Erwin Charles Simants, who was twice put on trial for killing six members of a Lincoln County family in 1975 in a case that raised questions over the death penalty and mental illness that the state still wrestles with today, died last week in state custody.
Simants, who was 77, died Thursday at a Lincoln hospital, said his attorney Robert Lindemeier. His cause of death wasn't immediately known, but Lancaster County's Chief Deputy Sheriff Ben Houchin said Simants had complained of chest pains prior to his death Thursday afternoon at Bryan East Campus.
A grand jury will convene to investigate his death.
Simants has been in the Lincoln Regional Center since 1979, when he was found not responsible by reason of insanity — his second trial in one of Nebraska's most notorious mass murders.
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Erwin Charles Simants, October 18, 1979.
On Oct. 18, 1975, Simants carried a loaded rifle into his sister's neighbor's house in Sutherland, about 20 miles west of North Platte, where he killed the six members of the Kellie family in a case that shocked the western Nebraska town.
When he arrived at Henry and Audrey Marie Kellie's house that day, where he'd been hired to do odd jobs, Simants first found their 10-year-old granddaughter, Florence, home alone.
He sexually assaulted and killed her, then shot the rest of the family as they arrived: first Henry Kellie, 66; then Audrey Marie, 57, whom he sexually assaulted after killing; and then their son David Kellie, 32, and his children Deanna, 6, and Daniel, 5.
Sutherland residents locked their doors while authorities searched for Simants, who hid in a wooded area near the Kellie home. Police arrested him at his sister's house the next day, and soon, prosecutors charged him with six counts of first-degree murder.
Erwin Charles Simants leaving the courthouse on Oct. 21, 1981.
Before Simants ever faced a jury, his sensational case turned into a battle between the press and the judge, who issued a gag order barring reporters from a preliminary hearing for fear the publicity would make a fair trial impossible.
The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which found the judge's order unconstitutional.
A jury in Lincoln County found Simants guilty, and he was sentenced to die in the electric chair.
But that sentence was overturned in 1979, when the Nebraska Supreme Court ordered a new trial because the sheriff, a trial witness, played cards with some of the jurors while they were sequestered.
On Oct. 18, 1975, Erwin Charles Simants killed Pamela Styker's ex-husband and their two children in Sutherland, Neb. Simants could soon walk out of the state's psychiatric hospital a free man. Styker recently sat down with the Omaha World-Herald and shared her story.
At Simants' second trial — this one held in Lancaster County — his newly appointed legal team deployed a defense based on a legal theory then considered risky and untried in Nebraska, focusing their arguments on his sanity.
After deliberating for 18 hours, jurors found Simants not responsible by reason of insanity.
He spent the last 44 years of his life at the Lincoln Regional Center, the public psychiatric hospital that a judge sent him to following the jury's 1979 verdict.
Erwin Charles Simants in an undated photo.
The second verdict prompted calls for changes to Nebraska's insanity law, part of a movement in the legal world that gained national prominence when John Hinkley was found not responsible for shooting President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
Erwin Charles Simants, who in 1975 killed six members of Audrey Brown's family in Sutherland, Neb., could soon walk out of the state's psychiatric hospital a free man.
Nebraska lawmakers changed the law that year, shifting the burden of proof from the prosecution to the defense and giving judges — not mental health boards — authority to decide when to release patients found not responsible by reason of insanity.
The law stands today.
Every year since 1979, Simants appeared before a Lincoln County judge, who reviewed psychiatric reports to determine whether Simants was still mentally ill and a danger to the public.
In 2013, Simants' attorney said doctors agreed he was no longer mentally ill. By then, he was no longer taking psychiatric medication.
But Lincoln County District Judge Donald Rowlands found that Simants, then 68, remained mentally ill and dangerous, ordering he stay in a locked building at the Regional Center — a ruling that garnered praise from then-Gov. Dave Heineman.
Judges have come to the same conclusion each year since then and have also ruled against moving Simants to an inpatient or nursing home environment to deal with the health problems he battled as he aged.
Lindemeier acknowledged the impact Simants' case had on Nebraska law, but said he thinks medical professionals need some input into the decision-making process.
"I guess I disagree that a judge can determine a medical diagnosis over a doctor," he said in an interview.
He argued on his client's behalf that he be released.Â
"That was my argument, that the doctors who saw him on a regular basis said he showed no signs of active mental illness," Lindemeier said. "The problem is, politically, he killed six people and there wasn't a judge that was going to release him because of that."
His last competency evaluation was in December, when Judge Michael Piccolo ruled Simants was still considered mentally ill and dangerous and could only leave the regional center grounds for medical appointments and outings with staff or family members and friends.
Audrey Brown, the Kellies' daughter who had moved to Colorado just weeks before Simants' 1975 attack, died in 2018.
She had driven to Lincoln for Simants' annual review hearings each year for more than three decades.
"I think the courts need to recognize, and the public needs to recognize, there was a real family involved in this and somebody still loves them and cares about them,†she said in 2013.
Nebraska's 11 death row inmates
Jose Sandoval
Jose Sandoval, Jan. 31, 2005, Madison County. Sandoval was convicted with Jorge Galindo and Erick Vela of shooting and killing Lisa Bryant, 29, Lola Elwood, 43, Samuel Sun, 50, all Norfolk, Jo Mausbach, 42, Humphrey, and Evonne Tuttle, 37, of Stanton, in a botched attempted bank robbery.
Nikko Jenkins
* Nikko Jenkins, May 30, 2017, Douglas County. Eleven days after his release from prison, where he had been for 10 years for two carjackings, Jenkins shot and killed Juan Uribe-Pena and Jorge Cajiga-Ruizon on Aug. 11, 2013. Eight days later, Jenkins killed Curtis Bradford, a one-time prison acquaintance. Then, on Aug. 21, he pulled Andrea Kruger from her SUV as she drove home from work and shot her four times before speeding off in her vehicle.
John Lotter
* John L. Lotter, Feb. 21, 1996, Richardson County. Lotter and Marvin Nissen were convicted of killing Teena Brandon, 21, of Lincoln, a transgender male. They killed Brandon in 1993 to silence him after he told police they had raped him. They also killed Lisa Lambert, 24, and Phillip DeVine, 22, who lived in the same house as Brandon and witnessed the killing. Lotter has maintained his innocence.
Raymond Mata
* Raymond Mata, June 1, 2000, Scotts Bluff. Mata was convicted of killing and dismembering 3-year-old Adam Gomez, his former girlfriend’s son, in 1999. Prosecutors said Mata fed parts of the boy's body to a dog, and kept some of his remains in the home to intimidate the boy’s mother.
Jorge Galindo
* Jorge Galindo, Nov. 10, 2004, Madison County. Convicted with Jose Sandoval and Erick F. Vela for shooting and killing Lisa Bryant, 29, Lola Elwood, 43, Samuel Sun, 50, all Norfolk, Jo Mausbach, 42, Humphrey, and Evonne Tuttle, 37, of Stanton, in a botched attempted bank robbery.
Erick Vela
* Erick F. Vela, 34, Jan. 12, 2007, Madison County. Convicted with Jose Sandoval and Jorge Galindo for shooting and killing Lisa Bryant, 29, Lola Elwood, 43, Samuel Sun, 50, all Norfolk, Jo Mausbach, 42, Humphrey, and Evonne Tuttle, 37, of Stanton, in a botched attempted bank robbery.
Jeffrey Hessler
* Jeffrey Hessler, May 18, 2005, Scotts Bluff County. In 2003, Hessler kidnapped, raped and murdered 15-year-old newspaper carrier Heather Guerrero.
Roy Ellis
* Roy L. Ellis, Feb. 6, 2009, Douglas County. Ellis abducted, sexually assaulted and killed 12-year-old Amber Harris, who died of at least two blows to the head. Ellis has said he used a hammer, and he may also have strangled her.
Marco Torres
* Marco E. Torres, Jan. 29, 2010, Hall County. In 2007, he tortured and killed Edward Hall, 60, binding him with an electrical cord, gagging him with a bathrobe belt and shooting him three times. He then shot and killed Timothy Donohue, 48, who lived in a room upstairs in Hall's home. The men were killed to conceal a robbery.
Anthony Garcia
Anthony Garcia, a former doctor convicted of killing four people connected to Creighton Medical Center, was sentenced to death Sept. 14, 2017.
Aubrey Trail
Aubrey Trail (left) was sentenced to death June 9, 2021, for killing Sydney Loofe and dismembering her body.
Reach the writer at 402-473-7223 or awegley@journalstar.com. On Twitter @andrewwegley
Andrew Wegley
State government reporter
Margaret Reist
Local government reporter
