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House Held A Brother And Sister's Gruesome Secret: Their Mother's Body
By KATIE MELONE | Courant Staff Writer
July 27, 2008
The home of Ann Simmeck, on Lake Shore Drive in Middlefield. She was
found dead in her home last year, in plain sight, and authorities said
her body had been there for years and her children had visited her
home during that time. (SHANA SURECK / HARTFORD COURANT / July 24,
2008)
For more than seven years, Diane and John Simmeck Jr. made regular
trips to their elderly mother's modest, wood-frame home overlooking
Lake Beseck in Middlefield.
The two would visit mostly after dark, entering the ramshackle house
through a ground-level door next to the garage.
But they never told a soul about their visits or their secret: Their
mother, Ann Simmeck, had died in late 1999 or the start of 2000 and
they had left her corpse rotting on the living room floor.
Most neighbors thought that she had moved away and that the house was
abandoned. They were shocked to learn on June 6, 2007, that what had
been the Simmeck family's house had become Ann Simmeck's tomb.
Related links
Simmeck Arrest Warrant Application
This is the arrest warrant application for John J. Simmeck Jr. The
arrest warrant application for Diane Simmeck is nearly identical.
PHOTO
Diane Simmeck
PHOTO
John Simmeck Jr.
Simmeck Family House Map
Time Line What state police have been able to piece together about Ann
Simmeck's death and how her mummified remains came to rest on the
floor at 15 Lake Shore Drive in Middlefield is contained in a nearly
100-page state police case file released recently at The Courant's
request.
The file details a series of police interviews in which Diane Simmeck,
now 42, and John J. Simmeck Jr., 51, spoke freely about their biannual
pilgrimages to the house where they grew up, even about stepping over
their mother's insect-infested remains. The re****ts also offer
glimpses into the bizarre lives of a brother and sister who have been
investigated by police for alleged scams in at least three states and
charged criminally in two.
State police first discovered Ann Simmeck's body in June 2007, when
her estranged son, Michael Simmeck, who had grown increasingly worried
about his mother, gained permission to enter the house to retrieve
some belongings. Ann Simmeck was born on Nov. 24, 1927, making it
likely that she was about 72when she died.A state medical examiner has
concluded that she died of natural causes, but there was little to go
on other than her mummified remains, which were so decomposed it took
a DNA sample from Michael to confirm her identity.
Forensic investigators could not rule out the possibility that she
died elsewhere and her body was brought to the house.
After spending six months investigating Ann Simmeck's death,
investigators applied for warrants charging John Jr. and Diane with
failing to re****t a death and improper disposal of a body. But
Superior Court Judge Patrick J. Clifford refused to sign them because
he "did not feel as if the actions of John and Diane Simmeck fit
within the parameters of the crimes," according to state police
re****ts.
After interviewing the Simmeck family, neighbors and New Hamp****re law
enforcement, state police closed the investigation in January,
according to their re****ts.
Clifford declined to comment for this story.
'He Was Scared'
Though John and Diane admitted they knowingly let their mother's body
decompose and did nothing about it, the state law that makes failing
to re****t a death a crime does not require a private citizen to
contact officials when a relative is discovered dead, and the disposal
statute applies only when a body has been officially re****ted dead.
"I'm not aware of any crime that would clearly apply to their
conduct," said Todd Fernow, a professor at the University of
Connecticut School of Law. "There are some cir***stances where people
have an affirmative duty to intervene, and there are statutory
re****ts, but there really isn't anything that requires a regular
citizen to re****t a death or dispose of a dead body in accordance with
a procedure.
"It's an odd set of facts," he added. "I don't see the legislature
doing a lot to create a statue for something like this because people
don't expect this to happen every day."
In interviews with police, John Simmeck Jr. "speculated he did things
the way he did because he was scared, and in trouble with the law in
both New Hamp****re and Connecticut," according to police do***ents. In
fact, John Jr. allegedly registered cars to sham companies in the
Bahamas, stole rowboats to sell for scrap metal and illegally altered
watersheds on the Middlefield property and in Alstead, N.H., according
to accounts by authorities in New Hamp****re and Connecticut in the
state police re****ts. He is facing a charge of identity theft in
connection with his alleged use of his father's identity in 2003 to
set up a cellphone account. The case is pending in Superior Court in
Meriden.
"He's indicated that he maintains his innocence" in the case, said his
attorney, Jeremy Weingast.
As for Diane Simmeck, "she couldn't provide a reasonable explanation
as to why she handled things the way she did," a Connecticut detective
wrote after interviewing her at the state police barracks in Keene,
N.H., on July 14, 2007.
Diane Simmeck has not been available for comment.
A Family Divided
Family life in the Simmecks' Lake Shore Drive house was turbulent.
Ann and John Simmeck Sr. had four children: John Jr. in 1957; Michael
in 1960; and Diane and Daniel in 1966.
By the time the parents divorced in 1996, the lines of allegiance had
been drawn, with John Jr. and Diane apparently siding with their
mother, and Michael and Daniel with their father.
Diane described her father to police as an alcoholic who physically
and mentally abused the family, meting out the lion's share of the
abuse on John Jr. In response, Diane and Ann Simmeck rallied to
protect John Jr., Diane told police, and the three grew close.
Michael, however, painted a different ****trait of the family dynamic.
He moved to Florida in 1980, citing his older brother John's
controlling behavior. "He described his brother's demeanor as being so
extreme that he took over all aspects of the family, including paying
taxes and bills, and making the decisions that parents generally
made," according to a summary of a statement he gave police.
By 1996, John Simmeck Sr. had moved away from Lake Shore Drive and, at
one point, moved in with a girlfriend. Ann Simmeck remained at the
Middlefield house.
Family relations were so strained during the divorce trial in
Middletown Superior Court that John Jr. shoved Michael when he tried
to speak to their mother, Michael told police.
But Michael ignored his older brother and told his mother he loved
her.
"You're not my son!" she responded, according to Michael.
New Hamp****re
After the divorce, John Jr., Diane and their mother moved from
Middlefield to New Hamp****re.Once there, John and Diane would
sometimes pass themselves off as husband and wife, according to
investigators, and while there were suspicions that their relation****p
might be *****uous, at least one person who knew them says it wasn't.
Mary E. Beckwith of Goshen, N.H., with whom John and Diane had stayed
in 2006 after meeting her through her church, told investigators that
the pair slept in separate rooms and that "she never observed any
behavior that would have led her to believe they were anything but
brother and sister."
John Jr. told investigators he was "attracted" to Diane because she
reminded him of his mother. "Diane had other 'boyfriends' in the past
but ended up with him since she relied on him so much," he later told
state police.
In July 1999, however, Diane and John Jr. attracted the attention of
New Hamp****re police when they checked their mother into the Che****re
Medical Center in Keene, N.H., with a broken hip.
They identified themselves as a married couple, "R.J. and Diane
Sinik," even though Ann Simmeck said the two were her children.
Suspicious hospital staff members notified police, who took an
immediate interest in the scratched out vehicle identification number
on their 1968 Chevy Blazer. Police also learned that John Jr. had
never lived at the address to which he had registered the vehicle.
Heightening the interest, according to police, was the refusal of John
Jr. and Diane to look at the camera while being booked by Keene
police; the "small scribble which revealed no letters or discernible
meaning" in their signatures; and that they forgot not only their
Social Security numbers, but where they were born.
Ann Simmeck, by this point 71, was suffering from dementia and
Parkinson's, according to police records. Now she also had a broken
hip. But she simply left the hospital, apparently without being
officially discharged. She was re****ted missing, police in New
Hamp****re say, but efforts to find her failed.
Ann Simmeck was last recorded alive during a visit to a doctor in
Wallingford in October 1999. Records show that a nurse, Christine
Wall, was concerned enough about Simmeck's condition that she referred
her to the state Department of Social Services.
A spokesman for the department said last week that privacy laws
prevented him from disclosing information on the case.
Diane Simmeck told police she last saw her mother alive back at the
Middlefield house in the winter of 1999. While John Jr. was in jail in
New Hamp****re, facing charges of tampering with a vehicle
identification number and making false statements on do***ents, Diane
became her mother's primary caretaker, driving back and forth from New
Hamp****re to check on her mother and drive her to doctor's
appointments, she told police.
During one visit, she noticed that her mother was "definitely
deteriorating" and said her mother "didn't think she had much time to
live." At that point, frail and deteriorating, Ann Simmeck was living
in the house without a working phone; Diane and John Sr. had cut off
the service.
A week or so later, according to her statement, Diane returned to the
house and was greeted by a foul smell. Her mother lay dead on the
living room floor covered in bugs =97 it would later take two plastic
vials to contain the insects collected from her body.
Scared, Diane immediately fled to New Hamp****re, she told police.
Upon learning the news about their mother from Diane, John Jr. told
her "there was nothing he could do until he got out of jail, and that
he would not be released until January 2000," police records say.
Hiding The Death
To protect their secret, John Jr. continued over the years to pay the
property taxes on the house, and also the electric bill because the
freezer was stuffed with food. They cut off the water, however; Ann
Simmeck wouldn't be showering.
To ward off the curious, the duo posted signs in the door windows,
front and back: "NO TRESSPASSING FOR ANY REASON IF YOU VALUE YOUR
LIFE, LEAVE IMMEDIATELY, 24-HOUR VIDEO SECURITY."
It wasn't until 2001 that John Jr. was out of prison and legally
permitted to leave New Hamp****re so he could go see his mother's
remains.
"John's 'curiosity' was to the point that he wanted to go to the house
to see what Diane was talking about," according to police re****ts. "He
went to the house with Diane 'during the summer months' during the
hours of darkness. They entered through the main door and upon
entering he saw his mother lying on the living room floor, 'dead and
badly decomposed.'"
Whenever they visited the house, they entered and exited through the
same door =97 a ground-level entrance that was next to the garage, Diane
later told police. "The subject of my mother dead on the floor of the
house for eight years was one that John and I did not discuss," she
told state police detectives in July 2007. She assumed at some point
that she and her brother would be able to get their mother cremated,
she said.
Though they went to great lengths to hide their mother's death and
evade authorities, John Jr. and Diane Simmeck again came to the
attention of police in September 2005, when Diane was caught trying to
use her mother's Social Security number and a fraudulent birth
certificate in an application for a Vermont driver's license.
At that point, Vermont authorities asked John Jr. the whereabouts of
his mother =97 who had been dead for roughly six years at that point. He
responded that Ann Simmeck had left New Hamp****re on her own accord
years earlier, and that he hadn't heard from her since.
John Jr. later told Connecticut State Police that he lied about his
mother to Vermont investigators because "he was scared and he was 'in
deep.'"
Using Friends
=46rom December 2005 until roughly the time Ann Simmeck's body was found
last summer, Diane and John Jr. preyed on trusting acquaintances from
the Church of the Nazarene in Keene, N.H., according to the state
police case file. Though they owned land in nearby Alstead, they told
pari****oners they had no place to live because of widespread flooding
in the area.
First, an unsuspecting couple, Dan and June Kenney, took them in,
according to statements the couple gave police. But the Kenneys kicked
the Simmecks out a year later after John Jr. allegedly stole tools and
gutted their house to the point that it was structurally unsound.
"John and Diane were both well known to law enforcement authorities
and were notorious for scamming individuals, 'panhandling' and passing
themselves off as missionaries," a detective of the Vermont motor
vehicles fraud unit told New Hamp****re authorities.
In the spring of 2006, the two moved in with Mary Beckwith, 49, who
was single and a church pari****oner. She eventually gave John Jr.
$10,000 because, she said, she is "very spiritual" and wanted "to do
good."
In the spring of 2007, using Beckwith's cash and the alias "Reggie
Smith," John Jr. hired a Keene, N.H., garage to retrieve a storage
trailer that had long been in the driveway of the Middlefield home,
where little of their mother remained.
A Son's Search
By 2003, Michael Simmeck was increasingly suspicious of his brother
and sister. He feared that his mother =97 whom he had not heard from or
seen since 1996 =97 was dead. The Social Security Administration had
stopped sending Ann Simmeck checks because she had not cashed any
since 1999.
But when Michael called the medical examiners in Connecticut and New
Hamp****re, he found no record of her death in either state.
As for John Simmeck Sr., he had little control or authority over the
family's former home. Ann Simmeck had quit-claimed the house in 1998
to Iron Eagle International Inc., a company John Simmeck Jr.
incor****ated in the Bahamas. Though he no longer owned the house, John
Sr. periodically visited to mow the overgrown lawn. But he never went
inside. He had no idea all those years that his ex-wife lay inside,
dead.
By the summer of 2007, her remains were reduced to a mummy.
Michael wanted to find out what had happened to her and collect some
of his and his father's belongings from her home.
Armed with court paperwork listing items he and his father were
entitled to retrieve, Michael persuaded Officer Scott Halligan of the
Middlefield Resident State Trooper's office to allow him to enter the
house.
With Halligan present, Michael broke in through the lower-level
garage. Halligan was first up the stairs and came upon Ann Simmeck's
remains.
Investigators noted that her skull rested on a gray pillow with red
trim alongside a sofa. She was wearing her daughter's blue nylon
jacket with the word "Foxettes" embroidered on the back. A July 24,
1995, Money section of USA Today =97 which had been taped to the wall =97
lay open across her right lower leg. She wore tan pants and one
slipper. She had just three teeth left when she died.
"The body is lying on the floor," a clinical police re****t states,
"left side against the floor, arms underneath the torso, and head on a
throw pillow."
In the freezer were two frozen beefsteaks with sell-by dates on the
packaging of July 26, 1999.
Investigators and neighbors, who long assumed the house was abandoned,
wondered how Ann Simmeck's death had gone undetected for so long.
Police finally got their answer with the admissions of Diane and John
Jr.
Ann Simmeck had been "left in the house in failing medical condition,
without a working telephone" John Simmeck Jr. told police in July
2007. "In retrospect he regretted doing such, stating 'if she only had
a telephone she still might be alive today.'"
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