Deka Simmons, 40, was no stranger to violence and homicide when she shot 48-year-old Daxcimo Ceja, 48, to dying in a storage in Colorado Springs. After that, she dismembered his physique, bought a buddy to assist her clear the world, and dumped his physique in a drainage culvert, the place it wouldn’t be discovered for years. However why did she do it?
The reply includes what prosecutors would later name an obsession with little one molesters and a girl who has no qualms about homicide.
We don’t know lots about Simmons’ previous, however we do know her first arrest occurred in 2002 in Colorado Springs when she was simply 18 years outdated. She was arrested on prices of third-degree assault with a lethal weapon and felony menacing. She would go on to have seven prices regarding weapons.
Additionally in 2002: She would get her first first-degree homicide cost, which might later be dismissed. She would get charged with first-degree homicide two extra occasions. The following cost could be for allegedly being concerned within the capturing homicide of Donna Oliveto, an inmate who was with Simmons within the El Paso County jail. The third cost? Daxcimo Ceja. We’ll get to that in a minute.
What prompted Deca Simmons’ second homicide?
Per the arrest affidavit, Simmons and her then-boyfriend Jeff Hoskins have been on the home of sufferer Oliveto. They smoked “an overabundance of meth,” per a Fb put up from Oliveto’s son’s mom, and have become extraordinarily paranoid that Oliveto was an informant for the police and will testify towards Simmons in an upcoming tried homicide trial (Simmons is a profession legal).
“These two people had no regard for Donna, her son or any relationship that Donna had on this world. My son misplaced his mom that day, Her household misplaced a beautiful daughter, sister and aunt.”
“I assume she was an agent,” Simmons would inform a buddy after the homicide. She then stole Oliveto’s Pontiac Grand-Am. As a result of her boyfriend was the one who pulled the set off, Simmons was solely sentenced to 12 years. In jail, she stored up her violent streak. She was twice charged with assault, together with assaulting an officer in 2004, including an additional two years to her sentence. In whole, she had 35 jail incidents between 2004 and 2015.
When she bought out of jail in 2017, she went proper again to her outdated methods and violated her probation when her probation officer discovered a pair of brass knuckles and a knife in her motel room, thus bringing her again to jail for 2 years. She was launched in 2019 however then she was arrested once more after a battle along with her stepfather involving the custody of her daughter. That is the place her “obsession” with little one molesters began to succeed in enormous proportions.
That “battle” along with her stepfather was reportedly as a result of she thought he was molesting her five-year-old daughter. She stabbed him and again to jail she went, this time for second-degree assault. She instructed her cellmate that she had beforehand killed one other man as a result of she thought he was a baby molester. In case you’re preserving observe that’s 4 murders, however police suppose that’s not all.
This brings us to Ceja.
What did Daxcimo Ceja do?
We don’t know a ton about him we do know that he was a intercourse offender in California and that there was a warrant out for his arrest for failure to register in Colorado Springs. He allegedly had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old when he was both 19 or 25 (there are conflicting reviews about his age).
This brings us to Feb. 16, 2022. Court docket paperwork didn’t reveal the character of Ceja’s relationship with Simmons. We’re undecided precisely how they met, whether or not they have been pals or acquaintances, however they have been collectively in a storage at 317 W. Harrison St. on that fateful day.
Per the testimony of the proprietor of the storage, who additionally occurred to be Simmons’ roommate, Simmons got here to the roommate’s home with Ceja with no warning, for a drug deal. She then introduced each of them to the storage, the place she pulled out a weapon she all the time carried on her: A .357-caliber handgun. She shot Ceja 3 times within the head.
Why didn’t the witness go to the police? As a result of Simmons instructed her if she ever breathed a phrase of what occurred, she would come again and homicide her and her son. “I’m so scared,” the girl instructed detectives throughout a three-hour interview. “Please don’t inform [Simmons].”
After Ceja was shot, Simmons lower up the physique and drove it away in a van. On Feb. 20, 4 days after the homicide, she despatched a Fb message to the witness that mentioned, “DID YOU CLEAN THE HOUSE???”
Authorities would later discover traces of Ceja’s DNA within the storage, although it was “cleaned” completely.
The witness mentioned that she didn’t wish to herald any “cleaners” from wherever else as a result of that will imply there could be “too many unfastened ends.” Regardless, Simmons was arrested on April 7 on suspicion of the homicide, although authorities had no thought the place to search out the physique. That modified on Oct. 5, 2023.
Somebody referred to as the Colorado Springs Police Division Communications Middle anonymously and mentioned there have been human stays stuffed in a bag and dropped right into a drainage culvert across the 500 block of West Polk Avenue. They adopted up and located the physique elements.
Simply six days later, the Coroner’s Workplace recognized the unfastened stays as Ceja’s. Throughout Simmons’ homicide trial, prosecutor Sharon Flaherty cited Simmons’ “unrestrained hatred for anybody who would molest a baby,” calling it a “fixation” and “paranoia.”
Simmons’ lawyer mentioned she couldn’t have executed the crime as a result of none of her DNA was discovered on the scene, to which prosecutors countered that it was in all probability cleaned out of the storage. After closing arguments, jurors deliberated for seven hours earlier than reaching a verdict of responsible for first-degree homicide.
After the decision, prosecutor Jennifer Viehman mentioned she couldn’t put into phrases “the aid I’ve for this [Ceja’s] household. It actually has been a protracted highway, there actually have been quite a lot of hurdles. … What this household needed to endure is unimaginable.”
In Colorado, a first-degree homicide conviction requires a life sentence with out parole. Simmons was additionally discovered responsible of tampering with a physique in addition to bodily proof. She was given 24 years and three years for these prices.
Ceja’s dad and mom spoke earlier than Simmons was sentenced. “(Ceja) was killed for one thing he did 24 years in the past,” his mom Karen Fancher mentioned. “She gained’t be on the road to harm anybody else’s households like she has executed her entire whole life.”
His father, Barry Joseph Fancher, referred to as his son a “good individual” who “didn’t should exit this fashion.”
