Zero at the Bone: Zero at the Bone

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.

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.

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.

Gene Simmons was a mad man, how could he be so cruel to kill innocent people like he did. The books content was excellent. I plan on keeping it for keepsake, it was so touching i enjoyed every detail of it. Read it twice as a matter of fact