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Hernando Today

Murder Shocks Quiet Spring Hill Street

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By KYLE MARTIN

Hernando Today

Published: August 4, 2008

SPRING HILL - Katrina Loftin woke to the sound of screams. A woman's screams.

She stepped outside into the pre-dawn darkness. A block north of her house, she could make out a woman standing on a front lawn.

"Oh my God!" the woman screamed, hands waving in the air.

Loftin walked closer. She recognized the nightgown the woman was wearing.

It was Dorothy Simmons. But why was she screaming?

Simmons went back inside her house. Loftin returned home.

Hours later, standing on the perimeter of the crime scene, Loftin was still in shock.

"I should have done more. I should have tried to help her," she said.

Ten minutes after Loftin returned to bed, around 3 a.m. Sunday, deputies and medical personnel arrived almost simultaneously at 1327 Altoona Ave, south of Spring Hill Drive, off Coronado Drive. A medical alarm and 911 calls had summoned help.

"The scene was more than they expected," said Sgt. Jim Powers, sheriff's spokesman.

Deputies say they found Simmons, 81, partially in and out of the pool. She was dead.

Her grandson, a man in his early 20s, told deputies he was woken by a commotion. He found a "significant" amount of blood on the victim's bed. There was blood on the floor, too. It appeared the victim had been drug across the floor toward a door leading out to the pool, affidavit states.

The grandson followed the trail outside, where he found his father, Kevin Simmons, sitting on the edge of the pool. He was holding the victim under the water with his feet, authorities say.

Simmons' son pushed him out of the way, then tried to pull the victim out of the water. There was blood on her face, an affidavit states.

The suspect was questioned. He confessed to striking his mother in the head and mouth with a telephone about 10 times and with a remote control, investigators say, and admitted to holding her underwater. It's unknown at this point whether she drowned or died from the trauma.

Simmons, 57, was arrested Sunday and charged with first-degree murder.

He gave no motive.

"I don't know the state of mind that would cause someone to do this," Powers said.

Records show Kevin Simmons bought the house in 2003. Loftin said the family added a room so the victim could come and stay with them. She enjoyed sewing and made the curtains for her room, Loftin said.

She emphasized twice that the Simmons were not a "trashy" family, that this was completely unexpected.

"It's just awful," she said.

Reporter Kyle Martin can be reached at 352-544-5271 or kmartin@hernandotoday.com.

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