James Daniel Simpson

Case record: James Daniel Simpson

Background

James Daniel Simpson was a former employee of the Walter Rossler Company, a refinery inspection business now called Petrochem. Corpus Christi City Councilman Henry Garrett, who was police chief at the time of the shootings, said Simpson likely was angry with the Rossler Company because he was given an assignment at work he did not like and ended up quitting. Garrett said the Rossler Company tried to get Simpson to repay money the company loaned him for educational purposes, and that these things piled up on him.

Simpson was expected to do metallurgy exclusively but was hired with the understanding that he had to take on tasks in addition to metallurgy, including inspections, according to Rossler-Duff. Rossler-Duff said Simpson let his superiors know that he did not want to do inspections, and he then quit. Rossler-Duff said her father sent both supervisors to reach out beyond what most company presidents would do to try to get him to come back, because they appreciated his knowledge in the metallurgical field, but Simpson refused to go back.

Co-workers described Simpson as a quiet, somewhat meek man. Rossler-Duff said Simpson never seemed angry with anyone at the company, and she could not understand why Simpson would leave and then come back eight months later to commit the massacre.

The offence

Simpson entered the Walter Rossler Co. through the front door. He shot five people with a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol and a .32-caliber revolver.

Simpson murdered Walter Rossler, 62; Joann Rossler, 61; Richard Lee Tomlinson, 34; Derek Harrison, 35; and Patty J. “Wendy” Brunson Gilmore, 41.

Rossler-Duff recalled that, in the moments before he started his rampage, she saw Simpson in the company’s front room when he walked in and turned with a big scowl on his face. She said he walked across the office to Wendy and then said:

“This is for you, bitch.”

She said it then looked like he was handing Wendy something, but she could not see what it was. She said there were “two or three pops” that sounded “just like a cap gun,” and at the time it did not register. Rossler-Duff said Wendy fell forward. She said her mother ran and the other secretary ran. She said Simpson walked across the hallway where her dad and Richard and Derek were at, and then she said he shot her dad.

Rossler-Duff said that as soon as she saw her dad fall, she could smell gunpowder and that was when she knew what was going on, but she still did not see a gun. Rossler-Duff said she grabbed her 8-month-old son and crawled under a desk, then ran to another office and called 911.

Rossler-Duff said Simpson carried a handgun in each hand when he walked into the office where she was calling 911. She said:

“I closed the door, and I thought I had locked the door. . . . But when I was on the phone with 911, he walked into the office I was in. I screamed - and all this is on the 911 tape - I told him, ‘No!’ And the look on his face was completely different than what it looked like when he first walked into the building.”

Rossler-Duff said because Dylan was in her arms and screaming, his look changed “to, like, reality had set in,” and she said it was like:

“Oh my God, what have I done?”

She said Simpson backed out of the office, walked into another room, and shot himself dead.

Investigation

Five experts in aberrant crime said Simpson almost certainly was both paranoid and depressed. Dr. Park Elliott Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist who had studied mass killers, said:

“Of all crimes, the one most closely associated with serious mental illness is mass murder,”

Dietz also said:

“They are not schizophrenic,” Dietz added, “but they all show signs of depression and paranoia.”

Rossler-Fowler said that at the time of the shootings, emotional wounds inflicted by the massacre would never go away. Corpus Christi Police Chief Pete Alvarez said:

“As far as I can remember, that is probably the worst that ever has occurred in this city as far as a situation involving a disgruntled (former) employee,”

Alvarez also said:

“To go to the extreme of returning and killing five individuals, that is something very tragic.”

He added:

“Certainly, that brings a lot of folks together in the community to focus on things unexpected,”

and:

“I guess it kind of opens your eyes to reality, that these things do occur. Sometimes, we read about these things in the paper, sometimes they occur elsewhere, but when it hits home, it really has an impact on a community.”

Rossler-Duff said she had hoped a toxicology report would show Simpson was drunk or on any kind of drug to explain why he did this. She said the toxicology report said Simpson was a normal, healthy 28-year-old male, and she said this was the hardest part because she would never know why:

“I’ll never know why. Never.”

Arrest

Simpson took his own life as police closed in.

Trial

No trial events were included.

Sentencing

No sentencing events were included.

Appeals

No appeal events were included.

Outcome

Simpson died by suicide by shooting himself dead after killing five people. He committed suicide by shooting himself the same day.

Aftermath

Rossler-Fowler was Rhonda Rossler-Fowler. She described seeing something of her parents in her 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Taylor, and she said Taylor slept with her little arm over her face like her mother. Rossler-Fowler also said there was her dad’s stubbornness and that it was why he had been successful. Rossler-Fowler sold the Walter Rossler Company about 18 months after the shootings, and she was living in Calallen. She was married to Cliff Fowler, a coach at Calallen Middle School. Rossler-Fowler said she had recovered a little more each of the past five years since the shootings, but anniversaries always got her down.

Rossler-Fowler said:

“This time of year every year is really, really rough,”

and:

“Without even recognizing the date, I can find myself really bummed out, and then I notice what day it is. . . . It’s almost like it’s in the air.”

She said she found support from friends and relatives and from her faith, and said:

“I’m not an ultra-religious person or a steady churchgoer, but I’m a strong believer. I know he watches over us. So many (other bad) things could have happened that day, but didn’t.”

Rossler-Fowler said she was supposed to be working at the Rossler Company at the time Simpson began his rampage, but she left the office early that day. She said she had a stepsister who was murdered in Fort Worth several years earlier and that this, combined with the Rossler Company slayings, had given her a different attitude toward her children.

Rossler-Fowler said she put her other two kids (born before the Rossler killings) in daycare and worked, but after the killings she was staying at home with Taylor and she said she knew what it was like to lose something so dear. She also said she would venture alone to Seaside Memorial Park to visit her parents’ graves, and she said it was easier if she went by herself because there were not too many people around who really understood what was going on, and:

“it’s like, you’ve just got to deal with it yourself.”

Rossler-Duff was Lisa Rossler-Duff. She was sitting in the company’s front room typing when Simpson walked in. Rossler-Duff was described as remembering Simpson’s scowl and his confrontation with Wendy, and she said she called 911.

Rossler-Duff later became a 29-year-old student studying agricultural science at Texas A&M University-Kingsville and was expected to graduate this spring with the hope of becoming a teacher. She said she put off grieving for a long time after her parents were murdered, stating:

“For the first year, I had so many responsibilities,”

and she said:

“Between making sure my dad’s company didn’t go down . . . and going to school and raising my children, between all that, I had no time to grieve. I had to set all my grieving behind and make sure things were taken care of.”

Rossler-Duff said she grieved every day, and that she had nightmares every night and that it changed her life. She said:

“I have nightmares about it pretty much every night,”

and:

“It has changed my life. . . . I have to be selective with what I read, with what type of TV I watch, with the radio stations, the songs I listen to, because if I happen to be going through a depression moment, it will just trigger me into sobs, or it gives me nightmares, and it makes me relive the whole horrible incident.”

She said she learned to let herself grieve and no longer held it back even in a store:

“The big difference now is that I have learned to let myself grieve,” she said.

and:

“I don’t hold it back even if I am in H-E-B.”

She said certain smells would remind her of her mom and she dealt with it better. She said if people saw her crying, they would have to understand.

Rossler-Duff said her husband, Chris, offered her support and eased her ordeal. She said the couple had two sons since the shootings took place: Ryder, who would be 3 years old on April 27, and Colton, who would turn 1 on May 24. She said the children kept her busy so she could not think of what was lost as much, and instead she could see the new life beginning and that she was responsible for it:

“They do keep me so busy that I can’t think of what is lost as much as I can just see the new life that is beginning and that I am responsible for,” she said.

The passage of time included changes for Derek Harrison’s family. Derek Harrison was buried at a gravesite that overlooked a lake on his parents’ 150-acre ranch in Barksdale, near Uvalde. Hesta Harrison decorated a 3-foot wood cross with silk lilies, daffodils and irises, and she planned to place the cross on her son’s grave that day. Hesta Harrison said Derek lived in Corpus Christi but visited his parents’ ranch often and that he was a constant part of their life, and she said they missed him.

She said:

“He was a pretty constant part of our life here, and we miss him a lot,”

and:

“It brings back so many memories each season. Hunting season. He loved to hunt. And he’s missed, I think, by me more at that time of year than his birthday or death date or any other time.”

Hesta Harrison said the first two years were extremely difficult and said having a loving family helped. She said the fact that she had her daughter and her granddaughters and her husband helped a lot getting through that period, and she said she missed Derek every day and it had not stopped. She said her ability to cope and deal with his loss had gotten somewhat better with the passage of time:

“The first two years were extremely difficult,” Harrison said.

She also said:

“The fact that I do have my daughter and my granddaughters and my husband helped a lot getting through that period. I miss Derek every day, and that hasn’t stopped. But, in general, I would say my ability to cope and deal with his loss has gotten somewhat better with the passage of time.”

She said a granddaughter born in 1997 boosted her ability to cope:

“It helps so much,” she said.

She said she loved children and that they were a big part of her life, and she said that they would have been in any event, and she thanked God for them in that period. She said:

“I love children, and they just are such a big part of my life. They would have been in any event, but I just thank God so many times in this period of time I have had them come into my life to help me through it, and they have, immensely.”

No additional outcome details were included beyond the deaths described.