Friday, January 12, 2001
Missing man’s brother
believes story
By Ken Ellsworth
Reporter-News Staff Writer
FRANKSTON — George Cox believes his
brother Barre unconditionally.
Revelations Thursday that the former Abilene
Christian University administrator has been accused of identity
theft and has accepted the pastorship of a gay and lesbian church
in Dallas have shaken even his closest friends’ belief in
Barre Cox, who seemingly vanished 16 years ago.
But not his family.
“I don’t think my brother has
a deceitful bone in his body,” George Cox said Thursday afternoon.
While Barre Cox has spent the last nine
years living in California under the name James Simmons, his family
returned to their roots in Frankston, a community of about 1,200
people in the piney woods of East Texas.
Eighty-year-old matriarch Daisy Cox is a
Frankston native. She and her late husband, Wesley, raised their
family in Canyon before returning to her hometown several years
ago. Wesley Cox died in 1991 still hoping his missing son would
appear.
Barre Cox disappeared under what lawmen
called suspicious circumstances in 1984. When he reunited with
his family on New Year’s Day, he told them he suffers from
amnesia and remembers nothing of his prior life.
“My mother, she now has a wonderful
peace of mind,” George Cox said, “especially now knowing
her son is alive.”
Despite an emotional reunion, Barre Cox
showed no sign that he recognized his family, George Cox said.
The family is planning another reunion later this month, and Barre
Cox’s wife, Beth, and their 17-year-old daughter are planning
to attend from their home in Tennessee.
The Texas and Tennessee relatives have remained
close throughout the long ordeal, George Cox said.
“It’s really awesome,” he
said of his brother’s return. “I spent 16 years thinking
I would someday see him in an airport or shopping mall.
“He still has that same gregarious
personality that people like to be around.”
Beseiged by media requests from as far away
as Germany and Japan, Cox is aware of the growing skepticism about
his brother’s story of being beaten unconscious, left for
dead, awakening without his memory and finally acquiring a new
life.
A Clarendon rancher, James Simmons, claims
Cox assumed his Social Security number, birth date and name, the
San Antonio Express-News reported Thursday.
George Cox said his brother took the name
James Simmons while recovering from his injuries. Barre Cox adopted
his birth date, March 21, 1955, because it is the International
Day of Remembrance, George Cox said.
Cox agreed his brother used Simmons’
Social Security number. He explained that his brother needed the
number to return to work, and speculated that Barre Cox’s
friends called Texas Tech University, where his brother and Simmons
attended — though at different times — and acquired
the number.
George Cox couldn’t explain why Texas
Tech was called when Barre Cox, suffering from amnesia, should
not have been able to recall his attendance at the Lubbock university.
Barre Cox reportedly told his former wife
that a Virginia senator helped him acquire a new Social Security
number and identity.
George Cox said his brother used that Social
Security number for a few years before submitting his fingerprints
and other information to the FBI to get a new number. He displayed
a file showing copies of his brother’s fingerprints and other
documents that he said were given to the FBI.
“Does this sound like a guy who would
go through all of this, who wants to go to jail or run? Or does
it sound like a guy who wants to be found?” George Cox asked
as he leafed through the file.
Cox confirmed that his brother has accepted
the pastorship of the Dallas church where he was recognized in
December. The White Rock Community Church ministers to the gay
and lesbian community. George Cox did not discuss his brother’s
sexuality.
Contact staff writer Ken Ellsworth at
676-6777 or ellsworthk@abinews.com.
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Copyright ©2001,
Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps. Publications
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