Who put this noose in our truck? Biracial couple gets answers after 2 years of waiting

For two years, the Simons waited patiently to find out who slipped a noose into their truck during the summer of 2020, when the biracial couple took part in the Black Lives Matter movement surrounding George Floyd's death.

On Tuesday, the couple from Saginaw got some answers, though it turned out they were not the only targets of hate, they said.

Kenneth Pilon, 61, a retired optometrist from Saginaw, was charged in U.S. District Court with intimidating BLM supporters by making threatening phone calls to nine Starbucks stores across the state and stating: "Tell the employees working there wearing Black Lives Matter shirts that the only good (N-word) is a dead (N-word).”

Pilon also is accused of leaving nooses across the city of Saginaw with handwritten notes that read: “An accessory to be worn with your ‘BLM’ t-shirt. Happy Protesting!”

Among his noose targets were the Simons, who said they discovered two nooses during the summer of 2020 and turned the information over to the FBI.

Regina Simon said she and her husband waited patiently for answers, and believed the culprit would eventually be found.

"I’m relieved that this man is going to be held accountable," Regina Simon told the Free Press on Wednesday. "I’m shocked at all this man did. I didn’t know anything about Starbucks, or the previous nooses."

According to Regina and Donald Simon, here is what Pilon put them through.

It was a Saturday morning, July 11, 2020, and the Simons were in their front yard playing with their puppy while both were wearing BLM T-shirts.

The next day, her husband got up to go out for a cup of coffee when he found a noose inside his truck with a note attached that read. “An accessory to be worn with your ‘BLM’ t-shirt. Happy Protesting!” The truck was in the driveway, and the window had been partially cracked open overnight.

"I opened my door, and when I looked at it, then I looked at it again, I was amazed," recalled Donald Simon, who was overcome with anger and confusion at the sight of the noose. "I was in shock. I thought, 'Is this really what I think it is?' "

Confusion and anger quickly set in.

"Knowing that someone came that close to my front door? It was a hate crime with a noose," Donald Simon recalled in a phone interview with the Free Press, noting he had many questions: "Who did this and why did they do it? And what made them do it?"

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After discovering the noose, the couple posted what happened on Facebook, along with a photo of what was found in the truck.

"My friends pointed out, 'This is a hate crime,' " Regina Simon recalled. "We started looking at each other like, 'Holy cow, we’re the victims of a hate crime.' "

Unbeknownst to the Simons, nooses were popping up across town that summer, before they found theirs.

On June 22, 2020, prosecutors allege, Pilon had left a noose in the parking lot of a Saginaw Goodwill store, with the same note attached.

On July 4, 2020, another noose was left inside a beverage cooler at a Saginaw 7-Eleven store.

On July 17, 2020, came two more nooses. One in a Kroger parking lot. The other in a Walmart parking lot, which was discovered next to a cart corral by the Simons.

"We then we thought we were being followed," Simon recalled.

Simon remembers thinking how grateful she was that Walmart had security cameras, so no one could accuse her and her husband of making up the second noose story.

All of it, she said, was so upsetting.

"It was like a numbness," she recalled, "that this person hated us so much that they would come to the front door."

The Simons believe that whoever put the noose in their truck had seen them sitting on their front lawn with their puppy that day in their BLM T-shirts, and then followed them in the coming days.

"He was bringing hate to my front door, and that really bothered us," Simon said. "We’re not hateful people. That really shook me right there. If you're bringing hate to my front door we're the kind of people who are gonna love you back."

After discovering the second noose, the Simons held a BLM rally at their home, where neighbors, activists and state leaders came to show their support for the couple and marched around the neighborhood.

Regina Simon, who is a social worker and therapist, said she does not want Pilon to go to prison. Instead, she is hoping that, if he's convicted, a judge orders him to do 40 hours of therapy with her.

"I’m curious as to where does this hate come from?" Simon said, adding she believes that Pilon is "a scared person."

"People who do this are very insecure and scared," Simon said. "And when they get so loud, that shows just how big their fear is."

When the noose was first discovered, Simon said she and her husband thought it was someone close in the neighborhood. That's why they held a protest at their home and then marched down the street, she said, "to shame him in the neighborhood."

Now that a suspect has been charged, Simon said she wants to use the incident as a learning experience to help dissect hate, and get rid of it.

"People who have hate — there's something missing in their lives. And that’s what I would want to figure out by talking with him," she said. "Where does this come from, why? ... It’s not just punish and shame, let’s talk about it."

Regina Simon said her husband, however, wants Pilon behind bars.

"He wants the max," she said. "He takes it a bit more personal than I do."

Donald Simon, said he was surprised to learn that the noose crime amounted to a misdemeanor, noting he figured it would be a felony. Like his wife, he wants Pilon to get therapy, but he also wants him to do some jail time.

"He terrorized the community," said Donald Simon, who believes Pilon can change and that "everybody's fixable."

For now, the couple is grateful that the FBI came through.

"They kept their word," Regina Simon said. "They did more work than I thought. ... For them to chase all that information down is awesome police work."

Meanwhile, Donald Simon said he's not angry anymore. His family is closer than it ever was, in part due to this incident, he said. And he got see how much his community supported him and his family.

"I lived and went through it, and I'm better for it," Simon said of the incident, noting he still believes "there are more good people than bad people."

Pilon is charged with six counts of interfering with federally protected activities — a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison and fines. He has not yet been arraigned, nor is he in police custody.

The Free Press could not reach him or his lawyer for comment.

Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Biracial Saginaw couple waited 2 years for answers in noose incident