Kaelin Rose Glazier, a 15-year-old sophomore at South Medford High School in Rush, Oregon, disappeared on November 6, 1996 after watching a video in a house trailer with 16-year-old William Frank Simmons. The missing girl had skipped church that evening to meet her boyfriend, Clifford Ruhland, at Simmons' trailer. According to Simmons, the boyfriend didn't show up, and after he and Glazier watched the movie, she departed.
The local police, believing that the missing girl had run away from home, waited 21 days before investigating the case as an abduction and possible murder. Simmons, a big kid who had been in trouble with the law, and was the last known person to have seen the girl alive, became the first and only suspect in the investigation. Years passed, and without the girl's body, the case ground to a halt. Every once in awhile detectives would question William Simmons at the police station, and every time he would deny having anything to do with the girl's disappearance.
People really don't vanish into thin air, and in 2008, 12 years after Glazier went to Simmons' trailer, a man mowing a field 80 feet from the place she was last seen, uncovered skeletal remains. According to a forensic anthropologist, the bones were consistent with the remains of a 15-year-old girl.
At the recovery site, investigators discovered a skull wrapped in duct tape, a tennis shoe, part of a bra, and some jewelry that had belonged to the missing girl. While the medical examiner officially identified the remains as being Glazier's, and ruled her death a homicide, the forensic pathologist could not determine the precise cause of her death. The police theorized she had been suffocated or strangled. DNA evidence from the duct tape did not match the victim's boyfriend, or William Simmons.
On April 10, 2010, the local prosecutor charged William Simmons with murder, and as a backup charge, first degree manslaughter. The motive: he had killed her after she had rebuffed his sexual advances. After killing her, the suspect had supposedly dragged her body to the nearby field. (It's hard to believe it took 12 years for someone to find, 80 feet from where she was last seen, Glazier's remains. Was anybody really looking for her?)
The Simmons murder trial got underway on February 14, 2012 in the Jackson County Circuit Court. The prosecutor, without an eyewitness, confession, or physical evidence linking the 31-year-old defendant to the murder, had an extremely weak case. The state didn't even have a jailhouse informant, or a murder weapon. All the prosecutor had was the defendant's so-called "motive, means, and opportunity," to commit the crime.
William Simmons' attorney simply had to point out that motive, means, and opportunity did not comprise evidence. The defense lawyer reminded jurors that the murdered girl's boyfriend may also have had motive, means, and opportunity in the 16 year old case.
The jury, after deliberating ten hours, voted 10 to 2 to find the defendant guilty of first degree manslaughter. (The reckless killing of a person as opposed to an intentional murder.) In Oregon, a defendant can be convicted of manslaughter on just 10 guilty votes. To find a person guilty of murder, 12 votes are needed. William Simmons now faced a mandatory sentence of 10 years in prison.
It's surprising that Judge Benjamin Bloom even allowed this case to go to the jury. Motive, means, and opportunity, while guidelines for identifying criminal suspects, doesn't rise to proof beyond a reasonable doubt. (As evidenced in this case by the 2 not guilty votes.) It's not enough, in my opinion, even to sustain liability in a civil wrongful death suit where the standard of proof is merely a preponderance of the evidence. In any other state, the Simmons trial would have resulted in a hung jury.
By any legal standard, the William Simmons case represents an odd, and unlikely homicide conviction. While he may have been a good suspect, and may have committed the crime, that is not enough to put him behind bars for 10 years. If this were the standard of proof in all murder trials, a lot of innocent people would end up in prison.
The local police, believing that the missing girl had run away from home, waited 21 days before investigating the case as an abduction and possible murder. Simmons, a big kid who had been in trouble with the law, and was the last known person to have seen the girl alive, became the first and only suspect in the investigation. Years passed, and without the girl's body, the case ground to a halt. Every once in awhile detectives would question William Simmons at the police station, and every time he would deny having anything to do with the girl's disappearance.
People really don't vanish into thin air, and in 2008, 12 years after Glazier went to Simmons' trailer, a man mowing a field 80 feet from the place she was last seen, uncovered skeletal remains. According to a forensic anthropologist, the bones were consistent with the remains of a 15-year-old girl.
At the recovery site, investigators discovered a skull wrapped in duct tape, a tennis shoe, part of a bra, and some jewelry that had belonged to the missing girl. While the medical examiner officially identified the remains as being Glazier's, and ruled her death a homicide, the forensic pathologist could not determine the precise cause of her death. The police theorized she had been suffocated or strangled. DNA evidence from the duct tape did not match the victim's boyfriend, or William Simmons.
On April 10, 2010, the local prosecutor charged William Simmons with murder, and as a backup charge, first degree manslaughter. The motive: he had killed her after she had rebuffed his sexual advances. After killing her, the suspect had supposedly dragged her body to the nearby field. (It's hard to believe it took 12 years for someone to find, 80 feet from where she was last seen, Glazier's remains. Was anybody really looking for her?)
The Simmons murder trial got underway on February 14, 2012 in the Jackson County Circuit Court. The prosecutor, without an eyewitness, confession, or physical evidence linking the 31-year-old defendant to the murder, had an extremely weak case. The state didn't even have a jailhouse informant, or a murder weapon. All the prosecutor had was the defendant's so-called "motive, means, and opportunity," to commit the crime.
William Simmons' attorney simply had to point out that motive, means, and opportunity did not comprise evidence. The defense lawyer reminded jurors that the murdered girl's boyfriend may also have had motive, means, and opportunity in the 16 year old case.
The jury, after deliberating ten hours, voted 10 to 2 to find the defendant guilty of first degree manslaughter. (The reckless killing of a person as opposed to an intentional murder.) In Oregon, a defendant can be convicted of manslaughter on just 10 guilty votes. To find a person guilty of murder, 12 votes are needed. William Simmons now faced a mandatory sentence of 10 years in prison.
It's surprising that Judge Benjamin Bloom even allowed this case to go to the jury. Motive, means, and opportunity, while guidelines for identifying criminal suspects, doesn't rise to proof beyond a reasonable doubt. (As evidenced in this case by the 2 not guilty votes.) It's not enough, in my opinion, even to sustain liability in a civil wrongful death suit where the standard of proof is merely a preponderance of the evidence. In any other state, the Simmons trial would have resulted in a hung jury.
By any legal standard, the William Simmons case represents an odd, and unlikely homicide conviction. While he may have been a good suspect, and may have committed the crime, that is not enough to put him behind bars for 10 years. If this were the standard of proof in all murder trials, a lot of innocent people would end up in prison.
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