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Saturday, January 20, 2001

Church standing behind minister with murky past

By APRIL CASTRO
Associated Press Writer

DALLAS (AP) — Leaders of a predominantly gay church are standing behind their new pastor, who contends that he was suffering amnesia when he disappeared 16 years ago, leaving behind a wife and infant daughter.

The small White Rock Community Church has been buffeted with questions about Pastor James Simmons, whose story recently became national news. Church officials will introduce Simmons, 49, at a Saturday news conference, and he will preach his first sermon as their spiritual leader on Sunday.

“We are aware that some people have raised new questions about James' background, and quite frankly we don't have all the answers about this man's interesting life,” the church's Web site states. “When he arrives in Dallas and over time, his story will become clearer. Having only discovered his true identity in the past month, more of his history will unfold in due time.”

Simmons, formerly known as Wesley Barrett “Barre” Cox, says he was beaten in 1984 and has no memory of his family or job as a youth minister at a prominent San Antonio church.

Sixteen years later, he was auditioning at White Rock when a former parishioner recognized him and had a friend put Simmons in touch with his family, according to family members.

His marriage to Beth Cox, now of Franklin, Tenn., was dissolved when he was declared dead.

His brother, George Cox of Frankston, said Barre Cox was finishing work on a doctorate at Texas Tech University and was traveling between Lubbock and Abilene when he was last seen. His car was later found ransacked on a farm road near Abilene.

George Cox said his brother told him he was found beaten and bloody two weeks later in the trunk of a car in a Memphis, Tenn., junkyard. Simmons awoke in a hospital and was told that he had been in a coma two weeks.

Neither Memphis police nor the local hospitals have found any documentation to support Simmons' account. A spokesman at the Memphis Commercial Appeal said the newspaper had no record of the man's 1984 appearance.

But Craig McDaniel, a White Rock spokesman who has spoken with Simmons, says the minister has clarified that he was found in a small town outside of Memphis. He does not, however, remember the town or the name of the family who found him.

That family named him “James” from the book in the New Testament. He chose “Simmons” from a hardware store.

According to George Cox, Simmons made his way to Virginia, where he found a job and a room in a boarding house. His landlady, whose niece attended Texas Tech at the time, called the Lubbock university and obtained a Social Security number for James Simmons.

The San Antonio Express-News has reported that the number belonged to rancher James Simmons of Clarendon, 60 miles from Cox's hometown of Canyon. Both men attended Texas Tech at different times.

After paying into the rancher's account for about three years, Simmons in 1989 sought the help of a Virginia congressman in obtaining his own Social Security number.

Rich Franklin, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Norman Sisisky, confirms that Simmons requested a new number, but did not have a record of the case's disposition.

Apparently still drawn to ministry, Simmons moved in 1991 to attend Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Mill Valley, Calif. Simmons became student body president, earned a master of divinity degree in 1994 and a master of theology degree in 1999.

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On the Net:

www.whiterockchurch.org