"Brother, sister let mother's body decompose;Conn. pair will not be charged under state law" by Associated Press | July 28, 2008
MIDDLEFIELD, Conn. - A brother and sister who left their mother's corpse to decay in her house may not be charged with a crime for keeping her death a secret for more than seven years.
Wouldn't the place have started to smell bad?
While John and Diane Simmeck acknowledged that they allowed Ann Simmeck's body to decompose, the state law that makes failing to report a death a crime does not require private citizens to contact officials when a relative is discovered dead. The statute applies only when a body has been officially reported dead.
"I'm not aware of any crime that would clearly apply to their conduct," said Todd Fernow, a professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law. "There really isn't anything that requires a regular citizen to report a death or dispose of a dead body in accordance with a procedure," Fernow told The Hartford Courant in an article published yesterday.
A 100-page State Police case file, recently released to the newspaper, details how the brother and sister made biannual trips to their mother's Middlefield home, stepping over her remains on the floor. Police believe Ann Simmeck died in late 1999 or early 2000.
Excuse me? Is that DISRESPECTFUL or what?
They discovered her body in June 2007 after an estranged son, Michael Simmeck, had grown worried about his mother's well-being. She was probably 72 when she died of natural causes.
Her remains were so badly decomposed that she was identified by comparing her DNA to Michael Simmeck's. After spending six months investigating the elderly woman's death, investigators applied for warrants charging John and Diane Simmeck with failing to report a death and improper disposal of a body.
But Superior Court Judge Patrick J. Clifford refused to sign them because he did not feel their actions "fit within the parameters of the crimes," according to State Police reports.
"It's an odd set of facts," Fernow said. "I don't see the Legislature doing a lot to create a statute for something like this because people don't expect this to happen every day."
John Simmeck Jr., in interviews with State Police, said he didn't report his mother's death because "he was scared and in trouble with the law in both New Hampshire and Connecticut," according to police documents.
Look, I don't care about that, you GOTTA REPORT THAT, man!!
That's WEAK!!!
You gotta get that old lady picked up and TAKEN CARE OF!!!!
He is facing an identity theft charge in connection with his alleged use of his father's identity in 2003 to set up a cellphone account.
So you don't call in your mother's expiration and you leave her in the middle of the floor?
Someone open this guy up and check his skull please!
To protect the secret of his mother's death, John Simmeck continued for years to pay property taxes on the house and the electric bill because the freezer was stuffed with food. Water was cut off to the house.
Diane Simmeck could not provide police with a reasonable explanation for her actions."Yeah, WHY DIDN'T the DAUGHTER CALL?
And just when you think things couldn't get sicker:
"Son charged in slaying of R.I. couple; Hoe is found near bodies in cesspool" by Maddie Hanna, Globe Correspondent | July 28, 2008
LINCOLN, R.I. - A Rhode Island man was charged yesterday with murdering his parents, a day after investigators discovered their bodies in a cesspool in the family's backyard.
Police did not comment yesterday on why James Soares, who lived with his parents at the Baltimore Avenue home in Warren, would have committed the killings.
On the afternoon of July 9, police allege, the 24-year-old struck James Soares, 60, and Marian Soares, 53, with the family's grub hoe, a gardening tool with a flat, metal head, then removed the cover of the backyard cesspool and dumped their bodies inside.
The family was not unknown to police; the elder James Soares had been convicted on weapons possession charges after rifles, handguns, and thousands of ammunition rounds were found in the home in 2002.
Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch said the homicides are the first in 30 years in Warren, a coastal town of about 11,000 people.
"That can be shattering to a community, the uncertainty of where they went . . . who's done it, is there a murderer in our midst," Lynch said yesterday in a phone interview after Soares was charged at the State Police barracks in Lincoln.
Police took Soares into custody Friday after weeks of conducting interviews and examining forensic evidence, said Major Steven O'Donnell of the Rhode Island State Police.
"Everything from witnesses to family members, it just pointed in his direction. His inconsistencies to those people," O'Donnell said in an interview at the barracks.
A relative of the Warren couple filed a missing persons report July 15, after the couple missed a July 13 family gathering, which Lynch said Marian Soares had helped to plan.
Warren police began to investigate, and last week, State Police and the attorney general's office became involved, Lynch said.
O'Donnell said the grub hoe was found in the cesspool, part of the backyard septic system, along with the bodies. He said the bodies were found at least 6 feet below ground. He described the grub hoe as between 12 and 18 inches long, topped with a metal bar that has two sides: one a sharp piece of metal designed to rip out grass, and the other a blunt, sledgehammer-type head.
Police believe the younger Soares killed his parents with the sledgehammer side, the officer said.
O'Donnell did not know if the Soareses had other children, but said James Soares was the only child who lived at their home.
He said the son stayed at the house during the weeks when his parents were missing.
"You would like to think that if you did kill anybody, the remorse and guilt" would affect you, O'Donnell said. "Somebody killing his parents, leaving them on the property in a septic tank while continuing to live there, is challenging to understand."
Yeah, I'm having a hard time with this one, yup.
The Providence Journal reported yesterday that in 2002, police seized 12 long rifles, three handguns, and 30,000 rounds of ammunition from the family's home. The elder James Soares pleaded guilty to a federal charge of unlawfully possessing firearms as a convicted felon. He was placed on home confinement for one year and probation for five years, the Journal reported.
In 1986, James and Marian Soares were arrested on drug possession charges after police raided their house and found cocaine, prescription tranquilizers, marijuana, drug paraphernalia, a .357 Magnum firearm, and $1,350 in cash, the Journal reported. James Soares pleaded no contest to felony charges and served a three-year suspended sentence and five years probation.
I don't know; this might not have been the greatest household, huh?
Yesterday afternoon, before the younger Soares was charged, cars crowded the driveway next to the family's squat, tan house. An American flag hung from the house next to a small welcome sign by the door. Written in purple marker on a paper tacked to a telephone pole at the end of the driveway were the words: "We will miss you both deeply. Love, your family."
Two men who said they were relatives stood in the backyard, staring at the tilled dirt that had covered the bodies for weeks. They declined to comment.
"You'll have to go to the police for information. They know as much as we do, if not more," one man said. "Actually, probably more."
After Soares was charged, most of the cars had disappeared. Baltimore Avenue, a short street lined with tall maples and pines, was quiet. Neighbors who came to the door declined to comment, saying they were tired of media attention.
I can certainly understand them not wanting to talk to media!!!
The words on the telephone pole had become a purple smear, their cursive blurred by the rain.
Soares is to be arraigned today in District Court in Providence."
I'm a little taken aback by the depravity, folks.
I guess I'm a wimpy marshmellow; I don't like violence.
Four males were shot and two were stabbed in a burst of violence in two Boston neighborhoods early yesterday.
Boston police responded to a large fight near North Station, with reports of shots fired and a wounded person, at a Friend Street address at 2:19 a.m. No victims were found at the scene, but police said officers were directed to three area hospitals, where they found several victims being treated.
At Massachusetts General Hospital, police found one victim, a 33-year-old man who was being rushed to surgery for multiple gunshot wounds.
Officers then responded to the Brigham and Women's Hospital emergency room and found two more victims of the Friend Street shooting, police said. A 28-year-old man sustained multiple gunshot wounds and was listed in serious but stable condition, police said. The third victim, also a 28-year-old man, was shot in the left leg.
At New England Medical Center, police found two more victims, 26-year-old and 21-year-old males, who said they were assaulted and stabbed while trying to assist women outside a club in the area. They both suffered injuries that were not considered life-threatening, police said.
In a separate event early yesterday, police responded about 1 a.m. to an address on Plant Court in Jamaica Plain, where a person was suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.
The victim had been shot by a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt, police said. The victim was transported to Brigham and Women's Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition, police said.
Police said all those injured in the violence were expected to live. The victims were not identified."Oh, thank God, just some good old gang violence.
Everything is back to normal.
