Arkansas Executes Man Who Killed 16

A man who killed 14 members of his family and two other people in a 1987 Christmas holiday spree was executed by injection Monday night.

Ronald Gene Simmons, 49, of Dover, Ark., who authorities said went on the murder binge because his daughter had broken off an incestuous relationship with him, was declared dead at 9:19 p.m.

No appeals were pending in the case because Simmons said he wanted to be executed. “I only ask for what I deserve,” he said recently. “Let the torture and suffering in me end.”

Simmons was put to death at Cummins Prison, about 20 miles southeast of Pine Bluff.