Friday, January 12, 2001
Missing man lands job with
gay congregation in Dallas
By Jerry Daniel Reed
Reporter-News Staff Writer
Former Abilenian Barre Cox, missing for
16 years, was accused of stealing a Panhandle rancher’s identity
and was identified as the new pastor of a predominately gay and
lesbian Dallas church Thursday.
The San Antonio Express-News reported in
a copyright story that Cox, who claims he spent the last 16 years
not knowing his true identity because of amnesia, assumed the
name, birth date and Social Security number of Clarendon rancher
James Simmons. Clarendon is about 60 miles east of Canyon, Cox’s
boyhood home.
And in a copyright story, the Canyon News
reported that Cox was recognized by a one-time church camp acquaintance
Dec. 10 while he preached at the White Rock Community Church in
Dallas in his identity as Simmons. He was hired to fill White
Rock’s pulpit starting later this month.
Thursday’s developments were among
the latest in a series of twists since officials of Abilene Christian
University, where Cox once worked as an enrollment administrator,
announced Monday that he had been located.
Cox, whose whereabouts remained a mystery
Thursday to hordes of news media seeking him, has attributed his
July 12, 1984, disappearance to a beating that left him comatose.
He said children discovered him in a car trunk as they played
in a junkyard in Memphis, Tenn.
Memphis police have said they can find no
record or recollection of such a case. The same is true of two
Memphis hospitals, Baptist Memorial Health Care and Regional Medical
Center at Memphis.
Cox has told his family he stitched together
the name “James Simmons” from being briefly known as
James Doe and from a store’s name.
The family taking care of him as he recovered
from his beating was studying the New Testament book of James,
he explained, so he temporarily became James — rather than
“John” — Doe. Later, while working in a Virginia
restaurant as a busboy, he peered through an open door to the
name on Simmons Hardware store and was inspired to take that name,
he has said.
ACU officials relayed much of the story
he’s told to the local media Monday.
The Express-News reported that Cox had lifted
rancher James Simmons’ identity by the late 1980s, causing
the Clarendon man a series of headaches, including audits by the
Internal Revenue Service in 1987 and 1989.
Cox has said a Virginia senator who his
Tennessee caretakers knew helped him obtain a new Social Security
number and identity.
Repeated phone calls to Simmons the rancher
were not returned Thursday. Jim Shelton, Simmons’ attorney,
declined to comment.
The Clarendon man, who goes by “Jem,”
told the San Antonio newspaper he does not know Cox, a fellow
Texas Tech University alumnus, though the two attended at different
times.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s
Office in Amarillo said cases of stolen identities or theft of
a Social Security number are investigated by the FBI or the Social
Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General.
Agents with the FBI’s Amarillo office
were unavailable for comment Thursday. A spokeswoman for the Inspector
General in Baltimore said information was unavailable on possible
investigations into the rancher’s claims.
Sheriff Charles Blackburn Jr. of Donley
County, where the rancher lives, said he will consider “prowling”
into the charges. Blackburn, a distant cousin to Simmons, said
he hasn’t talked to his relative about the case.
Sid Merchant, a retired Texas Ranger who
spearheaded the hunt for Cox, said the man should repay authorities
for the time and expense they invested searching for him.
As he did in 1984, Merchant believes Cox
planned his disappearance, possibly to get away from his wife
and family.
“We figured he would resurface somewhere,
but we would sure like to know why” he disappeared, Merchant
said.
Pastor’s job
According to a calendar on the White Rock
Community Church’s Web site, the congregation is to welcome
“James Simmons” as its pastor Jan. 21.
Members and officials of the White Rock
church were close-mouthed Thursday, referring all calls to Dean
Bishop, identified on the church’s Web site as its pastor,
apparently Cox’s predecessor. Bishop did not return repeated
phone calls or an e-mail message.
The 700-member congregation in northeast
Dallas identifies itself as an evangelical Christian church founded
in 1991 “to spread God’s word to the Gay and Lesbian
Community,” though it claims membership among “gay and
straight of every race.”
“We believe that God loves us for who
we truly are,’’ the church says in its mission statement.
The Canyon newspaper reported that the camper’s
mother informed a Canyon couple, who had been close friends with
Barre Cox’s parents, of the missing man’s sighting at
the church. The couple, after determining the authenticity of
Cox’s identity, notified his mother, a widow living in the
East Texas town of Frankston.
As James Simmons, Cox earned two master’s
degrees from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Mill
Valley, Calif., near San Francisco. He also worked as the campus’
housing director. He resigned Tuesday to accept the pulpit at
White Rock.
Cameron Crabtree, Golden Gate’s public
relations director, was surprised by the news that Simmons was
tabbed to lead a gay and lesbian congregation. But he insisted
that Simmons’ hire by White Rock “wouldn’t necessarily”
lead to the conclusion he is gay.
Simmons alluded to homosexuality several
times during his Dec. 10 audition at White Rock. Of his arrival
in Dallas, he joked with the congregation: “I thought, ‘Maybe
they’ll send two hunky guys at the airport.’ And they
did. They sent the hunkiest guys they could.’’
Sermonizing on fear and faith, he mentioned
that “We have a fear of coming out.” During a prayer,
he asked, “Dear Father, help us to see (you) as forgiver
to our inmost, unknown secrets. … I ask that you bless the
messenger today. I ask that you forgive him of his sins, for they
are many.’’
Though Cox had reportedly told his former
wife, Beth Cox, that a parishioner recognized him after he mentioned
his 1984 assault and amnesia during his sermon, the taped version
on the church’s Web site does not include such references.
Crabtree, who has known Simmons since 1991,
said an openly gay person would not be allowed to study or work
at the Southern Baptist seminary. Students and staff are required
to practice “mainstream Christian conduct and character,”
Crabtree said.
“The person we’ve known …
was a committed, passionate person about faith who was seeking
to make connections with God and to serve people to his (God’s)
benefit,” Crabtree said.
“It’s a compelling story, no doubt,”
he added. “We just hope for the best for him. There are radical
transitions ahead for all involved. That’s in the Lord’s
hands.”
Cox was a San Antonio resident completing
his doctoral dissertation at Texas Tech University when he disappeared.
He and his wife were then parents of a 6-month-old girl, now 17
years old. The marriage was dissolved when Cox was declared legally
dead seven years after his disappearance, although neither spouse
has remarried.
Beth Cox later moved to California, where
her parents live, to further her education at Pepperdine University
in Malibu, which like ACU is affiliated with the Church of Christ.
She later moved to Tennessee to be close to friends, she told
ACU officials.
Since his discovery, Barre (pronounced “Barry”)
Cox has reunited with his 80-year-old mother and his siblings.
He has spoken and written to his former wife and his daughter,
but has not yet met with them.
City editor Anthony Wilson and regional
writer John Starbuck contributed to this report.
Contact staff writer Jerry Reed at 676-6769
or reedj@abinews.com.
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Copyright ©2001,
Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps. Publications
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