Life and Crimes: A week in the life of Mississippi

Welcome to a new feature on Crime Ticker: Life and Crimes – a periodic look at some of the more absurd and unusual facets of criminals, crimes, executions and the events and people surrounding them. Marg and Izzy are eager to get your feedback, so please post your comments or send us an e-mail at info@crimeticker.com.

Gary “Supersize Me” Simmons’ Execution

No need to count calories when it's your last meal.

We had another execution in Mississippi this week, this time it was local boy, Gary Carl Simmons, (all killers have middle names) for his part in the 1996 murder and dismembering of Jeffrey Wolfe, to whom Simmons allegedly owed a drug debt, and the abduction and rape of Wolfe’s girlfriend , Charlene Leaser.

The execution was originally supposed to have been the middle one of a three day execution weekend, but those attorneys have a way of spoiling things, messing up the schedule with appeals.  So we had to settle for three consecutive Wednesdays. Prior to this trio, there were  53 on death row,and with some pending cases, there may be some replacements. As former governor Kirk Fordice said, there is a need to “work down the inventory.”

Simmons’ last meal request: one Pizza Hut medium Super Supreme Deep Dish pizza, double portion, with mushrooms, onions, jalapeno peppers, and pepperoni; pizza, regular portion, with three cheeses, olives, bell pepper, tomato, garlic and Italian sausage; 10 8-oz. packs of Parmesan cheese; 10 8-oz. packs of ranch dressing; one family size back of Doritos nacho cheese flavor; 8 oz. jalapeno nacho cheese; 4 oz. sliced jalapenos; 2 large strawberry shakes; two 20-oz. cherry Cokes; one super-size order of McDonald’s fries with extra ketchup and mayonnaise; and two pints of strawberry ice cream. That’s enough to give one indigestion. I know if I ate all that, I would have to take something to keep me from waking up, fortunately for Simmons, they had just the thing.

There are complaints about the citizens of Mississippi being the most obese in the nation, and as having the worst nutrition. And here this guy is ordering the “supersize” portion of McDonalds fries? I trust that they cut that down to a regular portion. It is never too late to start encouraging healthy eating habits.

The Naked Proof

Should they also be charged with indecent exposure? From left to right burglary suspects, Brandon Boone, Dionte Jones, Jurrell Stallworth, Randon Spivery and Xavier Spivery.

Mississippi has the well deserved reputation for being last in everything, but it seems to be up near the top in knucklehead criminals, especially here in the Gulf Coast cities. There is somebody , every week, doing something stupid, and it is not always somebody new, we have many repeat offenders. This week I want to welcome Jurell Shante Stallworth,20,  and Dionte Rayshawn Jones, 19, citizens of the fine city of Gautier, to the club. This pair of hoodlums in training, who were already out on bail on previous felony charges, and were in the midst of burglarizing a dwelling when they were observed by neighbors, one of whom notified the police.

The police arrived immediately and proceded to pursue the pair to the nearby Belle Ville Apartment complex. Accompanying the officers was K9 “Rocko.”  For some reason, the two geniuses decided, in the middle of their flight, to stop and strip naked, before they ran into a vacant apartment unit, where they hid in the attic.

To no avail, as they were eventually apprehended.

“They had clothes on when  [we] were chasing them and they were stripped out of them when they were  [later] found in the attic,” said Sgt Matt Hoggatt, a detective with the Gautier Police Department (and winner of a National Jimmy Buffett songwriting contest) “I can only assume they must have thought they would throw off any scent from the police dog we had. Rocko was out there tracking these guys. Or, maybe they thought they were going to get hot up there.”

They were going to get hot up there??  Hmmm, never mind I don’t want to know.

I suppose that they thought that tracking dogs only follow the scent of clothes?

Meanwhile, also in Gautier, at the same time as this pair’s naked romp, the World Changers, a youth ministry service group made up of teenagers and young adults, were in the vicinity, constructing a fence at the ball field of a public park which is quite near to the Belle Ville Apartments. There is no word of whether they were witnesses to the exhibition provided by Stallworth and Jones. If they were, they aren’t talking.