Aspies For Freedom

AUTISTIC' L.I. MAN ATTACKS SIS: POLICE

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/32439.htm

December 4, 2004 --  A Long Island man with severe mental problems attacked his sister with a baseball bat after she told him he would have to move out of her house, police said yesterday.

Richard Simmons, 42, who suffers from Asperger's Syndrome, a disorder similar to autism, was being held without bail on attempted murder charges.

"He became very upset because he has a hard time adjusting to change," said Suffolk Detective Lt. Gerard Gigante.

Gigante said Simmons, who has been living in Manorville with his sister Jeanmarie Sledge, her husband and their two young children, ages 10 and 14, for the past three years since his mother died, argued with her on Wednesday.

"He snuck up from behind and struck her in the head," he said. "She was lucky to come out of it."

Simmons struck his sister twice after she fell, fracturing her skull, splitting open her scalp, and causing her brain to swell, Gigante said. She managed to wrestle the bat from her 210-pound brother and stumbled across her yard to a neighbor's house, from where she called cops.

Sledge, a former East Hampton police officer, was in stable condition at Brookhaven Hospital. Devin Smith

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/04/nyregi...&position=

December 4, 2004
Police Say L.I. Man Beat His Sister With a Bat
By JULIA C. MEAD

A Long Island man turned off the electricity in his sister's house to lure her into the basement before attacking her with a baseball bat on Wednesday, the Suffolk County police said yesterday. Though her skull was fractured and she was bleeding heavily, the sister managed to twist the bat out of her brother's hands and flee to a neighbor's house before collapsing, the police said.

Richard Simmons, 42, was arrested at his sister's house in Manorville a short time later. He pleaded not guilty to a charge of second-degree attempted murder at his arraignment on Thursday in county district court in Central Islip.

The sister, Jeanmarie Sledge, 43, a former police officer, was listed in stable condition yesterday at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center.

According to the police, Mr. Simmons, who is unemployed, went to live with Ms. Sledge, her husband and their two children about three years ago after his parents died. Ms. Sledge called the police once last June after an argument, but no criminal charges were filed, said Detective Lt. Gerard Gigante. On the morning of the attack, she told him to move out. Infuriated, he came up with a plan to kill her, the police said.

Mr. Simmons waited until about 6:50 p.m., after his brother-in-law and the two children had left the house, to flip some circuit breakers and cut off the electricity. The police said he then waited in the darkened basement. When his sister came down to inspect the circuit breaker box, he swung the bat, hitting her in the back of her head. She fell, and he hit her twice more on the side of her head, Lieutenant Gigante said.

"She was disoriented and in a lot of pain, but I guess the adrenaline took over," Lieutenant Gigante said. "She felt that if she got hit again she was going out, but she managed to grab the bat and twist it out of his hands." He said Ms. Sledge then ran to a neighbor's house.

Ms. Sledge was an officer with the East Hampton Town Police Department from 1985 to 2003. The police chief there, Todd Sarris, said she was terminated after her disability claim was rejected and she repeatedly declined to return to work.

Lieutenant Gigante said Ms. Sledge's police training might have helped her wrest the bat from her brother. "She's lucky," he said yesterday, adding that she was conscious and being monitored for signs of brain swelling.

The police said Mr. Simmons has Asperger's Syndrome, a developmental disability that shares some traits with autism. People with the syndrome often have limited social skills and require highly structured environments.

A spokesman for the Suffolk County Sheriff's Office, which runs the county jail system, said Mr. Simmons was being held without bail in a maximum-security unit. Undersheriff Walter Denzler, a jail spokesman, declined to discuss Mr. Simmons specifically but said any inmate with a developmental disability could raise special concerns.

"There are people who would be better served in some setting other than a jail, but so many hospitals have been shut down," he said. "So unfortunately, that means many end up in jail."

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Police: Man attacked his sister




BY ERIK HOLM
STAFF WRITER

December 3, 2004

After being told he had to move out, a mentally ill man lured his sister into her basement in Manorville Monday night and attacked her with a baseball bat, fracturing her skull, police said yesterday.

Richard Simmons, 42, was charged with second-degree attempted murder.

Simmons was angry with his sister, Jeanmarie Sledge, because she told him Monday morning to move out, said Det. Lt. Gerard Gigante of Suffolk's Seventh Detective Squad. Simmons had lived with Sledge, her husband and two children for about three years.

Simmons, who was taking medication to treat a mild form of autism called Asperger's syndrome, went into the basement, flipped several circuit breakers, and waited for his sister, Sledge, to investigate the power outage, Gigante said.

When she opened the circuit breaker panel, he attacked her from behind, Gigante said, hitting her three times in the head and "cracking her cranium." But Sledge managed to wrestle the bat out of her brother's hands, and fled to a next-door neighbor's home, where she collapsed.

Minutes later, Sledge's husband, William Sledge, and children returned from their errands, "and the husband immediately starts to get suspicious." Something led him to go next door, where Sledge found out what happened. He went back and grabbed Simmons, Gigante said, holding him until police arrived.

Simmons was arraigned yesterday in First District Court in Central Islip.

An ambulance took Sledge to Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center in East Patchogue, where she is listed in stable condition. She "appears as if she will be OK," Gigante said, although she is suffering from swelling of her brain.

Simmons had no prior history of violent behavior, Gigante said.

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