by SEAN KIMMONS
A prosecutor in Branson, Mo., has dropped a weapons charge against Buda murder and arson suspect Mark David Simmons in order to expedite his release to Hays County authorities, officials say.
“We’ve dismissed our charge in an attempt to get him down to Texas faster,” Taney County Prosecutor Jeff Merrell said on Tuesday.
Officials say that Simmons, who faces a capital murder arrest warrant in the April homicide of his business partner, Steven Woelfel, is still fighting extradition back to Hays County, where prosecutors could seek the death penalty.
On Monday, Hays County District Attorney Sherri Tibbe filed a request for a governor’s warrant with the Texas Governor’s Office as part of the extradition process.
“He can fight extradition, but one way or another he has to come back,” Tibbe said. “It doesn’t matter if he wants to or not.”
Tibbe says that the extradition process could take weeks or up to six months if Simmons is against it. For now, the Texas Governor’s Office will handle it.
“We’re just at the beginning of this whole process,” she said.
Before Simmons is released to Hays County, paperwork will first be reviewed and pushed through the state of Missouri’s attorney general’s office, its department of corrections and finally its governor’s office.
“We will certainly cooperate fully with the state of Texas on this,” said Scott Holste, spokesman for Missouri Governor Jay Nixon’s office.
On June 29, after allegedly robbing two local motels, Simmons surrendered peacefully following an eight-and-a-half-hour standoff at the Walnut Lane Motel in the small Ozarks tourist town of Branson.
Branson police found one rifle and two handguns in his motel room, the same weapons stolen from Woelfel’s home, investigators say.
The murder charge, coupled with the stolen guns claim, gives authorities the right to issue the offense of capital murder, punishable by the death penalty in Texas.
Branson police found Simmons’ silver-blue 2008 Hyundai Sonata, believed to be used in the robberies, parked at the motel. Investigators ran the plates on the car and tied the vehicle to the Hays County case.
Taney County officials had charged Simmons with unlawful possession of an explosive weapon by a convicted felon, but that charge has been dropped. Prosecutor Merrell says that his office may pursue the charge and others related to the motel burglaries depending on the outcome of the murder trial.
