A review of court records for the suspect in the crash that killed a Waltham police officer and National Grid worker has a lengthy criminal history across the country that spans decades.
Peter Simon, 54, of Woodsville, New Hampshire, was driving a stolen Ford F-150 pickup truck on Totten Pond Road around 4:15 p.m. Wednesday when he attempted to do a U-turn in traffic, struck a Jeep Wrangler, causing his truck to go up on two wheels before slamming back down and driving off, according to prosecutors.
About a quarter of a mile down the road, Simon is accused of crashing his truck into a police detail and National Grid crew working on a possible gas leak, killing 58-year-old Waltham Police Officer Paul Tracey and 36-year-old National Grid worker Roderick Jackson and injuring two other National Grid employees.
The other workers have not been identified.
Previous reports involving Peter Simon document a pattern of wild car chases, violence against police, and struggle with substance abuse and severe mental illness.
In court on Thursday, Simon appeared for his latest—and most tragic—brush with the law.
“Once I made the connection, it came back to me fairly vividly,” said Peter Heed, the former top prosecutor in Cheshire County.
Heed was county attorney in 2009 when Simon led police on a wild chase where officers shot at his truck as he sped through a busy shopping center in Keene.
“In trying to get out of the parking lot, he actually drove over a huge grassy median and went flying in the air like you’d see in the movies,” Heed recalled. “He went out to the main highway and collided head-on with a local transit bus.”
The two people on the bus suffered serious injuries. However, Simon emerged from his burning truck and ran to a nearby business before he was finally arrested. Heed said a witness described the series of events like a scene from the movie "Terminator."
Simon was later arraigned on a long list of charges while wearing a hospital gown.
However, instead of being criminally convicted, records show he was found not guilty by reason of mental illness and committed to a secure psychiatric unit at the New Hampshire State Prison.
“It was very clear from all the evidence that he was suffering from a mental illness and he was dangerous,” Heed said.
Simon was later transferred to New Hampshire State Hospital for treatment. Court records show he was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder.
Dr. Michelle DiBlasi, who has no connection to Simon’s case, is the chief of inpatient psychiatry at Tufts Medical Center.
“Usually, that is linked to people having substantial childhood trauma,” DiBlasi said. “Actually, 90% of people who have dissociative identity disorder had some sort of significant trauma as a child.”
DiBlasi said the disorder is treated with intense therapy and is often accompanied by other struggles like depression, posttraumatic stress disorder and substance abuse.
“The goal is trying to work with the person to sort of put together their identities, kind of bring them all back into one,” DiBlasi said.
Court records show that Simon’s condition improved through therapy and antipsychotic medication, according to medical professionals who evaluated him.
“It appears Mr. Simon is more psychiatrically stable than he has at perhaps any time in his life,” a doctor wrote.
However, after his release from the state hospital in 2015, records show the criminal history continued.
Simon was arrested in May of 2016 in Franklin, New Hampshire, for a violent altercation with a couple outside their home.
The woman told police that Simon had attempted to kill her husband by strangling him.
“Peter had a power cord around my husband’s neck and had him on the ground. My husband’s head was twisted to one side and he was making gurgling sounds,” the woman told police.
After that, Simon retrieved a hammer from his van and also threatened the woman while swinging the tool in the air.
“I’m going to kill you, too,” Simon said, according to the police report.
While attempting to flee police, court records say he endangered the public by driving in the oncoming lanes of traffic and turning off his headlights to avoid detection.
When police arrested Simon, he had a blood alcohol level of .16. An officer reported Simon had a laceration on his forehead and noticed a piece of fencing sticking out of the grill of his van.
It turned out Simon had smashed into a fence and another vehicle when he initially tried to flee the scene of the assault.
At the hospital, police said, Simon seemed surprised when they informed him about the litany of criminal charges he was facing.
“Simon became increasingly confused as his time at the hospital dragged on,” the officer wrote in his report. “He asked several times why he was there and who I was.”
Simon pleaded guilty the following year in Merrimack Superior Court to aggravated DUI, disobeying an officer, criminal threatening, and 2nd degree assault where he was sentenced two to four years in state prison.
In 2019, Simon was pulled over in Orford, New Hampshire, for speeding and driving with a suspended license. In the police report it said there was a non-extraditable warrant for Simon out of Washington.
The NBC 10 investigators have also found multiple arrests for Simon out of Kansas and a felony conviction out of Montana back in 1999.
Heed, the former county attorney, knows there will be questions about the circumstances surrounding Simon’s release from the state’s secure mental health facility.
“It saddens me so much to see that this man has now caused such a tragedy in Waltham,” he said.
