Simmons Closing Arguments

The jury deliberating right now the fate of William Simmons, charged with murder in the death of 15 year old Ruch girl Kaelin Glazier in 1996.

“Not all evidence points directly at the defendant.”

Jackson County District Attorney Mark Huddleston spent a meticulous hour and a half presenting his closing arguments, … calling witnesses testimony into question… and dismissing the theory of a hypothetical killer… “Who just happened to have the duct tape with them.”

In 1996 15 year old Kaelin Glazier disappeared… her body found across the street from the Simmons family property a dozen years later.

Huddleston acknowledged not having a motive, saying the state wasn’t required to provide one – but that Simmons repeatedly danced around admitting his guilt to investigators… simmons himself denies.

“He wasn’t ready to tell you either.”

Defense attorney Michael Bertholf working his first murder case, with his co-council out sick, attacked the state’s circumstantial evidence as no basis for a conviction…

“There is no direct evidence pointing to William Simmons committing homicide on Kaelin Glazier.”

Bertholf pounding home the point that the state can’t even show how Glazier died.

“All we’ve got is possibly, potentially, maybe…”

And on that basis Bertholf said the jury must find his client not guilty.

“This ain’t TV. Not all books have a happy ending, sadly sometimes we don’t have an answer.”

Now if the jury cannot find William Simmons guilty of murder they can find him guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter.

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