December 12, 2023 • 41 mins
Are you ready to take a walk on the dark side? Join me, J.K. Richards, as I guide you through the chilling tale of the Sims family slaying and explore the shadowy depths of true human depravity. Embark on an eerie journey of a multi-murder case that forever altered the innocent city of Tallahassee and left a profound impact on Florida State and the entire nation. We unearth the tragic story of the Sims family, scrutinize the crime scene, and shed light on the baffling blunders that marred its investigation.
Brace yourself as we navigate the dark alleyways of a flawed justice system. Discover how the botched handling of the Sims crime scene could have potentially manipulated the case's outcome. We delve into the significance of proper crime scene procedures, guided by the United States Department of Justice's own guidelines, proper evidence handling, drawing parallels to the infamous OJ Simpson trial.
As the narrative unfolds, a sinister connection to the Sims family surfaces. Pastor, Dr. C.A. Roberts, becomes a figure of interest. With Mrs. Sims' resignation from the church just days before the murder and rumors of Dr. Roberts's affairs, we find ourselves on a trail that could potentially lead us to the killer, or killers. So, buckle up and join me as we unravel the shocking details and dark secrets related to the Sims family slaying.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I am JK Richards, the founder, creator and host of
your beloved True Crime series,where we treat crimes seriously
as your mysterious, murderousand macabre podcast In the past
and still to this day.
I am a criminal defenseattorney, where I view, assess,
investigate, analyze andreassess evidence again and
again.
If you are one looking for truestories of mystery, intrigue,
(00:49):
vice, corruption, may himviolent malevolence, jealousy,
greed, assault, insult, murderand the macabre, well, you are
in the right place.
Again, I am your host, jkRichards.
(01:10):
Thank you so much for beinghere.
It means a lot to me personally.
I love entertaining othersthat's you with my unique
perspective, and I loveeducating you along the way
about how investigations work,how they should work and how the
law and legal processintertwines with true crime.
I think it's a uniqueperspective and I hope you do
too.
I would like to make a verygenuine and sincere request here
(01:33):
that, as you listen to thispodcast, and especially if you
are at home or work or are apassenger in a vehicle with
someone else driving, to takejust a few moments and leave a
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It may be an unattainable goal,but I am striving to put out
content that you will like somuch that I can maintain the
(01:56):
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I didn't expect that, but Iwould like to maintain it and
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I'm working on some new thingswith regard to that and more
(02:19):
information will be coming Withall of that said, I'm reminding
only once more to please goleave a five-star review on
Apple Podcasts if you like mywork.
We're on to our story In this,the fourth episode of the Triple
M Podcast, mystery, murder andthe Macabre.
(02:41):
We first find ourselves inTallahassee, florida, in 1966.
But this case spans decades andwe'll be taking a look into all
of it.
This is the case that causedthe loss of innocence for
Florida State and possibly forthe entirety of the United
States.
This is the infamous case ofthe Sims family slaying.
(03:02):
I would like to start and Ithink it's most appropriate
because of the heinousness ofthis case by introducing the
family.
First, we have beautiful HelenSolly Sims.
She originally was fromMeridian Mississippi.
She was born in 1932, and shewas 34 years old when this case
took place.
She was the secretary andassistant to the renowned head
(03:25):
pastor at the first BaptistChurch in Tallahassee, florida,
dr CA Roberts, which stood forCecil Albert.
Back then, men quite frequentlyused their first and middle
initials Instead of a first name.
Helen was a masterful pianist.
People would come out of theiroffices during their breaks at
(03:46):
the church just to listen toHelen Sims play the piano
meticulously, melodiously,beautifully.
Next we have Robert Wilson Sims, phd.
He also was from MeridianMississippi.
He was born in 1924, and he was42 years old at the time of
this case.
Robert Sims was the IT head,yep information technology Back
(04:12):
in 1966, surprising right.
He was the IT head at FloridaState Department of Education,
in other words, helping theentirety of the state of Florida
bring computers into education.
He was known and respected atthe highest levels of government
in Florida State.
Next we have Jenny Sims, who is17.
Judy Sims, who is 16.
(04:34):
And Joy Sims, who is 12.
Jenny and Judy, who again were17 and 16 respectively, were
enrolled in Leon High School andJoy was enrolled at the Raw
Middle School.
You'll hear more about thesegirls and about the entire
family and their tragedy.
(05:07):
So it's the evening of October22, 1966.
And I want to give some contextto this time period.
Just 12 days earlier, onOctober 10, 1966, the Beach Boys
released their iconic singleGood Vibrations.
We've all heard it a milliontimes, love it.
On October 13, 1966, usaircraft bombed North Vietnam.
(05:29):
On October 19, 1966, the USSRand for those of you who don't
know what that is, that's modernday Russia.
The USSR performs nuclear testsat Eastern Kazakh Semipalat Inc
.
And on our day, october 22,1966, the USSR launched Luna 12
(05:50):
for orbit around the moon andthe musical group four tops song
Reach Out I'll Be there also, agreat song hit number one
simultaneously in both theUnited States and Britain
Alright.
Next I want to give you somecontext about Tallahassee,
florida, at this time, based onlooking at a map which may not
be totally accurate.
(06:11):
Yes, maps are often notaccurate to shape due to taking
a spherical geography andperfectly flattening it.
Also, map makers possibly liketo make maps look slightly more
aesthetically pleasing than thereal shapes of the geography
would look to the human eye.
Anyway, based on looking at amap, and if you encased Florida
state inside a perfect squarefrom east to west.
(06:34):
Tallahassee is nearly in themiddle again from east to west,
and it is very near thenorthernmost border of Florida.
Tallahassee is nearly on aperfect east-west line along the
southern coast of the UnitedStates, from Baton Rouge,
louisiana, to Tallahassee.
So you'd have to remember thatFlorida is a big state and
(06:57):
Tallahassee probably doesn'tlook like and doesn't have the
characteristics of what mostpeople think of when they think
of Florida state.
In my opinion, in my view, mostpeople tend to think of what
they saw in TV and movies inMiami and apply that to Florida,
kind of generally speaking.
That's not Tallahassee.
(07:18):
Tallahassee is way north.
So in 1960, the United StatesCensus says that Tallahassee had
a population of 48,174residents.
Tallahassee is a small town.
It's very safe.
It's a very cozy, safe andsecure feeling place to live and
(07:38):
you'll hear more about thatlater on in this episode.
Tallahassee is the capital cityof Florida state, which many,
many people don't know.
Most of people assume that oneof the more flashy or larger
cities in Florida would be thecapital, but that's not the case
and it makes sense in thisstory that Tallahassee is the
(08:00):
capital because, as I said,robert Sooms is the head of
information technology for thegovernment of Florida state
within the Department ofEducation.
So he works in the capital city.
That makes sense.
And finally, tallahassee is thehome of Florida State
University, the Florida StateSeminoles.
Well, since 1947 anyway, justafter it was reorganized from a
(08:23):
women's only college to a coedinstitution, the name, the
Seminoles, was selected througha fan competition.
Interestingly, there arereports that the newly
established men's football teamRemember just prior to this it
was a women's only college, likethe moniker of the Seminoles,
so much that they stuffed theballot box to ensure that it
(08:45):
would win.
So I now think that you haveenough background about
Tallahassee as a city to trulyjump into this.
Now it's 11pm on October 22nd1966.
Again, we're in Tallahassee.
The Florida State Seminolesfootball game has just gotten
over.
Jenny Sims returns home frombabysitting for another family,
(09:08):
presumably who had gone to thegame.
Jenny comes into the house.
She goes to her bedroom, placessome of her personal items
there.
The TV is on in the living room.
She can hear a radio on in herparents' room, but the house is
eerily quiet.
The normal hustling bustleisn't going on.
Her parents and her youngestsister, joy, had stayed home for
(09:29):
the evening and had beenlistening to the football game
or at least Robert Sims had beenlistening to the football game
in the bedroom on the radio.
As Jenny walked around thehouse, she couldn't understand
why the TV was on in the livingroom.
No one was anywhere to be found.
She also noticed coffee cups onthe floor in the living room
where the TV was on.
Jenny walks around the entirehouse confused and, I imagine,
(09:53):
afraid.
Remember she's a 17 year oldgirl in 1966.
She's not a 17 year old in 2023.
This is 1966.
It's a totally different era.
Kids used to actually be kidsback then.
Have you ever had an experiencewhere you go somewhere and, for
(10:15):
some unknown reason, it justfeels off, it just feels wrong?
And I'm talking about a placethat's normally safe, normally a
safe haven, a respite from theworld.
But you go there.
Maybe the lights are off, maybeit's dark.
You're in a dark hallway andyou just feel like something's
there, something's watching you,something's ready to pounce.
(10:38):
The hair on the back of yourneck stands up, your body, for
no knowing or logical reason,goes into fight or flight mode,
but there's nothing to fight orto fly from.
I imagine this is somewhat thetype of emotions that Jenny Sims
was experiencing.
(10:59):
Something was off in her home,this normally safe place.
She expected the usual hustleand bustle of her little 12 year
old sister and her mother andfather discussing the football
game and probably asking how thebabysitting job went.
I believe that Jenny knewsomething was very, very wrong
(11:22):
and finally she decided tosearch her parents' bedroom.
Now, for those of you who areyounger, you probably don't
understand, the parental bedroomused to be much more of a
private, much more of a sacredplace, if you will.
Growing up, I never went intomy parents' bedroom, except on
(11:42):
special occasions or for certainpurposes, and I can certainly
tell you that I basically never,ever, went into my
grandparents' bedroom, and theywere of the generation who would
have been parents at the timethat this case took place.
Jenny wouldn't have wanted tocheck her parents' bedroom, but
(12:03):
it's the last place that shecould check, and so she entered.
What Jenny Sims found in herparents' bedroom was straight
out of the nightmares of everychild ever.
Her mother, her father, herlittle sister, who again is only
12 years old, are all bound,gagged and lying on her parents'
(12:29):
bedroom floor.
Her father is shot and gaspingfor breath and barely being able
to breathe.
Her mother is shot and stabbed,shot multiple times, once in
her knee, once in her head.
And her little sister, herinnocent, beautiful little
sister, joy who by all accountswas in fact a Joy was stabbed
(12:53):
seven times and her pants andunderwear were pulled down
around her ankles.
And this is where I have togive you, because of the context
of this case, a very scaryhistory lesson.
I have emphasized several timesalready that this is 1966.
(13:14):
The Devil's in the Details.
Ladies and gentlemen, now, in asituation like this, if you
found yourself in a situationlike this, ask yourself the
question what would your firstaction be?
What would you do?
And now the history lesson.
With that question in mind, in1966, the National Academy of
(13:41):
Sciences published a reporttitled Accidental Death and
Disability the Neglected Diseaseof Modern Society.
It was a landmark report incertain circles in the United
States.
It highlighted how accidentaldeath and injury, especially for
motor vehicles, had become anepidemic in the United States.
The report urged a series ofseveral different steps that
(14:05):
reportedly were necessary toreduce unnecessary and avoidable
death and disability.
So think for a moment In a timeof crisis, like Jenny Sims
walking into her parents'bedroom and finding her mother,
her father and her young12-year-old sister shot, stabbed
and dying or dead.
What would you do?
(14:25):
What would you need and whatwould you want?
In that moment?
You would need help.
Jenny needed, and if you werein her place you would have
acted to call 911.
But, as I've said, it's 1966.
The report that I mentioned waspublished that same year, in
1966, and I will give you oneguess as to what one of the key
(14:49):
demands of the report was theestablishment of 911.
911 didn't exist At this time.
The first 911 call was placedon February 16, 1968, in
Halleville, alabama.
So who should Jenny call?
Where should she get help from?
The answer will surprise you.
(15:09):
I have to give it to Jenny Simsbecause, from what I can tell,
she must have been an extremelybright, smart young girl and,
from my research, in fact, bothshe and her younger sister, Judy
, who was 16, were NationalHonor Society students and were
known in their school again atLeon High School, for being
(15:32):
among the smartest in theirclass.
Likewise Joy, who was 12, alsoknown for being highly
intelligent.
The whole family.
Now, I say this about Jennyright now at this point, because
of what Jenny did, which Ithink many people would not have
done or would not have known todo.
She didn't run out of her houseto a neighbor's house to get
(15:52):
help.
In other words, she didn't gosomewhere to get somebody that
probably couldn't help.
Instead, she pulled out thephone book.
This blows my mind away.
But she pulls out the phonebook, she looks up the phone
number for the Beavis familymortuary.
You see, back then hospitalsand healthcare companies didn't
run ambulances.
(16:12):
Ambulances and transportationto hospitals from your home were
provided by funeral homes, andI have to believe that they were
at least somewhat trained inmedical care, or at least CPR in
relation to transportation ofcritical patients.
Now, I don't think that theyhad the kind of training that
paramedics have today, not by along shot.
(16:35):
In any case, jenny Sims had thepresence of mind, upon seeing
her mother, her father and hersister stabbed, shot and dying,
to pull out the phone book andcall the mortuary.
Then she ran to a neighbor'shouse and asked for help,
screaming and frantic, as I'msure any of us would have been
if we were in her place.
(16:55):
Odd as it may seem, mr Beavisand his son were the first on
scene.
The next door neighbor andJenny were second.
My best guess on this is thatthis relates to everything
having sunk into Jenny's mindthe images that she's seen.
Just imagine you would be inshock.
(17:16):
At first you probably wouldn'treact that much, you would just
be stunned.
But more and more as therealization of the situation
sunk in, more and more emotionwould take over.
So I imagine that Jennyprobably became hard to
understand and very frantic whenspeaking to the neighbor.
So Mr Beavis and his teenage sonarrive, they go into the house
(17:40):
and this really is when theinvestigation starts.
Only because of their trainingand their knowledge in the
funeral home business, theBeavis's don't disturb the scene
of the crime at all, but theydo, methodically make their way
to the bedroom.
They find the family and Mr andMrs Sims are actually both
still breathing at this point.
But Joy, unfortunately, isclearly dead, having been robbed
(18:04):
of her youth, her potential,her innocence, by her seven stab
wounds.
I can only imagine the horrorand the fright that a young,
innocent, little 12-year-oldgirl, especially who came from
an idyllic home, wouldexperience from this type of
passing from this life.
And the reason I think about it, despite its unpleasantness, is
(18:27):
that I believe that Joy, aswell as her mom, her dad and her
two surviving sisters deserveme, deserve us, to remember her,
and I think that's part of theheart of what's the point of
true crime.
Is it only entertainment?
I would like to think that abig part of the point of true
crime and the human interest intrue crime is that it gives us
(18:49):
insight into the horrors andtraumas of others, which we then
can maybe use to prevent suchthings from happening again in
the future, or at least reducingthem.
One of the first things that theBeavis' tried to do or do-do
upon finding Mother, father andJoy in the bedroom, that sounded
(19:10):
too much like a game of clue.
Anyway, one of the first thingsthey do is they take action to
unbind the three of them, and tothis end, mr Beavis instructs
his son to go into the kitchenand get a knife so that they can
cut the bindings on all threeof them.
No sooner does Mr Beavis' sonleave the bedroom to follow his
(19:34):
father's instruction.
According to Mr Beavis himself,it dawned on him for the first
time that possibly the killercould still be in the house, and
he becomes fearful for his son.
Now, I wish I knew, but I wasnot able to find any reports
that indicated whether or not MrBeavis rushed after his son.
Everything I did find simplyindicated that the son did come
(19:55):
back with a knife.
Now, this is an odd thing to me.
The Beavis' intentionally atleast that's what the reports
seem to indicate did not disturbthe scene of the crime, but
they are going to unbind thesepeople, and that might seem
callous for me, because youwould unbind somebody who's
still alive.
But all the accounts, otherstories I read about this crime,
(20:18):
and the reports seem toindicate that Robert Sims passed
away very, very shortly afterthe Beavis' came into the
bedroom, and Mrs Sims wascompletely unconscious.
In fact, I don't think she everregained consciousness.
So her bindings weren'tprobably the most important
(20:39):
issue at the moment, andespecially prior to law
enforcement being able to seethe scene.
Regardless, the Beavis' didunbind all three of them.
Okay, so we're at about 20minutes now and I need an
emotional shift.
And I'm actually in a perfectspot to tell you about another
(21:02):
interesting little fact of thiscase, which is, ironically, that
the first law enforcementofficer who responds to the
scene his name's Larry Campbell.
It's his birthday today andwhen he was called out to the
scene he was actually headed tohis birthday party.
He was turning 24.
Originally, the call regardingthis case came into police as a
(21:25):
car fatality.
Based on this, campbellactually asked if some other
officer could take the call.
Again, he was going to hisbirthday party.
But then the call was changedto a multi-person car fatality.
And then, while he was on routeto the call, a signal 5 went
out, meaning that it was amurder.
And no, the happy music rightnow does not mean I'm happy
(21:46):
about it being a murder.
Rather, the music is indicativeof the stupidity that ensued.
I hate stupidity and yet by farit's the one thing that keeps
me and all attorneys employed.
The next thing that happened inthis case was a pissing match.
You see, officer Larry Campbellwas with the sheriff's
(22:09):
department.
Well, the city police showed upshortly after Larry Campbell
showed up and had beguninvestigating the scene and
making phone calls.
And city police wanted to takethe investigation over.
And the county sheriff?
Well, I don't know exactly whathe said, but he basically told
them to go fluff themselves.
Yes, I substituted a word there.
(22:31):
Now, given the outcome of thiscase, which I'm not going to
spoil for you right now, I dowonder if the pissing match that
took place played anysignificant part in where this
case eventually got to.
Again, not going to spoil itfor you right now so Deputy
(22:57):
Campbell is at the house andinitiates his investigation.
He calls the sheriff and alsothe chief of detectives, jack
Dawkins, and again, that'sreally when the pissing match
kicked off.
But moving past the pissingmatch, so at this point forward
again, we're still at the verybeginning of Deputy Campbell
(23:18):
arriving and then, shortly afterthat city police arriving, the
crime scene was absolutelytrampled by many, many law
enforcement officers going in,coming out, going in, coming out
.
It's quite clear from therecord and from many reports
that officers just were notgiving any credence or attention
(23:40):
to proper crime scene handlingprotocols and in fact, some
officers and it seemed to beofficers from the city police,
though I don't know that forcertain some officers put on a
pot of coffee inside the crimescene, inside the home, because
they figured it was going to bea long night as they
investigated this multiplehomicide.
(24:02):
I just dumb people, I don'tknow.
Okay, so question for all ofyou, with all of the criminal TV
shows and movies and true crimepodcasts that all of you have
watched, listened to, possiblyeven taken part in either
because, well, maybe you were adefendant in a case or maybe you
were a victim or a witness in acriminal case.
(24:25):
Have you ever actually beentaught what is correct procedure
and protocol in criminalinvestigations?
Yes, to a degree.
There is a lot of common senseto it, but I'm guessing that
you've just passively watchedthings that have been presented
to you in the past and that youdon't actually know.
Well, we're going to go overthat.
(24:46):
If you've ever served on a juryor sat through the entirety of a
criminal case in court whichyou would actually not be
allowed to do if you're awitness, witnesses usually are
kept separate and apart from theproceedings so they can't hear
what other witnesses havetestified to.
This is called and referred toas sequestering witnesses, and
(25:07):
this is done in just about everycase.
It's just not fair, right orproper procedure for any witness
to hear what any other witnesshas testified to.
If it were, otherwise,witnesses would be able to
change their story or theirversion of facts to match what
other witnesses had testified to.
So, again, if you've everserved as a juror or just gone
(25:27):
and watched the entirety of acriminal trial, you will have
watched and witnessed theprocess that the prosecution
always has to go through whenlaw enforcement officers of any
type testify, in that theprosecutors have to establish
the credibility, the knowledge,the background, the training of
law enforcement officers.
(25:47):
And, in fact and I suppose somepeople wouldn't know this, but
law enforcement officers, policeofficers regularly receive
continuing training in theirprofession of law enforcement.
Now, cops often, when they'retalking to criminals, like to
say things like I'm just a dumbcop to make the defendant or
potential defendant fill at easeabout speaking freely.
(26:09):
But the fact of the matter is,if you're talking to a police
officer or law enforcementofficer, you're talking to a
trained individual who, amongother things, is trained in
interrogation, investigation andfact gathering with regard to
crime or potential crime.
And in fact, this is anotheramong many reasons and I talked
about this in the prior case inepisodes one through three that
(26:32):
criminal defense attorneys tellpeople always across the board
don't talk to the police, thatreason being they're trained and
you're not.
Now the point that I want todrive at here is that police,
law enforcement, all cops, alllaw enforcement officers are
trained about how to conductinvestigations and yet in this
case, the city police officersshow up.
(26:54):
They want to take over theinvestigation.
I don't know if this was partof their strategy, but they
basically set up shop inside thehouse and use materials inside
the house to throw on a pot ofcoffee inside the crime scene,
and those were trained officers.
Now I want to be clear.
I am not holding policeofficers and law enforcement
officers to a perfect standard.
(27:17):
Law enforcement officers arehumans.
All humans make mistakes.
That includes judges, thatincludes lawyers, that includes
people on juries, and we allknow perfectly well that
perfectly innocent people getconvicted of crimes all the time
.
If you doubt that, go do theresearch.
That's unarguable.
Dna has proven that with regardto capital cases and cases
(27:40):
where people have been on deathrow wrongly for decades.
So, in relation to the trainingand the body of information and
education that police officersand law enforcement officers
have, and that they are providedintentionally through their
profession, I am going toreference a document that is
(28:01):
authored and published by theUnited States Department of
Justice called Crime SceneInvestigation a Guide for Law
Enforcement.
So this is law enforcement'splaybook, the prosecution's
playbook, at the level ofcriminal proceedings, of the
investigation.
Once you get past all of theintroductory stuff and
acknowledgments and into thesubstance of this report.
(28:23):
The table of contents in and ofitself is quite telling about
how criminal investigationsshould be handled and conducted,
again per law enforcement's,per the prosecution's own
playbook.
The what I am referring to asthe substantive sections of this
guide includes Section AArriving at the Scene Initial
(28:46):
Response, prioritization ofEfforts.
Section B PreliminaryDocumentation and Evaluation of
the Scene.
Section C Processing the Scene,which, under that point two
below Section C, isContamination Control.
Section D Completing andRecording the Crime Scene
Investigation.
And Section E Crime SceneEquipment.
Now what I really want to talkabout is something that every
(29:11):
single one of you has heardabout in the past, and that is
Chain of Custody and the issuesrelated to Chain of Custody In
this report under primarySection A, point 1, the
procedure that's given in thistraining guidance manual for law
enforcement.
The procedure states again in A1, approach the scene cautiously.
(29:31):
Scan the entire area tothoroughly assess the scene and
note any possible secondarycrime scenes.
Be aware of any persons andvehicles in the vicinity that
may be related to the crime.
Remain alert and attentive.
Assume the crime is ongoinguntil determined to be otherwise
.
Treat the location as a crimescene until assessed and
(29:53):
determined to be otherwise.
My point here is that all lawenforcement officers know you
don't throw on a pot of coffeeinside the crime scene.
There is a lot of documentationthat absolutely must be made and
maintained to maintain theintegrity of an investigation.
Every article, every item,everything that is observed or
(30:15):
observable, that is within thecrime scene or within a crime
scene, has the potential tobeing an item directly related
to the crime or the allegedcrime that occurred.
That's a fancy way of saying.
We don't know, when we walkinto a crime scene, what all was
used, what implements, whatthings were used to carry out
the crime or the alleged crime,and we don't even know the full
(30:37):
extent of what all crimesoccurred, which is why, very
common sensically, just as thebeavuses did, you can't walk
into a crime scene and startgrabbing things and using them
for your own personal purposes.
And with regard to chain ofcustody and the documentation
that I mentioned just a momentago, that is absolutely
necessary.
At a future prosecution, theprosecuting attorney or
(30:58):
attorneys have to be able toprove that the evidence was
legally collected prior to trialand that's a decision that the
judge makes and at trial, theprosecution has to prove beyond
a reasonable doubt to the jurythat this evidence says what the
prosecution is claiming that itsays in the overall story of
the case, in other words, thestory that the prosecution is
(31:21):
trying to or wants the jury tobelieve is the truth.
So, if you count what I justsaid, there are multiple
different, completely separateand distinct times or instances
where prosecuting attorneys haveto be able to, at a legal level
, keep their evidence in thecase.
If the evidence was illegallyobtained or if it has other
(31:43):
problems and I'll speak aboutthat here in a moment the judge
can throw that evidence out longbefore we even get close to a
trial.
Then at trial, if a defenseattorney is able to show that
law enforcement didn't documentcan't prove who had what
evidence when, how it wascollected, who collected it,
where it was put, where it wasput next, in other words, the
chain of custody.
(32:04):
That's why we refer to it asthe chain of custody, because no
one officer picks up a piece ofevidence and continues holding
that piece of evidence until thecase goes to trial.
Every piece of evidence ishandled, rehandled, handled
again, over and over and over,and we need to ensure that
things are not added to or takenaway from that evidence,
(32:25):
thereby preserving the integrityof the investigation that was
conducted.
So, to make this point, I wantyou to all think about the OJ
Simpson trial, right?
So this is the trial of thecentury and a case that almost
certainly all of you are verywell versed in or familiar with
to a degree.
So I want you to think aboutthe catch phrase that was used
(32:47):
by the defense attorneydelivering closing arguments on
behalf of OJ Simpson, which wonOJ Simpson the trial.
What was that phrase?
If the glove doesn't fit, youmust acquit.
Here's a little known factother than the fact that this is
mentioned in documentariesabout the OJ Simpson trial.
Marsha Clark, who was theprimary first chair prosecutor,
(33:11):
absolutely was set on and wantedto have OJ Simpson try on the
glove.
And that's pretty obviousbecause OJ in fact did try on
the glove at the prosecution'sinsistence.
But what's not readily known bymost people is that the second
chair attorney prosecutor, whointerestingly was black like OJ
Simpson, was diametricallyopposed to the idea of asking or
(33:36):
requiring OJ Simpson to try onthe glove.
Well, being the boss, marciaClark got her way and OJ Simpson
was required to try on theglove and it didn't fit.
And you may or may not rememberor you may not have been alive
when the trial went on, butthere was a lot of commentary
and speculation as theinvestigation was going on and
(33:56):
as the trial was going on aboutwhether or not the glove had
potentially been planted intoevidence by police.
And then there was the wholedebacle with police officer
investigator Mark Furman, who itcame out during the
investigation and or duringtrial I can't remember that
essentially he was a racist orat least had made racist
comments that had been recorded,and those comments led credence
(34:19):
to the idea, or at least theconspiracy, that he and or other
officers may have been willingto plant evidence because of
their personal opinions andproclivities and views relating
to race.
So why am I talking about allof this with you?
It comes down to this, in myexperience the vast majority of
people now believe that OJSimpson is guilty of the murders
(34:43):
that he was accused of and thathe was acquitted of after trial
.
Why was he acquitted?
The glove and the comment.
If the glove doesn't fit, youmust acquit.
So here we have a situationwhere the vast majority of
people believe OJ Simpsoncommitted these murders, but he
was acquitted because evidencethat, among other problems with
the evidence had an unclearchain of custody.
(35:05):
There were questions aboutwhether or not the glove had
been planted.
Who collected that evidence,how was it collected?
Once that became an issue attrial, a prosecuting attorney
would want and need to provideevidence and testimony from
police officers about whoexactly collected that piece of
evidence, how they collected it,when they collected it.
(35:26):
And then they'd want to be ableto verify all of those what we
call wingnut facts againstemployment records, such as this
officer saying he or shecollected this evidence at this
place on this date at this time.
Well, were they on duty?
Are there other pieces ofinformation or facts that tend
to substantiate that or thattend to cut that evidence down?
(35:49):
And if you're a prosecutor andthere's a question there and you
find this question or thisissue before trial, then you're
going to steer away from that attrial.
And in the case of OJ Simpsonthey steered into that and it
lost them the case A few daysafter October 22, 1966,.
(36:13):
The funeral of all three is heldat the First Baptist Church in
Tallahassee, with head pastor DrCA Roberts presiding over the
funerals.
Now, up to this point I haven'ttalked about this much, but the
First Baptist Church was kindof the social hub for the Sims
family.
Mrs Sims worked as the personalassistant and secretary to head
(36:34):
pastor Dr CA Roberts.
She had a front row seat to allthe comings and goings within
the church and, in addition tothe church being her place of
vocation, it was also thefamily's primary social circle.
Had Robert Sims and Helen Simsbeen able to pick, in the end,
the location for their funeralsand who would preside over their
(36:57):
funerals, it's quite possiblethat they would not have
selected the First BaptistChurch and likewise would not
have selected head pastor Dr CARoberts to preside over their
funerals.
And this is because of a fairlydark twist in this case that
directly relates to Dr CARoberts.
Now, this dark twist is notjust dark but truly shocking and
(37:22):
totally unforeseeable, very odd.
I would be very surprised ifwhat happened next in this case
has ever happened in any othercase.
It's possible, but it's just sounique.
I would be surprised if I wereto find out that something
similar happened in any othercase.
So the murders take place,florida is devastated, the
(37:46):
United States is devastated, andI'll talk about that more in
subsequent episodes.
The funerals take place.
Dr Sims, mrs Sims and JoyceSims are laid to rest, meridian
Mississippi, where both Dr Simsand Helen Sims were both
originally from.
And, like I said, dr Sims wasvery highly regarded in the
(38:09):
state government of FloridaState and actually because of
that, the governor of Floridaoffered to the Sims family the
ability to use an airplane orhis personal airplane to
transport the bodies fromTallahassee, florida, to
Meridian Mississippi.
They end up not taking thegovernor up on that offer
because of fixtures in the planenot allowing for the caskets to
(38:31):
be able to be brought into theplane.
Finally, the dark twist Severaldays go by.
When the funeral is held, dr CARoberts officiates.
He was Mrs Helen Sims' boss andemployer, however not at the
time of her passing.
You see, mere days prior to theSims' home invasion attack and
(38:55):
the murder of Dr Sims, helenSims and Joyce Sims, helen had
quit her job at the churchsuddenly and to everyone's
surprise.
But this in and of itself isn'tnefarious, suspicious.
But what I'm going to tell younext is so bear in mind that Mrs
(39:16):
Sims, up until a couple of daysprior to her murder, worked at
the church and, with that inmind, consider how odd it would
have been to the police when,all of the sudden, after the
Sims family murder, dozens ofwomen who belonged to the
congregation of the firstBaptist church where Mrs Sims
worked and where Dr CA Robertsis the presiding pastor, start
(39:41):
calling the sheriff's office tospecifically and affirmatively
tell law enforcement that theyhad nothing to do with the Sims
family murders.
Well, that's very suspicious.
Woman after woman after woman,dozens of women call law
enforcement, all separate andindependent of each other, to
tell law enforcement that theyhad nothing to do with the Sims
(40:05):
family murders.
So, of course, law enforcementinvestigates this.
And, as it turns out, dr CARoberts was such a charismatic,
enchanting and entrancingindividual that he was having
affairs with dozens of women inhis congregation.
And, logically, once the Simsfamily murders occurred, each
(40:29):
one of these women grewconcerned that some theory along
the lines of a jealous lovercould possibly point back to
them.
And so, independently, all ofthese women called law
enforcement to make the samereport that they were not the
murderer.
Between this and the fact thatHelen Sims had quit just prior
to her murder, law enforcementturned their eye to Dr CA
(40:51):
Roberts, taking him frominterring pastor to primary
suspected perpetrator.
More on this and much more inepisode five.
I'm your host, jk Richards.
Thank you so much for beinghere with me today.
I hope you enjoyed yourself.
I know that I did Please staysafe out there and I hope to
(41:14):
never be telling your story.
I am JK Richards, the founder, creator and host of
your beloved True Crime series,where we treat crimes seriously
as your mysterious, murderousand macabre podcast In the past
and still to this day.
I am a criminal defenseattorney, where I view, assess,
investigate, analyze andreassess evidence again and
again.
If you are one looking for truestories of mystery, intrigue,
(00:49):
vice, corruption, may himviolent malevolence, jealousy,
greed, assault, insult, murderand the macabre, well, you are
in the right place.
Again, I am your host, jkRichards.
(01:10):
Thank you so much for beinghere.
It means a lot to me personally.
I love entertaining othersthat's you with my unique
perspective, and I loveeducating you along the way
about how investigations work,how they should work and how the
law and legal processintertwines with true crime.
I think it's a uniqueperspective and I hope you do
too.
I would like to make a verygenuine and sincere request here
(01:33):
that, as you listen to thispodcast, and especially if you
are at home or work or are apassenger in a vehicle with
someone else driving, to takejust a few moments and leave a
five-star review on ApplePodcasts, if you like my work.
It may be an unattainable goal,but I am striving to put out
content that you will like somuch that I can maintain the
(01:56):
all-five-star review that I'vebegun with.
I didn't expect that, but Iwould like to maintain it and
with your help, possibly I canAlso if you care to do so.
It would help us tremendouslyif you were willing to donate
just a few dollars each month tosupport this content and for
other charitable purposes thatI've mentioned in the past.
I'm working on some new thingswith regard to that and more
(02:19):
information will be coming Withall of that said, I'm reminding
only once more to please goleave a five-star review on
Apple Podcasts if you like mywork.
We're on to our story In this,the fourth episode of the Triple
M Podcast, mystery, murder andthe Macabre.
(02:41):
We first find ourselves inTallahassee, florida, in 1966.
But this case spans decades andwe'll be taking a look into all
of it.
This is the case that causedthe loss of innocence for
Florida State and possibly forthe entirety of the United
States.
This is the infamous case ofthe Sims family slaying.
(03:02):
I would like to start and Ithink it's most appropriate
because of the heinousness ofthis case by introducing the
family.
First, we have beautiful HelenSolly Sims.
She originally was fromMeridian Mississippi.
She was born in 1932, and shewas 34 years old when this case
took place.
She was the secretary andassistant to the renowned head
(03:25):
pastor at the first BaptistChurch in Tallahassee, florida,
dr CA Roberts, which stood forCecil Albert.
Back then, men quite frequentlyused their first and middle
initials Instead of a first name.
Helen was a masterful pianist.
People would come out of theiroffices during their breaks at
(03:46):
the church just to listen toHelen Sims play the piano
meticulously, melodiously,beautifully.
Next we have Robert Wilson Sims, phd.
He also was from MeridianMississippi.
He was born in 1924, and he was42 years old at the time of
this case.
Robert Sims was the IT head,yep information technology Back
(04:12):
in 1966, surprising right.
He was the IT head at FloridaState Department of Education,
in other words, helping theentirety of the state of Florida
bring computers into education.
He was known and respected atthe highest levels of government
in Florida State.
Next we have Jenny Sims, who is17.
Judy Sims, who is 16.
(04:34):
And Joy Sims, who is 12.
Jenny and Judy, who again were17 and 16 respectively, were
enrolled in Leon High School andJoy was enrolled at the Raw
Middle School.
You'll hear more about thesegirls and about the entire
family and their tragedy.
(05:07):
So it's the evening of October22, 1966.
And I want to give some contextto this time period.
Just 12 days earlier, onOctober 10, 1966, the Beach Boys
released their iconic singleGood Vibrations.
We've all heard it a milliontimes, love it.
On October 13, 1966, usaircraft bombed North Vietnam.
(05:29):
On October 19, 1966, the USSRand for those of you who don't
know what that is, that's modernday Russia.
The USSR performs nuclear testsat Eastern Kazakh Semipalat Inc
.
And on our day, october 22,1966, the USSR launched Luna 12
(05:50):
for orbit around the moon andthe musical group four tops song
Reach Out I'll Be there also, agreat song hit number one
simultaneously in both theUnited States and Britain
Alright.
Next I want to give you somecontext about Tallahassee,
florida, at this time, based onlooking at a map which may not
be totally accurate.
(06:11):
Yes, maps are often notaccurate to shape due to taking
a spherical geography andperfectly flattening it.
Also, map makers possibly liketo make maps look slightly more
aesthetically pleasing than thereal shapes of the geography
would look to the human eye.
Anyway, based on looking at amap, and if you encased Florida
state inside a perfect squarefrom east to west.
(06:34):
Tallahassee is nearly in themiddle again from east to west,
and it is very near thenorthernmost border of Florida.
Tallahassee is nearly on aperfect east-west line along the
southern coast of the UnitedStates, from Baton Rouge,
louisiana, to Tallahassee.
So you'd have to remember thatFlorida is a big state and
(06:57):
Tallahassee probably doesn'tlook like and doesn't have the
characteristics of what mostpeople think of when they think
of Florida state.
In my opinion, in my view, mostpeople tend to think of what
they saw in TV and movies inMiami and apply that to Florida,
kind of generally speaking.
That's not Tallahassee.
(07:18):
Tallahassee is way north.
So in 1960, the United StatesCensus says that Tallahassee had
a population of 48,174residents.
Tallahassee is a small town.
It's very safe.
It's a very cozy, safe andsecure feeling place to live and
(07:38):
you'll hear more about thatlater on in this episode.
Tallahassee is the capital cityof Florida state, which many,
many people don't know.
Most of people assume that oneof the more flashy or larger
cities in Florida would be thecapital, but that's not the case
and it makes sense in thisstory that Tallahassee is the
(08:00):
capital because, as I said,robert Sooms is the head of
information technology for thegovernment of Florida state
within the Department ofEducation.
So he works in the capital city.
That makes sense.
And finally, tallahassee is thehome of Florida State
University, the Florida StateSeminoles.
Well, since 1947 anyway, justafter it was reorganized from a
(08:23):
women's only college to a coedinstitution, the name, the
Seminoles, was selected througha fan competition.
Interestingly, there arereports that the newly
established men's football teamRemember just prior to this it
was a women's only college, likethe moniker of the Seminoles,
so much that they stuffed theballot box to ensure that it
(08:45):
would win.
So I now think that you haveenough background about
Tallahassee as a city to trulyjump into this.
Now it's 11pm on October 22nd1966.
Again, we're in Tallahassee.
The Florida State Seminolesfootball game has just gotten
over.
Jenny Sims returns home frombabysitting for another family,
(09:08):
presumably who had gone to thegame.
Jenny comes into the house.
She goes to her bedroom, placessome of her personal items
there.
The TV is on in the living room.
She can hear a radio on in herparents' room, but the house is
eerily quiet.
The normal hustling bustleisn't going on.
Her parents and her youngestsister, joy, had stayed home for
(09:29):
the evening and had beenlistening to the football game
or at least Robert Sims had beenlistening to the football game
in the bedroom on the radio.
As Jenny walked around thehouse, she couldn't understand
why the TV was on in the livingroom.
No one was anywhere to be found.
She also noticed coffee cups onthe floor in the living room
where the TV was on.
Jenny walks around the entirehouse confused and, I imagine,
(09:53):
afraid.
Remember she's a 17 year oldgirl in 1966.
She's not a 17 year old in 2023.
This is 1966.
It's a totally different era.
Kids used to actually be kidsback then.
Have you ever had an experiencewhere you go somewhere and, for
(10:15):
some unknown reason, it justfeels off, it just feels wrong?
And I'm talking about a placethat's normally safe, normally a
safe haven, a respite from theworld.
But you go there.
Maybe the lights are off, maybeit's dark.
You're in a dark hallway andyou just feel like something's
there, something's watching you,something's ready to pounce.
(10:38):
The hair on the back of yourneck stands up, your body, for
no knowing or logical reason,goes into fight or flight mode,
but there's nothing to fight orto fly from.
I imagine this is somewhat thetype of emotions that Jenny Sims
was experiencing.
(10:59):
Something was off in her home,this normally safe place.
She expected the usual hustleand bustle of her little 12 year
old sister and her mother andfather discussing the football
game and probably asking how thebabysitting job went.
I believe that Jenny knewsomething was very, very wrong
(11:22):
and finally she decided tosearch her parents' bedroom.
Now, for those of you who areyounger, you probably don't
understand, the parental bedroomused to be much more of a
private, much more of a sacredplace, if you will.
Growing up, I never went intomy parents' bedroom, except on
(11:42):
special occasions or for certainpurposes, and I can certainly
tell you that I basically never,ever, went into my
grandparents' bedroom, and theywere of the generation who would
have been parents at the timethat this case took place.
Jenny wouldn't have wanted tocheck her parents' bedroom, but
(12:03):
it's the last place that shecould check, and so she entered.
What Jenny Sims found in herparents' bedroom was straight
out of the nightmares of everychild ever.
Her mother, her father, herlittle sister, who again is only
12 years old, are all bound,gagged and lying on her parents'
(12:29):
bedroom floor.
Her father is shot and gaspingfor breath and barely being able
to breathe.
Her mother is shot and stabbed,shot multiple times, once in
her knee, once in her head.
And her little sister, herinnocent, beautiful little
sister, joy who by all accountswas in fact a Joy was stabbed
(12:53):
seven times and her pants andunderwear were pulled down
around her ankles.
And this is where I have togive you, because of the context
of this case, a very scaryhistory lesson.
I have emphasized several timesalready that this is 1966.
(13:14):
The Devil's in the Details.
Ladies and gentlemen, now, in asituation like this, if you
found yourself in a situationlike this, ask yourself the
question what would your firstaction be?
What would you do?
And now the history lesson.
With that question in mind, in1966, the National Academy of
(13:41):
Sciences published a reporttitled Accidental Death and
Disability the Neglected Diseaseof Modern Society.
It was a landmark report incertain circles in the United
States.
It highlighted how accidentaldeath and injury, especially for
motor vehicles, had become anepidemic in the United States.
The report urged a series ofseveral different steps that
(14:05):
reportedly were necessary toreduce unnecessary and avoidable
death and disability.
So think for a moment In a timeof crisis, like Jenny Sims
walking into her parents'bedroom and finding her mother,
her father and her young12-year-old sister shot, stabbed
and dying or dead.
What would you do?
(14:25):
What would you need and whatwould you want?
In that moment?
You would need help.
Jenny needed, and if you werein her place you would have
acted to call 911.
But, as I've said, it's 1966.
The report that I mentioned waspublished that same year, in
1966, and I will give you oneguess as to what one of the key
(14:49):
demands of the report was theestablishment of 911.
911 didn't exist At this time.
The first 911 call was placedon February 16, 1968, in
Halleville, alabama.
So who should Jenny call?
Where should she get help from?
The answer will surprise you.
(15:09):
I have to give it to Jenny Simsbecause, from what I can tell,
she must have been an extremelybright, smart young girl and,
from my research, in fact, bothshe and her younger sister, Judy
, who was 16, were NationalHonor Society students and were
known in their school again atLeon High School, for being
(15:32):
among the smartest in theirclass.
Likewise Joy, who was 12, alsoknown for being highly
intelligent.
The whole family.
Now, I say this about Jennyright now at this point, because
of what Jenny did, which Ithink many people would not have
done or would not have known todo.
She didn't run out of her houseto a neighbor's house to get
(15:52):
help.
In other words, she didn't gosomewhere to get somebody that
probably couldn't help.
Instead, she pulled out thephone book.
This blows my mind away.
But she pulls out the phonebook, she looks up the phone
number for the Beavis familymortuary.
You see, back then hospitalsand healthcare companies didn't
run ambulances.
(16:12):
Ambulances and transportationto hospitals from your home were
provided by funeral homes, andI have to believe that they were
at least somewhat trained inmedical care, or at least CPR in
relation to transportation ofcritical patients.
Now, I don't think that theyhad the kind of training that
paramedics have today, not by along shot.
(16:35):
In any case, jenny Sims had thepresence of mind, upon seeing
her mother, her father and hersister stabbed, shot and dying,
to pull out the phone book andcall the mortuary.
Then she ran to a neighbor'shouse and asked for help,
screaming and frantic, as I'msure any of us would have been
if we were in her place.
(16:55):
Odd as it may seem, mr Beavisand his son were the first on
scene.
The next door neighbor andJenny were second.
My best guess on this is thatthis relates to everything
having sunk into Jenny's mindthe images that she's seen.
Just imagine you would be inshock.
(17:16):
At first you probably wouldn'treact that much, you would just
be stunned.
But more and more as therealization of the situation
sunk in, more and more emotionwould take over.
So I imagine that Jennyprobably became hard to
understand and very frantic whenspeaking to the neighbor.
So Mr Beavis and his teenage sonarrive, they go into the house
(17:40):
and this really is when theinvestigation starts.
Only because of their trainingand their knowledge in the
funeral home business, theBeavis's don't disturb the scene
of the crime at all, but theydo, methodically make their way
to the bedroom.
They find the family and Mr andMrs Sims are actually both
still breathing at this point.
But Joy, unfortunately, isclearly dead, having been robbed
(18:04):
of her youth, her potential,her innocence, by her seven stab
wounds.
I can only imagine the horrorand the fright that a young,
innocent, little 12-year-oldgirl, especially who came from
an idyllic home, wouldexperience from this type of
passing from this life.
And the reason I think about it, despite its unpleasantness, is
(18:27):
that I believe that Joy, aswell as her mom, her dad and her
two surviving sisters deserveme, deserve us, to remember her,
and I think that's part of theheart of what's the point of
true crime.
Is it only entertainment?
I would like to think that abig part of the point of true
crime and the human interest intrue crime is that it gives us
(18:49):
insight into the horrors andtraumas of others, which we then
can maybe use to prevent suchthings from happening again in
the future, or at least reducingthem.
One of the first things that theBeavis' tried to do or do-do
upon finding Mother, father andJoy in the bedroom, that sounded
(19:10):
too much like a game of clue.
Anyway, one of the first thingsthey do is they take action to
unbind the three of them, and tothis end, mr Beavis instructs
his son to go into the kitchenand get a knife so that they can
cut the bindings on all threeof them.
No sooner does Mr Beavis' sonleave the bedroom to follow his
(19:34):
father's instruction.
According to Mr Beavis himself,it dawned on him for the first
time that possibly the killercould still be in the house, and
he becomes fearful for his son.
Now, I wish I knew, but I wasnot able to find any reports
that indicated whether or not MrBeavis rushed after his son.
Everything I did find simplyindicated that the son did come
(19:55):
back with a knife.
Now, this is an odd thing to me.
The Beavis' intentionally atleast that's what the reports
seem to indicate did not disturbthe scene of the crime, but
they are going to unbind thesepeople, and that might seem
callous for me, because youwould unbind somebody who's
still alive.
But all the accounts, otherstories I read about this crime,
(20:18):
and the reports seem toindicate that Robert Sims passed
away very, very shortly afterthe Beavis' came into the
bedroom, and Mrs Sims wascompletely unconscious.
In fact, I don't think she everregained consciousness.
So her bindings weren'tprobably the most important
(20:39):
issue at the moment, andespecially prior to law
enforcement being able to seethe scene.
Regardless, the Beavis' didunbind all three of them.
Okay, so we're at about 20minutes now and I need an
emotional shift.
And I'm actually in a perfectspot to tell you about another
(21:02):
interesting little fact of thiscase, which is, ironically, that
the first law enforcementofficer who responds to the
scene his name's Larry Campbell.
It's his birthday today andwhen he was called out to the
scene he was actually headed tohis birthday party.
He was turning 24.
Originally, the call regardingthis case came into police as a
(21:25):
car fatality.
Based on this, campbellactually asked if some other
officer could take the call.
Again, he was going to hisbirthday party.
But then the call was changedto a multi-person car fatality.
And then, while he was on routeto the call, a signal 5 went
out, meaning that it was amurder.
And no, the happy music rightnow does not mean I'm happy
(21:46):
about it being a murder.
Rather, the music is indicativeof the stupidity that ensued.
I hate stupidity and yet by farit's the one thing that keeps
me and all attorneys employed.
The next thing that happened inthis case was a pissing match.
You see, officer Larry Campbellwas with the sheriff's
(22:09):
department.
Well, the city police showed upshortly after Larry Campbell
showed up and had beguninvestigating the scene and
making phone calls.
And city police wanted to takethe investigation over.
And the county sheriff?
Well, I don't know exactly whathe said, but he basically told
them to go fluff themselves.
Yes, I substituted a word there.
(22:31):
Now, given the outcome of thiscase, which I'm not going to
spoil for you right now, I dowonder if the pissing match that
took place played anysignificant part in where this
case eventually got to.
Again, not going to spoil itfor you right now so Deputy
(22:57):
Campbell is at the house andinitiates his investigation.
He calls the sheriff and alsothe chief of detectives, jack
Dawkins, and again, that'sreally when the pissing match
kicked off.
But moving past the pissingmatch, so at this point forward
again, we're still at the verybeginning of Deputy Campbell
(23:18):
arriving and then, shortly afterthat city police arriving, the
crime scene was absolutelytrampled by many, many law
enforcement officers going in,coming out, going in, coming out
.
It's quite clear from therecord and from many reports
that officers just were notgiving any credence or attention
(23:40):
to proper crime scene handlingprotocols and in fact, some
officers and it seemed to beofficers from the city police,
though I don't know that forcertain some officers put on a
pot of coffee inside the crimescene, inside the home, because
they figured it was going to bea long night as they
investigated this multiplehomicide.
(24:02):
I just dumb people, I don'tknow.
Okay, so question for all ofyou, with all of the criminal TV
shows and movies and true crimepodcasts that all of you have
watched, listened to, possiblyeven taken part in either
because, well, maybe you were adefendant in a case or maybe you
were a victim or a witness in acriminal case.
(24:25):
Have you ever actually beentaught what is correct procedure
and protocol in criminalinvestigations?
Yes, to a degree.
There is a lot of common senseto it, but I'm guessing that
you've just passively watchedthings that have been presented
to you in the past and that youdon't actually know.
Well, we're going to go overthat.
(24:46):
If you've ever served on a juryor sat through the entirety of a
criminal case in court whichyou would actually not be
allowed to do if you're awitness, witnesses usually are
kept separate and apart from theproceedings so they can't hear
what other witnesses havetestified to.
This is called and referred toas sequestering witnesses, and
(25:07):
this is done in just about everycase.
It's just not fair, right orproper procedure for any witness
to hear what any other witnesshas testified to.
If it were, otherwise,witnesses would be able to
change their story or theirversion of facts to match what
other witnesses had testified to.
So, again, if you've everserved as a juror or just gone
(25:27):
and watched the entirety of acriminal trial, you will have
watched and witnessed theprocess that the prosecution
always has to go through whenlaw enforcement officers of any
type testify, in that theprosecutors have to establish
the credibility, the knowledge,the background, the training of
law enforcement officers.
(25:47):
And, in fact and I suppose somepeople wouldn't know this, but
law enforcement officers, policeofficers regularly receive
continuing training in theirprofession of law enforcement.
Now, cops often, when they'retalking to criminals, like to
say things like I'm just a dumbcop to make the defendant or
potential defendant fill at easeabout speaking freely.
(26:09):
But the fact of the matter is,if you're talking to a police
officer or law enforcementofficer, you're talking to a
trained individual who, amongother things, is trained in
interrogation, investigation andfact gathering with regard to
crime or potential crime.
And in fact, this is anotheramong many reasons and I talked
about this in the prior case inepisodes one through three that
(26:32):
criminal defense attorneys tellpeople always across the board
don't talk to the police, thatreason being they're trained and
you're not.
Now the point that I want todrive at here is that police,
law enforcement, all cops, alllaw enforcement officers are
trained about how to conductinvestigations and yet in this
case, the city police officersshow up.
(26:54):
They want to take over theinvestigation.
I don't know if this was partof their strategy, but they
basically set up shop inside thehouse and use materials inside
the house to throw on a pot ofcoffee inside the crime scene,
and those were trained officers.
Now I want to be clear.
I am not holding policeofficers and law enforcement
officers to a perfect standard.
(27:17):
Law enforcement officers arehumans.
All humans make mistakes.
That includes judges, thatincludes lawyers, that includes
people on juries, and we allknow perfectly well that
perfectly innocent people getconvicted of crimes all the time
.
If you doubt that, go do theresearch.
That's unarguable.
Dna has proven that with regardto capital cases and cases
(27:40):
where people have been on deathrow wrongly for decades.
So, in relation to the trainingand the body of information and
education that police officersand law enforcement officers
have, and that they are providedintentionally through their
profession, I am going toreference a document that is
(28:01):
authored and published by theUnited States Department of
Justice called Crime SceneInvestigation a Guide for Law
Enforcement.
So this is law enforcement'splaybook, the prosecution's
playbook, at the level ofcriminal proceedings, of the
investigation.
Once you get past all of theintroductory stuff and
acknowledgments and into thesubstance of this report.
(28:23):
The table of contents in and ofitself is quite telling about
how criminal investigationsshould be handled and conducted,
again per law enforcement's,per the prosecution's own
playbook.
The what I am referring to asthe substantive sections of this
guide includes Section AArriving at the Scene Initial
(28:46):
Response, prioritization ofEfforts.
Section B PreliminaryDocumentation and Evaluation of
the Scene.
Section C Processing the Scene,which, under that point two
below Section C, isContamination Control.
Section D Completing andRecording the Crime Scene
Investigation.
And Section E Crime SceneEquipment.
Now what I really want to talkabout is something that every
(29:11):
single one of you has heardabout in the past, and that is
Chain of Custody and the issuesrelated to Chain of Custody In
this report under primarySection A, point 1, the
procedure that's given in thistraining guidance manual for law
enforcement.
The procedure states again in A1, approach the scene cautiously.
(29:31):
Scan the entire area tothoroughly assess the scene and
note any possible secondarycrime scenes.
Be aware of any persons andvehicles in the vicinity that
may be related to the crime.
Remain alert and attentive.
Assume the crime is ongoinguntil determined to be otherwise
.
Treat the location as a crimescene until assessed and
(29:53):
determined to be otherwise.
My point here is that all lawenforcement officers know you
don't throw on a pot of coffeeinside the crime scene.
There is a lot of documentationthat absolutely must be made and
maintained to maintain theintegrity of an investigation.
Every article, every item,everything that is observed or
(30:15):
observable, that is within thecrime scene or within a crime
scene, has the potential tobeing an item directly related
to the crime or the allegedcrime that occurred.
That's a fancy way of saying.
We don't know, when we walkinto a crime scene, what all was
used, what implements, whatthings were used to carry out
the crime or the alleged crime,and we don't even know the full
(30:37):
extent of what all crimesoccurred, which is why, very
common sensically, just as thebeavuses did, you can't walk
into a crime scene and startgrabbing things and using them
for your own personal purposes.
And with regard to chain ofcustody and the documentation
that I mentioned just a momentago, that is absolutely
necessary.
At a future prosecution, theprosecuting attorney or
(30:58):
attorneys have to be able toprove that the evidence was
legally collected prior to trialand that's a decision that the
judge makes and at trial, theprosecution has to prove beyond
a reasonable doubt to the jurythat this evidence says what the
prosecution is claiming that itsays in the overall story of
the case, in other words, thestory that the prosecution is
(31:21):
trying to or wants the jury tobelieve is the truth.
So, if you count what I justsaid, there are multiple
different, completely separateand distinct times or instances
where prosecuting attorneys haveto be able to, at a legal level
, keep their evidence in thecase.
If the evidence was illegallyobtained or if it has other
(31:43):
problems and I'll speak aboutthat here in a moment the judge
can throw that evidence out longbefore we even get close to a
trial.
Then at trial, if a defenseattorney is able to show that
law enforcement didn't documentcan't prove who had what
evidence when, how it wascollected, who collected it,
where it was put, where it wasput next, in other words, the
chain of custody.
(32:04):
That's why we refer to it asthe chain of custody, because no
one officer picks up a piece ofevidence and continues holding
that piece of evidence until thecase goes to trial.
Every piece of evidence ishandled, rehandled, handled
again, over and over and over,and we need to ensure that
things are not added to or takenaway from that evidence,
(32:25):
thereby preserving the integrityof the investigation that was
conducted.
So, to make this point, I wantyou to all think about the OJ
Simpson trial, right?
So this is the trial of thecentury and a case that almost
certainly all of you are verywell versed in or familiar with
to a degree.
So I want you to think aboutthe catch phrase that was used
(32:47):
by the defense attorneydelivering closing arguments on
behalf of OJ Simpson, which wonOJ Simpson the trial.
What was that phrase?
If the glove doesn't fit, youmust acquit.
Here's a little known factother than the fact that this is
mentioned in documentariesabout the OJ Simpson trial.
Marsha Clark, who was theprimary first chair prosecutor,
(33:11):
absolutely was set on and wantedto have OJ Simpson try on the
glove.
And that's pretty obviousbecause OJ in fact did try on
the glove at the prosecution'sinsistence.
But what's not readily known bymost people is that the second
chair attorney prosecutor, whointerestingly was black like OJ
Simpson, was diametricallyopposed to the idea of asking or
(33:36):
requiring OJ Simpson to try onthe glove.
Well, being the boss, marciaClark got her way and OJ Simpson
was required to try on theglove and it didn't fit.
And you may or may not rememberor you may not have been alive
when the trial went on, butthere was a lot of commentary
and speculation as theinvestigation was going on and
(33:56):
as the trial was going on aboutwhether or not the glove had
potentially been planted intoevidence by police.
And then there was the wholedebacle with police officer
investigator Mark Furman, who itcame out during the
investigation and or duringtrial I can't remember that
essentially he was a racist orat least had made racist
comments that had been recorded,and those comments led credence
(34:19):
to the idea, or at least theconspiracy, that he and or other
officers may have been willingto plant evidence because of
their personal opinions andproclivities and views relating
to race.
So why am I talking about allof this with you?
It comes down to this, in myexperience the vast majority of
people now believe that OJSimpson is guilty of the murders
(34:43):
that he was accused of and thathe was acquitted of after trial
.
Why was he acquitted?
The glove and the comment.
If the glove doesn't fit, youmust acquit.
So here we have a situationwhere the vast majority of
people believe OJ Simpsoncommitted these murders, but he
was acquitted because evidencethat, among other problems with
the evidence had an unclearchain of custody.
(35:05):
There were questions aboutwhether or not the glove had
been planted.
Who collected that evidence,how was it collected?
Once that became an issue attrial, a prosecuting attorney
would want and need to provideevidence and testimony from
police officers about whoexactly collected that piece of
evidence, how they collected it,when they collected it.
(35:26):
And then they'd want to be ableto verify all of those what we
call wingnut facts againstemployment records, such as this
officer saying he or shecollected this evidence at this
place on this date at this time.
Well, were they on duty?
Are there other pieces ofinformation or facts that tend
to substantiate that or thattend to cut that evidence down?
(35:49):
And if you're a prosecutor andthere's a question there and you
find this question or thisissue before trial, then you're
going to steer away from that attrial.
And in the case of OJ Simpsonthey steered into that and it
lost them the case A few daysafter October 22, 1966,.
(36:13):
The funeral of all three is heldat the First Baptist Church in
Tallahassee, with head pastor DrCA Roberts presiding over the
funerals.
Now, up to this point I haven'ttalked about this much, but the
First Baptist Church was kindof the social hub for the Sims
family.
Mrs Sims worked as the personalassistant and secretary to head
(36:34):
pastor Dr CA Roberts.
She had a front row seat to allthe comings and goings within
the church and, in addition tothe church being her place of
vocation, it was also thefamily's primary social circle.
Had Robert Sims and Helen Simsbeen able to pick, in the end,
the location for their funeralsand who would preside over their
(36:57):
funerals, it's quite possiblethat they would not have
selected the First BaptistChurch and likewise would not
have selected head pastor Dr CARoberts to preside over their
funerals.
And this is because of a fairlydark twist in this case that
directly relates to Dr CARoberts.
Now, this dark twist is notjust dark but truly shocking and
(37:22):
totally unforeseeable, very odd.
I would be very surprised ifwhat happened next in this case
has ever happened in any othercase.
It's possible, but it's just sounique.
I would be surprised if I wereto find out that something
similar happened in any othercase.
So the murders take place,florida is devastated, the
(37:46):
United States is devastated, andI'll talk about that more in
subsequent episodes.
The funerals take place.
Dr Sims, mrs Sims and JoyceSims are laid to rest, meridian
Mississippi, where both Dr Simsand Helen Sims were both
originally from.
And, like I said, dr Sims wasvery highly regarded in the
(38:09):
state government of FloridaState and actually because of
that, the governor of Floridaoffered to the Sims family the
ability to use an airplane orhis personal airplane to
transport the bodies fromTallahassee, florida, to
Meridian Mississippi.
They end up not taking thegovernor up on that offer
because of fixtures in the planenot allowing for the caskets to
(38:31):
be able to be brought into theplane.
Finally, the dark twist Severaldays go by.
When the funeral is held, dr CARoberts officiates.
He was Mrs Helen Sims' boss andemployer, however not at the
time of her passing.
You see, mere days prior to theSims' home invasion attack and
(38:55):
the murder of Dr Sims, helenSims and Joyce Sims, helen had
quit her job at the churchsuddenly and to everyone's
surprise.
But this in and of itself isn'tnefarious, suspicious.
But what I'm going to tell younext is so bear in mind that Mrs
(39:16):
Sims, up until a couple of daysprior to her murder, worked at
the church and, with that inmind, consider how odd it would
have been to the police when,all of the sudden, after the
Sims family murder, dozens ofwomen who belonged to the
congregation of the firstBaptist church where Mrs Sims
worked and where Dr CA Robertsis the presiding pastor, start
(39:41):
calling the sheriff's office tospecifically and affirmatively
tell law enforcement that theyhad nothing to do with the Sims
family murders.
Well, that's very suspicious.
Woman after woman after woman,dozens of women call law
enforcement, all separate andindependent of each other, to
tell law enforcement that theyhad nothing to do with the Sims
(40:05):
family murders.
So, of course, law enforcementinvestigates this.
And, as it turns out, dr CARoberts was such a charismatic,
enchanting and entrancingindividual that he was having
affairs with dozens of women inhis congregation.
And, logically, once the Simsfamily murders occurred, each
(40:29):
one of these women grewconcerned that some theory along
the lines of a jealous lovercould possibly point back to
them.
And so, independently, all ofthese women called law
enforcement to make the samereport that they were not the
murderer.
Between this and the fact thatHelen Sims had quit just prior
to her murder, law enforcementturned their eye to Dr CA
(40:51):
Roberts, taking him frominterring pastor to primary
suspected perpetrator.
More on this and much more inepisode five.
I'm your host, jk Richards.
Thank you so much for beinghere with me today.
I hope you enjoyed yourself.
I know that I did Please staysafe out there and I hope to
(41:14):
never be telling your story.
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