Customer Reviews

Zero at the Bone, Story of Gene Simmons Mass Murderer

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Zero at the Bone is without a doubt one of the most horrifying accounts of family massacre ever written. Williams very clearly gets across to the reader the contents of Ronald Gene Simmons' twisted, sick mind. His obsessive lust/love for his daughter Sheila is horrifying; and the detailed steps Simmons took to wipe out his immediate family detail him as nothing less than totally mad. The reader cannot help but feel saddened for Sheila, for she is truly a victim of her father's depraved actions. Simmons' wife Becky is a tragic figure, yet she possesses a core of steel which sustains her up until her murder. Simmons is nothing short of a monster, and Williams spares no words in getting this point across. A note of caution: DO NOT read this book before bedtime!! It is capable of producing some of the worst nightmares, and I would not recommend it for those with weak constitutions. I am an Arkansas native, and remember very vividly these murders. And 15 years later, it still sends shudders down my spine.

Until I picked up this book, I had no idea about the crimes committed by Gene Simmons not the Kiss musician but a man who tortured, abused, traumatized, dehumanized, etc. of his own wife, children, and relatives. Gene Simmons was a war hero who earned a Bronze Medal for his services during Vietnam. Despite a military career, Gene's obsession with order and documentation and the control of his own large family. On December 22, 1987, the book begins with an introduction of the crime about a man murdering his own family before Christmas in the Ozarks of Arkansas. The book and it's writers should be commended for writing about this case after Gene's death by execution in 1990 which is suitable punishment for his crimes which are not just murder but cold calculated murder. When you read how he planned and plotted for months for this crime spree, you just get chills to think this is how he treats his own family and people who loved him regardless of the constant abuse, heavy workloads, and a kind of life more in tune with a German concentration camp than with a normal family life. The children never got to be children but slaves to their father who forced them to work over school activities. They were barely allowed to communicate outside the family in facing their father's wrath of terror. Poor Sheila may have been the favorite daughter because she was the oldest but she paid dearly by being her father's mistress as well as the favorite child. She had been unwilling to play the mother and wife role to her own father. Even though they have a child together, Gene never believed he had done anything wrong in raping his own daughter and impregnating her. Unfortunately the New Mexico authorities never caught up with him in time, he fled to the Ozarks. No matter how much he tried to keep his children under his control, it would be more reminiscent of John List who murdered his family in Westfield, New Jersey but at least John never looked them in the eyes. Gene even had his children dig up their own graves prior to the crime spree that not only shocked the town, the state, and perhaps the world before he got caught. Gene purposely and unconsciously murdered his own family because he could not control him and that's a coward. He was afraid of disorder in the family.

The story of Ronald Gene Simmons is masterfully told. We learn about Gene's life, his family, his intense love and jealousy, his fears and suspicions, and his murders. The monster is made human and we are better able to understand why a man would murder his entire family, then undertake another carefully orchestrated murder spree before docilely surrendering to police.

I have been reading true crime for as long as I can remember. And although you always feel frustration, anger, disgust, and a wide variety of other emotions toward the murderers and sympathy for the victims and their families, this particular book hit me harder than any I have ever read. Often times I was unsure as to whether I could continue reading; not because the book was boring or not well written (quite the contrary, actually), but because of the emotions that the paragraphs describing the heartless, brutal, selfish crimes commmited by Gene Simmons evoked from me.

For writing style, detail, and organization, this is one of the best books I have ever read. As for the crime that is the foundation, it is the worst about which I have ever read.

This story is as horrific as they come. Gene is a character like no other. While one is compelled to read this in an effort to understand Gene's mentality, the style in which this book was written made it difficult to want to continue.

The story of Ronald Gene Simmons and the worst family mass murder in US history. These murders actually happened in my hometown of Dover, AR when I was 8 years old. The book does very well at bringing the craziness of Simmons to the forefront and will give you chills. An excellent read.

Just finished this book and my only real complaint is that the authors used unnecessarily large words in several places. I won't bother finding examples, but they should have realized that the vast majority of their readers would be lay people, and kept things a little more reader-friendly. There were times when I was tempted to fire up my computer to research words. That shouldn't happen with a novel of this nature (a biography-type novel rather than a forensic examination of the situation).

Otherwise, it was pretty good. Just keep in mind that no one really knows what happened at the end, as there were no survivors to interview. The scenarios presented in the book are assumptions.

The author's of this book are pretty much right on. I read this book when it first came out. Also I lived about 3 miles from where this happened in Arkansas, infact one of the people he shot was one of my husband cousins, she was shot in the head, but, thank the good Lord she did live.

WHOO! Simmons was one serious nut. And I have never seen a spiraling slide into nutdom so artfully rendered. The authors did a remarkable job at explaining a terribly complex scenario that ended in mass murder. The tale of lunacy, incest, and violence is gripping and very freakish. Simmons is one of the worst crazies America ever produced.

Don't even pick the book up if you don't think you can handle reading about this psycho, disgusting, repulsive so-called "dad an husband" who molests his children and abuses his wife. It is pretty graphic and disturbing, but my heart wanted to know the end. I needed to know that everything was going to be okay. If you like crime books then this is for you. Sometimes we need to read about what is going on right down the street from us to get us to open our eyes.