Nothing So Dread as He With Fanatic Eye
It’s my guess that E.B. (Jet) Simrell — the 46-year-old ex-market owner who surrendered to the FBI yesterday after having threatened the lives of seven judges — figures he’s got one big card to play in his crusade against the “un-feminine, all-powerful American woman.”
And it’s my opinion that he’s sadly wrong.
If Simrell carries out his plan to “fast until death to win unanimous approval of the truths for which I fight,” he might win himself a little public pity.
But that’s all.
Long ago, he lost sight of the objectives of his fight. And with them, he lost everything, including, possibly, his sanity.
 The strange part of his story is that he was an intelligent, if badly disturbed man.
Many of his criticisms, much of his analysis of our divorce laws and the ills of our society made sense. And he could argue with logic on the issues. In fact, in February of 1957, he appeared on a TV show of mine and debated the position of women in America. He made enough sense then to cause a flood of letters in support of his arguments. Most of the response, surprisingly, was from women. But that was nearly three years ago. That was before he pulled the warped, possibly psychopathic, “I killed three kids and their mother” stunt which sent police on a Code 3 chase to his home to find three kid goats and their nanny spread across a bed, their throats slit. That was before he wrote the judges and three other court officials that they were on his list, marked for death. Somehow, in his obsessed mind, publicity — any kind of publicity — was the key to success of his crusade. “I needed to attract public attention,” he wrote me apologetically after the goat episode. “I wanted to shock the public into thinking strongly about the seriousness of out national problem of divorce and its tremendously devastating effects.” Shortly before his death-threat letters, he wrote me again, stating that he planned to “shock” the public into listening to him. “I must injure no one, physically, and must stay within the law, or reasonably so,” he said. After his threats, he became a wanted man. The FBI spread the net. Doesn’t Make Sense
But in spite of this, he sent me a third letter. This one, however, didn’t make much sense. His arguments became lost in his vitriol. Then, yesterday morning came Letter No. 4, announcing his intention to surrender and to “fast until death” unless society changed its ways and conformed to Jet Simrell. He was true to his word on his surrender. I have little doubt that he’ll try to starve himself to death, too. It’s a sad, sad story of a man who drove himself berserk. We’re lucky, I guess, that nobody else got hurt. |
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