David Lynn Simonsen, who raped and killed two German tourists in a Coos County forest, will go before Coos County Circuit Judge Martin Stone for resentencing more than 30 years after being sentenced to death. District Attorney Paul Frasier says the case is coming back to Coos County after the Oregon Legislature changed the definition of aggravated murder. Simonsen along with Jeffery Ray Williams received the death penalty after the two used a shotgun to kill German tourists 24-year-old Unna Tuxen and 22-year-old Katherine Reith of Germany in September of 1988. Williams died in prison of natural causes in 2020. With the 2019 legislative change, aggravated murder no longer includes the murder of two or more people in the same criminal episode. It classified such cases as “Murder in the Frist Degree” which cannot carry the death penalty. Simonsen’s ordered sentence of death was vacated last week by the Marion County Circuit Court. He will be resentenced and will appear for the new hearing on Monday June 13th.
