Spring Hill Man Killed Mom, Say Police

Around 3 a.m. Sunday, 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 elderly woman screamed, hands waving in the air.

Loftin walked closer. She recognized the woman in the nightgown as Dorothy Simmons.

Then Simmons went back inside her house. Loftin returned home.

Hours later, standing on the perimeter of a 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, 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, Hernando County 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 Simmons' bed. There was blood on the floor, too. It appeared the victim had been dragged across the floor toward a door leading out to the pool, an 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 his grandmother out of the water. There was blood on her face, an affidavit states.

Kevin Simmons told deputies he struck his mother in the head and mouth with a telephone about 10 times and with a remote control, investigators say, and that he held her underwater. It's unknown at this point whether Dorothy Simmons drowned or died from the trauma.

Kevin Simmons, 57, was arrested Sunday and charged with murder.

He gave no reason, officials say.

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

She emphasized that this was completely unexpected.

"It's just awful," she said.