm solution: Relocate to a state that still values... and abides by justice and common sense... in its legislators/state employees and a healthy-majority of its citizens.
Through the leftist dictates of the state and omnipresent socialist media... MA citizens have rejected 200+ years of accrued, historical experience. Essentially, tossing it all away for thinly veiled, Marxist-socialist dogma.
I will keep you posted, If you can get WMUR Ch 9 where you are, they will surely report on it tonight. They have been covering it alot.
No question. Pedophiles are never “cured” while this side of the “veil of tears”.
I do not agree that we should adopt France’s system. They lie and deny as much as anyone, and that would, and does, skew any system.
I think that anyone who pulls a Nifong should be executed. That would help to square away that problem.
He served his probation. He's no longer under judicial supervision. Thus, he may live where he chooses.
sitetest
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