
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 26, 1990                   TAG: 9006260531
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/2   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VARNER, ARK.                                LENGTH: Short

TEXAS, ARK. EXECUTE TWO KILLERS

R. Gene Simmons, who murdered 14 relatives and two other people in a Christmastime 1987 rampage, was put to death by injection after refusing all appeals and pleading for a swift execution.

Simmons, 49, was pronounced dead at 9:19 p.m. after a brief statement: "Justice delayed finally be done is justifiable homicide."

In Texas, James Smith, 37-year-old former taxi driver and tarot-card reader who killed a Houston businessman man in 1983, was executed by injection at 12:31 a.m. today. He, too, had refused all appeals.

"I go to my death without begging for my life," he said in a statement. "I will not humiliate myself. I will let no man break me."

Simmons shot, clubbed, shot at or strangled 21 people, 16 of whom died. The dead included his wife, Becky, four of his daughters, three of his sons and four grandchildren.

Smith denied being a killer and said that when people "wake up to the reality of executions the price to be paid will be a dear one."

by CNB