Ep. 5 - The Sims Family Slaying, Part 2

Step into the shadow-laden narrative of Tallahassee's most haunting crime, as you and I traverse the complexities of the Sims Family Slaying. This episode extends beyond mere retelling to impart in-depth knowledge and analysis. As we wind our way down the crooked path of this perplexing and surprising case, the true horror and grimness of this case comes into focus, laying bare the true brutality and gruesomeness of this crime.

Prepare to confront the sinister underbelly of a seemingly tranquil Floridian town, where the gruesome details and mysterious suspects of the 1966 Sims murders come to the fore. As your guide, and as a criminal defense attorney, I scrutinize suspect profiles from the rage-filled to the coldly psychopathic, dissecting their potential mental states against the backdrop of the blood-soaked crime scene. Moreover, we reflect on the influence of new Supreme Court rulings that law enforcement points to, as excuse for their inability to investigate and solve this family-affair triple murder.

Together, we step through the looking glass to scrutinize societal repercussions and individual characters enshrouded in the aftermath of the Sims tragedy. Dr. C.A. Roberts, a man of supposed faith with a secret darkness, emerges at the epicenter of speculation and fear, as we contemplate his ties to this sinisterly evil case and potential associations with malevolent forces. Your engagement through reviews and donations empowers us to keep these critical stories at the forefront, ensuring that the quest for truth remains illuminated. Join me in piecing together this intricate puzzle, where the pursuit of justice transcends all other considerations.

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Episode Transcript

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 for being here.
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(01:32):
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(02:14):
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(02:38):
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(03:20):
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We're on to our story.
So this is part 2 of the SimsFamily Slaying, and before I
continue on with the story, Ihave a few corrections that I
need to issue.
This is that I stated inepisode 4, which was part 1 of

(03:41):
the Sims Family Slaying that infurther research I came to
conclude were wrong or incorrect, in whole or in part.
So first, helen Sims was shotonce in the leg and twice in the
head.
Not only once in the head, buttwice.
Joyce Sims was both shot andstabbed 7 times.

(04:02):
Joyce Sims was shot once Only.
On October 25th 1966, a fewdays after the killings, only a
double funeral, not a triplefuneral, for Robert Sims and
Joyce Sims took place.
Helen Sims was still fightingfor her life at that time.
Alright, next we need to do arecap on episode 4.
So the Sims Family is comprisedof Dr Robert Sims, 42 at this

(04:26):
time, mrs Helen Sims, who is 34,jenny Sims, who is 17, judy
Sims, who is 16, and Joy Sims,who is 12.
This case begins at about 11pmon October 22nd 1966.
The Florida State Seminolesfootball game had just concluded
at Florida State University inTallahassee, florida.
17-year-old Jenny arrives homefrom babysitting for another

(04:50):
family, presumably who hadattended the FSU football game.
The house is eerily quiet andshe searches around wondering
why the normal hustle and bustlein their house is not going on.
The last place she checks isher parents' bedroom, where she
finds her mother, her father andher little 12-year-old sister,
joy, all dead or dying.
Her father is shot and gaspingfor air, her mother is shot

(05:14):
three times, once in the kneeand twice in the head, and Joy
is stabbed 7 times.
Her pants and underwear arepulled down around her ankles
and she's shot once in the head.
Jenny calls the Beavis familymortuary, because back then
mortuaries provided ambulancetransportation to hospitals.
Jenny then runs to a neighbor'shouse to ask for help.
Mr Beavis and his young son,rocky, who is only slightly

(05:38):
older than Jenny, arrives at thehouse just before Jenny and the
neighbor arrive at the house.
The Beavis' are very carefulnot to disturb the crime scene,
and when the Beavis' arrive, joySims was clearly dead.
Robert Sims died immediatelybefore or after they arrived,
and Ms Helen Sims' condition wasgrave, unknown, but she was
still breathing.
Sheriff Deputy Larry Campbellis the first law enforcement

(06:00):
officer to arrive on scene.
It's his 24th birthday and hewas supposed to be at his own
birthday party at that time.
Deputy Campbell calls thesheriff and the chief of
detectives in Tallahassee, jackDawkins.
A pissing match then beginsbetween the sheriff, his office
and Jack Dawkins and theTallahassee City Police
Department regarding who hasjurisdiction over this crime.

(06:20):
The sheriff's office wins thatbattle.
During this pissing match, citypolice begin trampling the
crime scene, with officers evenputting on a pot of coffee
inside the crime scene withinthe Sims family home.
The sheriff and the sheriff'soffice ousts the PD and takes
over the investigation.
Several days after, october 22,1966, the funeral for Robert

(06:42):
Sims and Joy Sims is held at theFirst Baptist Church in
Tallahassee, with Pastor Dr CARoberts presiding over the
funeral.
Later, helen, robert and Joyare buried in Meridian
Mississippi, where both Helenand Robert were originally from.
Shortly after the funeral,dozens of women begin calling
into the sheriff's officeindependent of each other, with

(07:04):
all of them calling to state andto affirmatively tell law
enforcement that they hadnothing to do with the Sims
family murders.
This caused law enforcement toinvestigate why such an odd
occurrence was taking place and,as it turned out, pastor Dr CA
Roberts was such a charismaticperson, which we'll be talking
about more in this episode, thathe had been having affairs with

(07:25):
dozens of women in hiscongregation and these women
were afraid of coming undersuspicion under a theory of
being a scorned lover orsomething similar.
Now I'm going to come back toPastor CA Roberts here in a
little bit, but first I want toprovide greater detail on the
condition of Mr Sims, helen andJoy when the Beavis' and Jenny
and the neighbor arrive back atthe house on the night of the

(07:46):
murders.
So in researching for thisepisode I was able to find
several news articles fromnewspapers back in October of
1966, on the day of and shortlyafter the Sims Family murders,
that discussed the Sims Familymurders, and there are details
in there and interesting, eeriedescriptions of what was found

(08:08):
and by whom, and I've selectedspecific aspects and parts of
those news clippings that I'dlike to share with you Now.
The entirety of these newsclippings are up, or will be up,
on the Triple M Podcast'swebsite for you to be able to
see, to peruse and to read intheir entirety if you would like
.
First, on October 23rd 1966,the Tallahassee Democrat printed

(08:32):
a story which contained thefollowing the Sims' oldest
daughter, virginia, who also isknown as Jenny, 17 years old,
discovered the slang when shearrived home from the football
game.
This is incorrect.
She was arriving home frombabysitting.
She telephoned the BeavisSutherland funeral home for an
ambulance.
Mr Sims' third daughter, judy,15, this is wrong.

(08:52):
Also she was 16, was on ababysitting job.
Beavis said he entered thehouse and found Joy in a bedroom
dead.
She had been gagged with astocking and tied up.
Mrs Sims was on the floor herhead under the bed and tightly
bound.
Mr Sims was still alive.
When he arrived he too wastightly bound.
Beavis said he attended to MrsSims first, getting her into the

(09:13):
ambulance, and when he returnedfor Mr Sims he was dead.
Residents on the short streetlocated off Gibbs Drive told
police.
They heard nothing to arouseany suspicions.
However, ellis Finch, aTallahassee Democrat
photographer who lives a fewblocks away said he heard what
sounded like four shots at about11.20pm.

(09:35):
Next, on the following day,october 24th 1966, the
Tallahassee Democrat printed thefollowing the three Sims family
members were discovered byVirginia, also known as Jenny,
in the master bedroom of theirthree bedroom home at 641 Muriel
Court.
Mr Sims was killed with asingle shot in the head.
Joy died from several stabwounds from a long, wide bladed

(09:57):
knife in the chest and abdomen.
Mr Sims wife Helen was shotthree times, once in the leg and
twice in the head.
The victims were discoveredshortly after 11.15pm.
Sheriff Joyce said Virginia,also known as Jenny, had been
dropped off in front of her homeafter babysitting.
When she entered the lightedresidence that had been the Sims
home since 1956, she went intoher room to leave her purse.

(10:22):
After getting the address of theSims home from Jenny, in what
Russell Beavis of the FuneralHome described as a terrified
voice, he and his son Rockyraced to the home in an
ambulance.
Beavis and his son entered thehouse to find Sims lying on the
bed and his wife and child onthe floor.
They had been shot with whatwas believed to be a.38 caliber

(10:44):
pistol.
The two managed to free themother from her bonds and she
was taken to the hospital.
Mr Beavis said they were alltied very tightly.
Mr Beavis then called thepolice.
He also called anotherambulance for Mr Sims but
realized that the man had died.
He said the parents werebreathing.
When he first entered the room,mr Beavis said the father was

(11:04):
dressed in slacks and a sportsshirt and the mother was dressed
in slacks and a blouse.
Robbery apparently was not themotive, since the sheriff said
that nothing seemed to bemissing nor even disturbed.
Mrs Sims' purse and a walletlay on the dresser unopened and
another wallet was foundunopened in the living room.
That's the end of the quote.
But I would also note that thearticle indicates at one point

(11:27):
that a motive of a sexual naturein relation to Joyce Sims had
been ruled out in theinvestigation.
However, this becomes acontroversy later on in the
reporting and in theinvestigation.
Finally, on October 25th 1966,the Tallahassee Democrat printed
the following A massivecoordinated manhunt extending

(11:49):
into several states is producingfirm results in the savage
murder of a leading educator andhis daughter here Saturday
night.
Sheriff WP Joyce said today hehas ruled out robbery as a
motive but declined to pin downthe definite theory on which the
investigation is now proceeding.
Revenge or sex and for yourknowledge, the revenge angle

(12:10):
comes up much later in this case.
We probably won't get to thatin this episode.
Ed Yaraburo, head of theFlorida Sheriff's Bureau, which
is lending full support, saidhis personal belief is that a
sex maniac is involved who isintent on molesting the child.
He went on to emphasize thathis theory was personal and that
the sheriff is in full chargeof the investigation.

(12:31):
We have four investigatorsrunning down leads and
laboratory technicians who areanalyzing evidence.
Yaraburo said Mrs Sims remainedin critical condition at
Tallahassee Memorial Hospitaltoday.
She was shot twice in the headand once in the leg.
While the chance appeared slim,sheriff Joyce continues to hope
that she might rally enough toprovide clues to the identity of

(12:52):
the attacker.
Sheriff Joyce said today thereis no veil of secrecy over the
investigation, but restraint isbeing exercised in order to card
against any prejudicialpublicity, as defined by new US
Supreme Court decisions, thatmight reverse a conviction.
He added that he recognizes theright of the people to know.
He said the High Court rulingshave proved a big stumbling

(13:13):
block in questioning people inconnection with the case.
Questioning people in the casedepends solely on their
willingness to cooperate.
They can refuse to answerquestions and can demand a
lawyer at public expense.
And another description of thescene that was found by Jenny in
the Beavis' in this articlereads as follows All three
victims were found in thebedroom.
The child was lying on her backon the floor, stabbed seven

(13:35):
times and shot once.
Two plunges of the knife,probably double edged, long and
wide, had been deep, onepenetrated the liver and the
other severing the aorta.
The blade had sunk into theright side of the middle chest,
almost under the arm and evenwith the breastbone, and again
below the center of thebreastbone, almost on a line.
Between these two stab woundswere five less deep wounds, all

(13:59):
apparently inflicted in rapidsuccession.
She had been shot in the rightside of the head, about two
inches above the top of her ear,the bullet probably a.38
caliber, ranging slightly up andforward toward the top of the
head and remaining beneath theskull.
Her wrists were bound togetherbehind her back with a men's
necktie, and a necktie was usedto bind her ankles.

(14:19):
A nylon stocking had beencramped completely into her
mouth.
Mr Sims breathing.
His last one found was lying onhis right side on top of the
bed.
He was near the bed's edge.
His hands were bound behind himwith a necktie, another necktie
bound his ankles.
His mouth was open with whatappeared to be a scarf stretched
tightly across the mouth andtied at the back of his head.

(14:42):
His eyes were covered with ablinder that had been fashioned
from a piece of white cloth.
He had been shot in the lefttemple Through the blinder, the
white cloth showing plainly thepowder burns.
Jenny lost a light blue silkundergarment which she found
wound around her mother's face,apparently as a sort of blind
and gag.
She said she was afraid hermother could not breathe.

(15:04):
A nylon hose had been used totie her wrists behind her.
The hose had been wrapped oneway and tied in knots, then
wrapped the opposite way andtied again.
She had been shot twice in thevicinity of the right temple.
One bullet had emerged a fewinches behind and below the ear
and was found lodged in the rug.
The other bullet was laterremoved during surgery.

(15:26):
The bullets had entered about ahalf inch apart.
Another shot was found lodgedin the left leg, just above and
behind the knee.
Neither Mr Sims nor his wifeHelen had been stabbed, except
that a dresser drawer wasslightly open and a closet door
a little ajar.
Everything was neatly in placein the bedroom where the victims
were found.
Mrs Sims' purse containingchange was on the dresser, along

(15:50):
with $6 in loose bills.
Her husband's billfoldcontaining $8, a negotiable
check and credit cards was on aliving room table.
A coin collection plus a tubeof about $10 and silver half
dollars were in drawers.
There were watches and jewelryin the bedroom.
And again, these news articles,newspaper clippings, are up on

(16:10):
the Triple M Podcast's websitefor your perusal.
I find that periodic newspaperarticles like these often can
provide very valuableinformation and context into
past criminal cases, even ifthey're decades old.
In this case, yes, on its facethe crime is clearly gruesome

(16:35):
and heinous, but these newspaperarticles, I think, paint the
picture from that perspective intime Better than really we can
imagine it.
And based on these articles,it's very clear this was a
horribly, horribly gruesome,brutal crime.
Mother, father, young 12 yearold daughter all killed.

(16:57):
It's just so hard to imagine ahuman being being able to do
this, especially when you thinkabout young Joy.
To me, these murders feel morepersonal, substantial and
possibly meaningful to theperpetrator than what seems to
have been thought of orconceived of in the
investigation in 1966.

(17:18):
There are so many details tothis family murder that seem
deeply personal and or possiblysymbolic of something just a
deeper level.
We just don't know.
Consider the blindfolds on Mrand Mrs Sims, but no blindfold
on Joy.
And Joy is the one that isstabbed over and over again.

(17:41):
Her body was mutilated andmauled far worse than her
parents.
Why wouldn't a blindfold havebeen put on her?
And what does that mean?
Also, consider the sheerbrutality of this multiple
murder, especially against theyoungest and the most innocent

(18:01):
party involved, again Joy.
The following description, whichI've already read once from the
newspaper, really gets to me.
Quote the child was lying onher back on the floor, stabbed
seven times and shot once.
Two plunges of the knife,probably double edged, long and

(18:22):
wide, had been deep, onepenetrated the liver and the
other severing the aorta.
The blade had sunk into theright side of the middle chest,
almost under the arm and evenwith the breastbone, and again
below the center of thebreastbone, almost on a line
between these two stab wounds,were five less deep wounds, all

(18:46):
apparently inflicted in rapidsuccession.
Now I can't imagine the kind ofanger no rage that could
possibly fuel a person to dosuch a thing to a young,
innocent child.
Consider the depth required tostab, to sever the aorta and to
penetrate the liver.
A person would absolutely haveto be totally and completely

(19:11):
committed to putting their fullweight and strength behind such
stabbings.
Half measures or a half-heartedknife attack would not
accomplish what was done to JoySim's body.
It seems to me that theperpetrator or perpetrators yes,
I do think that's possible is aperson or persons who could
only fit into one of a couple ofcategories.

(19:32):
Before I go into that, though,regarding the possibility of
multiple perpetrators, even witha gun, it seems to me that a
single home invader where, in mymind, mr and Mrs Sims had
nothing to lose in physicallychallenging the intruder in
order to save their belovedyoung daughter's life would have
been able to tag team theintruder and overpower them.

(19:54):
Possibly the element ofsurprise could have leveled the
playing field for the intruderor intruders, and this would
depend on the level of planningand the quality of execution of
the plan to be able to have thebenefit of the element of
surprise.
Or I suppose the intruder couldpossibly have just been very
lucky in how this went down andtook place.
I have several children and Iknow without a shadow of a doubt

(20:17):
in my mind, if my youngestdaughter was present in the
presence of a clearly hostileand deviant home intruder, I
would have aggressively attacked, without regard for my own life
.
As my father used to say whilegrowing up, when talking about
wanting or intending toaccomplish a certain goal, he
would use a specific phrase allout, massive action.

(20:39):
And that's what I would haveused here and I think most
parents would.
Now, I'm not faulting Mr andMrs Sims I don't know what
happened so I can't judge but amore likely scenario to me seems
to be that there was more thanone intruder, which caused Mr
and Mrs Sims to not be able toengage.
Okay, so now back to thecategories of people that I feel

(21:02):
like the perpetrator orperpetrators could only fit into
, given the brutality, thegruesomeness and the
grotesqueness of these murders,again, especially with regard to
joy.
So in my mind, the firstcategory would be a person who
is drunk or high on some druglikely high on a drug beyond the

(21:23):
ability to comprehend theseverity and gravity of their
actions and possibly not evenknow at all what they're
actually doing.
But I don't think this islikely, because I believe that
Mr and Mrs Sims would be highlylikely to be able to overpower
such a person, so this does notseem likely to me.
The second category of personthat possibly could fit the mold

(21:44):
would be someone who is enragedbeyond a measure that you or I,
at least, I hope anyway couldeven come close to understanding
, again, considering that suchheinous actions and bodily
mutilation were inflictedagainst joy.
Third category of person someonewho is a flat-out serial
murderer, sexual deviant, whohad been targeting joy Sims for

(22:07):
quite some time, who had thespecific intent to kill Joy and,
as part of that process ofkilling her, to specifically
mutilate her body, for exampleas part of a type of ritual
killing, with then Mr and MrsSims' deaths merely representing
collateral damage in thatperson's plans with Joy.
And fourth, a psychopath orsociopath who found their way

(22:31):
into the home of the Sims, forwhatever reason and by whatever
means, and decided that they hada compelling need or
requirement, for whatever reason, to kill everyone that was home
Robert, helen and Joy.
For example, someone who findstheir way into the home, who is
a psychopath or sociopath, whodetermines that they need to get

(22:51):
rid of all witnesses.
But this would not explain whythe attack on Joy was so over
the top, so brutal and sogruesome.
Alternatively, however, itseems possible that the murderer
may have been so brutal andmutilating towards Joy to cause
authorities to think about andclassify this crime and these

(23:12):
murders as something that theywere not, in other words, to
throw authorities off of thescent of what was really going
on.
For example, if the killer wasa disgruntled employee who
worked under Robert Sims at theFlorida State Department of
Education, whose entire intentwas to kill Mr Sims but then
decided to brutally andgrotesquely kill Joy in the

(23:34):
manner that was done, in orderto cause authorities to profile
the killer, in this case in amanner that would not cause
suspicion to point to themselves.
Now, this type of intelligenceand planning almost certainly
would have to be done by apsychotic mind, as psychopaths
are far more planned, organizedand often more intelligent under

(23:57):
pressure than our sociopaths.
Sociopaths tend to be far moreimpulsive in their decisions and
actions.
The investigation in this casediscussed and offered absolutely
no evidence that I could findwhatsoever about when specific
wounds were inflicted on JoySims.
Was she stabbed so many timesafter she had been shot and was

(24:19):
already dead, or was she stabbedfirst, with the killer,
watching her bleed out and thenshot her in the head simply for
good measure.
These types of details trulymatter, but I found no evidence
whatsoever of these kinds ofinquiries being made during this
investigation, and these kindsof inquiries would provide a lot

(24:39):
of valuable information aboutwhat was the intent of the
intruder and murderer, why werethey there, what caused them to
do what they did, because thebrutality, the savagery against
Joy becomes, in a way, thislitmus test that we're able to
use if we have enoughinformation about when certain

(24:59):
injuries were inflicted,regarding the intentions and
desires and motivations of theattacker, and we simply, as far
as I can tell, don't have any ofthat information.
It wasn't investigated, fromwhat I can tell.
Finally, I want you to considerus to consider the different
depths and possibly differenttypes of stab wounds on Joy Sims

(25:21):
body.
Two stab wounds were deep andwide, severing the aorta and
stabbing into the liver.
Those are stab wounds, like Isaid moments ago, that require
absolute dedication behind theforce that's required to do that
kind of damage, and verydissimilarly.
The other five stab wounds werequite superficial and shallow

(25:47):
and other than the fact thatfrom the investigation, we're
told or rather the newspaperreporters were told that those
five stab wounds were possibly,depending on how you interpret
the language in the newspaperarticle all seven stab wounds
were inflicted in rapidsuccession.
What does that mean and whatdoes that tell us?

(26:07):
It tends to take my mind to theidea that there were two people
doing two different types ofstabbings One with possibly the
right kind of knife andabsolutely committed to stabbing
deep and hard, and another thatseems to be not quite as
committed and possibly has adifferent kind of knife.
I don't know, the investigationdoesn't talk about that, but in

(26:30):
any case, the second personhaving far less conviction in
their desire to mutilate littleJoy's body.
I don't understand thedifference in dichotomy between
these two very different typesof stabbings and I just have to
believe that there's somethingabout those two different types
of stabbings that tells ussomething key about this case,

(26:53):
but at this point I just don'thave enough information to be
able to draw any conclusions,only suppositions.
Alright, the next topic that Iwant to discuss in my mind is
quite humorous, but it's alsovery serious.
In the last newspaper articlethat I read to you from the

(27:15):
Tallahassee Democrat, thatarticle being dated October 25th
1966, the newspaper articlestates that the sheriff said,
quote the High Court rulingshave proved a big stumbling
block in questioning people inconnection with the case.
Questioning people in the casedepends solely on their
willingness to cooperate.
They can refuse to answerquestions and can demand a

(27:40):
lawyer, a public expense Ahhhhh,ai-ai-ai-oi-ve.
Don't even know if I'm usingthat right, but it sounds right.
I find this comical, becausethis really seems like a whining
, complaining statement that, inmy mind, plays out something
like this Well, we just can't dovery good because we can't ask

(28:05):
people questions.
They can just not answer ourquestions, they don't have to
talk to us, they can refuse ourquestioning and they can demand
a lawyer that we have to pay for.
Now I want to ask you thequestion, and if you don't get
this right, I'm going to pullall of the substantial hair that
is on the top of my head out,because every American should

(28:31):
know this answer what is thesource from which American
citizens, and really anyone inthe United States, has the right
to remain silent when it comesto talking to police?
And I'll even give you a cluethe name that I'm looking for
comes from a certain name ofcertain rights that you, I

(28:54):
guarantee, have heard thousands,at least hundreds of times, but
probably thousands of times.
What is the name of this rightand the source of this right?
It's the Miranda rights, theright to remain silent.
And I would accept the answerof the Miranda rights.
I would also accept the FifthAmendment, the right to not

(29:16):
incriminate yourself.
And how do you not incriminateyourself?
You shut the foobar up.
That's right, ladies andgentlemen, shut your mouth.
Now, when I'm talking to my ownclients, and especially if
there's been an issue or problemwith this in the past, the
language I use with them isquite a bit more affirmative, if
you get my drift, than how I'vesaid it here.

(29:38):
Yeah, it just blows me awaywhen clients call people from
the jail phone and admit tothings or make a phone call that
the phone call in and of itselfis the commission of a crime,
like violating an order ofprotection.
Any of you that this applies to, please, for the love of all
that is good and holy, stop justcausing your attorney problems

(30:03):
that they have to fix andprobably can't fix.
Okay, next question why is itcalled the Miranda rights?
I'm guessing you don't knowthat.
Well, it's from Miranda vArizona, known to attorneys as
384 US 436, among othercitations that apply to the case
.
Well, the reason it's calledthe Miranda rights is that in

(30:27):
Miranda v Arizona, the UnitedStates Supreme Court made
certain holdings.
And just to explain, a holdingis where a court officially puts
out presidential notpresidential presidential
determination or decision thatcan be cited in the future as
the rule of law on a givenspecific item or issue in the

(30:50):
law.
So a holding is the veryspecific decision, announced,
rule announced by a court withproper jurisdiction on a given
issue or area of law that thatcourt has jurisdiction over.
In that particular case and inthe case of the United States
Supreme Court, yeah, they prettymuch have all the power and
authority.
Now, interestingly, only as tofederal law and the Fifth

(31:13):
Amendment right againstself-incrimination and the Sixth
Amendment, right to counsel,legal counsel are incorporated
into state law through the 14thAmendment to the United States
Constitution.
So in actual fact, these rightsapply at both the state and the
federal levels.
Well, among the key holdings inMiranda v Arizona, the United

(31:36):
States Supreme Court held that,quote the privilege against
self-incrimination is fulfilledonly when the person is
guaranteed the right to remainsilent unless he chooses to
speak in the unfettered exerciseof his own will.
End quote.
In other words and this iscommon sense right how does a
person have the ability to notincriminate themselves?

(31:57):
Shut the foobar up, don't talk.
Now, that pertains directly tothe Fifth Amendment, applied to
the federal government throughthe Fifth Amendment and applied
to the state governments andstate law enforcement agencies
through the 14th Amendment.
By way of the Fifth Amendment.
Now, the right to counsel orlegal counsel.
In other words, as you've heardit on TV and in movies, you

(32:18):
have the right to an attorneyand if you cannot afford one,
one will be provided for you atno expense.
That right originates from theSixth Amendment to the United
States Constitution and itapplies to federal law
enforcement officers through theSixth Amendment directly, but
it also applies to all stateauthorities, state governments
and state law enforcementofficials through the 14th

(32:39):
Amendment.
And in Miranda v Arizona, theUnited States Supreme Court held
, with regard to the SixthAmendment, right to counsel.
That quote when the person whohas been warned of his right to
counsel the signs that he wishesto consult with counsel before
making a statement, theinterview is terminated at that

(33:00):
point.
End quote.
So when you see in TV andmovies the police officer is
frustrated or the prosecutionfrustrated because the perp just
lawyer it up.
Well, that's accurate.
If they're trying to question aperpetrator or a suspect and
they assert their right tocounsel, the law enforcement
officers must immediately ceasethe interrogation, cease the

(33:24):
questioning.
Now you do need to know thatthat's not necessarily a
permanent thing.
There are things that canhappen that reopen the door and
allow police to reengage ininterrogation and questioning.
The most common is if theperpetrator or the suspect
voluntarily starts speaking toknown law enforcement officers

(33:44):
again.
Once that happens, the policecan then start asking questions
and if at some point the suspectagain asserts their right to
counsel, then the interrogationor questioning has to stop.
So what's that cause to comeinto existence?
If you can use your imagination, well, certain gamesmanship can
be engaged in to give a suspector a perpetrator the ability,

(34:09):
the access, the accessibilityand possibly even some kind of
indirect incentive to startspeaking to the officers again.
The officers don't have to leavethe suspect or the perpetrator
alone.
They could sit in silence in aroom and not ask questions, and
they could bring in food ordrink.
They could even talk aboutinconsequential things, sports,

(34:32):
whatever, totally unrelated tothe case, in the hopes that the
perpetrator suspect will forsome reason re-engage the
conversation and start talkingagain.
The requirement simply on thepolice, on law enforcement, is
that they not interrogate, thatthey not ask questions related
to the criminal investigation.
Now it is foreseeable that insome jurisdictions or under some

(34:56):
courts whether it be federalcourts or state courts that a
given particular court mighthold that such innocuous
discussions equals quote,unquote the interview not
terminating.
Again, that's the rule thatMiranda v Arizona gave us with
regard to the right to legalcounsel and I would expect,

(35:17):
under other courts, certainstate supreme court decisions at
odds with other state supremecourt decisions and certain
federal circuit courts, possiblyat odds with other federal
circuit courts, might havediffering holdings on what does
and what does not constitute acontinuation of the interview.

(35:37):
I could foresee some courtsaying innocuous discussion is
in fact a continuation of theinterview and I could see other
courts saying that's not thecase.
The last thing I want to sayabout Miranda is no, you can't
get your case thrown outnecessarily and usually because
the police violated your Mirandaby not reading you your Miranda

(36:01):
rights.
That's not how Miranda works.
But I can't tell you how oftena client has said to me hey, hey
, they didn't read me my Mirandarights.
That means we can get thiswhole case dismissed.
No, no, that is not what thatmeans and I really want to slap
whoever told you that, and youneed to stop taking legal advice
from that person or persons.

(36:22):
In this regard and as to thisissue, the way Miranda works is
this evidence that is illegallyobtained must be suppressed and,
under the Fruit of thePoisonous Tree doctrine, any
evidence that is found afterillegal collection of evidence
where that later evidence thatwas found is part of an

(36:44):
investigatory chain where thatlater evidence was found because
of the earlier illegallyobtained evidence, causes all of
that later evidence that'srelated in that chain to all be
inadmissible.
Okay, well, so we have to lookat legality of collection of
evidence with regard to Mirandaand the right to not incriminate

(37:05):
yourself.
If you make self-incriminatingstatements or admissions After
custodial interrogation hasbegun and I'll explain that in a
second, but before you weregiven your Miranda warnings then
those admissions, thoseconfessions, those
self-incriminating statementswere illegally obtained and are

(37:26):
inadmissible and actually, putmore accurately, they can be
suppressed.
They're not admissible becausethey are suppressable, which
affirmatively requires thedefendant and their legal
counsel to file a motion tosuppress that evidence.
And if that motion is not filedat a pretty early time in the
case, if that's brought up likea trial, hey, wait, wait, wait.

(37:48):
You can't present that becauseit's suppressable.
That's too late to suppress it.
That has to be done earlierthrough a specific motion
requesting that the courtsuppress that specific evidence
that you think should besuppressed.
So, because of how this works,the procedure and process that
every police officer should useis the second the moment they're

(38:10):
beginning an investigation ofany kind.
Read the Miranda warnings.
You have the right to remainsilent.
You have the right to anattorney.
If you can't afford one, onewill be provided to you at no
cost.
Because once the Mirandawarning is given, if you make
incriminating statements, if youmake admissions or confessions,
then that was legally obtainedand it is admissible.
Your own confession, if youmade it after you were given the

(38:34):
Miranda warnings, it'sadmissible in court and you're
going to have a hell of a timedealing with that case because
of that admission.
So again, the rule is aftercustodial interrogation has
begun, but prior to Mirandawarnings being given by the law
enforcement officer.
If in that intervening time youmake admissions, confessions or
statements of aself-incriminating nature, that

(38:56):
then is considered illegallyobtained evidence, just a
confession and is inadmissiblein court.
So what is custodialinterrogation?
It's going to be different inevery jurisdiction.
It's going to be defined verydifferently in different states
and under different statutes andrules and guidelines.
Generally speaking, if a policeofficer has stopped you just to

(39:19):
talk to you, they've not saidyou're under arrest, and if you
reasonably believe you're notfree to leave and maybe, better
put, a reasonable person wouldbelieve that they were not free
to leave then custodialinterrogation has begun.
You don't have to be under hotlight, you don't have to be down
at the police station forcustodial interrogation to begin
.
You don't have to be underarrest.

(39:39):
Again, if a police officer istalking to you and a reasonable
person would not believe thatthey're free to leave, it's
pretty safe to say thatcustodial interrogation has
begun.
Again, the law and the rulesare different specifically in
every different jurisdiction, soyou can't use this as a
one-size-fits-all, but that'skind of the general way it works
.

(40:00):
So, to conclude this aspect ofthis episode with regard to
Miranda v Arizona and Mirandarights, I find it comical and
humorous that the sheriff isbemoaning, as if it's this new
unusual rule from the US SupremeCourt, that witnesses don't
have to cooperate with thepolice and don't have to talk to

(40:22):
the police if they don't wantto, and have the right to demand
an attorney at cost to thepublic, because these things
come straight out of the UnitedStates Constitution.
Really, what I think is goingon is the sheriff knows that
they don't have a clue about whocommitted these murders, and
that is a very scary propositionwhen you're the head of the law

(40:45):
enforcement agencyinvestigating such a widely
publicly known crime of thisdegree of heinousness.
In short, I think the sheriffwas making excuses and pointing
the finger elsewhere as to whythe perpetrator had not been
found yet.
And really, the only reasonthat the sheriff was able to do
this is because Miranda vArizona was decided on June 13th

(41:10):
1966, just about four monthsprior to the Sims family slaying
.
This law has long existed inthe Fifth and Sixth Amendments
and in the 14th Amendment butMiranda v Arizona was a
relatively recent case andthat's why the sheriff was able
to point to it.
Next is a pretty sad aspect ofthis case yes, even in light of

(41:37):
the heinousness andhorrendousness of what occurred
to the Sims family and that isthat not only did the Sims
family lose three family membersa loving, caring, providing
father, a beautiful, loving,caring, providing mother and a
beautiful, young, innocentlittle 12-year-old sister, niece

(41:58):
, granddaughter.
This case had far-reachingsocietal impact, both in Florida
state but in the United Statesgenerally speaking as well.
In one interview that I foundin relation to this case and
this investigation, anindividual who lived very close
to the Sims within the sameblock or few blocks from the

(42:21):
Sims spoke about how, back inthose days prior to this case
occurring, tallahassee was justthis tremendous city to have a
family in Extremely safe, verycozy, and they spoke about how,
prior to the Sims family slaying, no one ever kept their door

(42:43):
locked.
And we've all heard this kindof thing before right In our own
families discussions about thepast.
At some point in the past ourfamily didn't keep their doors
locked, and now you do Well inFlorida.
This case is what initiatedthat happening in Florida state
and from my research, thereseems to be indication that it

(43:05):
also had national impact Inother reports I came across
because of the Sims familyslaying in Tallahassee.
After that occurred, women beganputting ammonia in squirt guns
that they intended to useagainst any home intruder if
they needed to A sort of earlytype of pepper spray, if you

(43:27):
will.
I can't imagine being a womanand thinking or feeling like
this is what I've got to protectmyself Ammonia in a squirt gun.
Halloween was canceled inTallahassee because of the Sims
family slaying and possibly inother parts of Florida as well.
And another newspaper articlein the same newspaper issue that

(43:48):
I spoke about and shared adifferent article with you
earlier.
This article, being entitledStay Calm but Lock your Door,
said the following AssistantPolice Chief Robert Mage today
urged Tallahassians to remaincalm but to secure their homes,
particularly on the north sidewhere the capital's most
gruesome crime occurred.
Saturday night A run on locksand guns was reported by

(44:12):
hardware and variety stores,beginning yesterday when people
learned two murders of a familyhad been brutally slain and that
a third member was near death.
Another drug and variety storein the Capital Plaza shopping
center said its stock of locksand door chain guards more than
a hundred were sold outyesterday and that nine handguns

(44:33):
had been sold.
Another hardware store on thenorth side reported customers
waiting in line to buy locks andchains early this morning
before the store opened.
A Southside hardware store,terry Rosa, reported early
inquiries today about shotgunsfor home protection.
A big run on locks and doorchains was reported early by the

(44:55):
downtown hardware store Store.
Officials said many of thecustomers commented that they
had never been particularlycareful about keeping their
homes locked in the past.
In short, the Sims familyslaying is pretty widely
regarded as the cause and thereason for the loss of innocence
of Florida State andcontributed to the same thing on

(45:17):
a federal level.
And this brings us substantivelyback to where I left you at the
end of episode four, at the endof part one of the Sims family
slaying discussing Pastor Dr CARoberts.

(45:41):
Now I know I left you on a very, very juicy revelation and
tidbit about Dr CA Roberts atthe end of episode four and I am
gonna get us back to that juicyrevelation and tidbit.
But first I want to give yousome more thorough background
and other related informationabout Dr Roberts.

(46:05):
Dr CA Roberts was originallyfrom Waco, texas.
He goes to school at BaylorUniversity and does a bachelor's
degree.
He gets his master's degree andthen he does a PhD at
Southwestern Baptist DivinitySchool in Fort Worth, texas.
He marries in 1953 and hearrives in Tallahassee by way of

(46:28):
Altus, oklahoma, and heimmediately makes an amazing
impression on the communityafter taking up the head of the
first Baptist Church inTallahassee.
Almost immediately afterarriving in Tallahassee, dr CA
Roberts wins the TallahasseeJunior Chamber of Commerce man

(46:48):
of the Year in 1963.
The following year, in 1964, hewins the Florida State man of
the Year.
Now turning to Dr CA Robertsinvolvement with the Sims family
and specifically Helen Sims.
As I mentioned in episode four,helen Sims was the assistant

(47:11):
and secretary to Dr CA Robertsand she had quit her job just
days before she, her husband andher youngest daughter were
murdered.
It's unknown why she resigned.
There are obviously rumorsrelated to her resignation and

(47:34):
things that were discoveredthrough the investigation, but
they're rumors.
One thing that is known HelenSims had a front-row seat to
everything that was going onwith Dr CA Roberts and I just
want you to keep that and bearthat in mind that she had a

(47:55):
front-row seat to everythingthat was going on, in other
words, everything that I'm aboutto tell you.
Dr CA Roberts was not the manthat he portrayed himself to be,
as is so often the case withany type of public figure.

(48:19):
But to be clear, dr CA Robertswas no exception.
Shortly after the Sims familyslaying, dozens of women started
calling the sheriff's office toaffirmatively tell them they
had nothing to do with the Simsfamily murders, and this
perplexed law enforcement.

(48:40):
Why all of a sudden, would allof these women, independent of
each other, be calling in to say, hey, I had nothing to do with
the murder, seemingly out of theblue?
Well, law enforcement obviouslyhad to investigate this.
The reason that they found wasthat these women were afraid of
being labeled suspects in themurders because all these women

(49:04):
were having affairs with DrRoberts or Dr Roberts was having
affairs with them, however youwant to call that.
And they all would have beenaware that Helen Sims had just
quit her job at the churchworking for Dr CA Roberts, whom
they were sleeping with.
In one report that I read, lawenforcement officers used black

(49:27):
lights in Dr CA Roberts'pastoral office and in essence
the description was given byRocky Bevis.
Yep, the young son that went tothe Sims family home with his
father in later years, became apolice officer and was involved
at later points in time in theongoing decades-long ongoing

(49:51):
investigation of the Sims familyslaying and because of that he
was privy to knowledge andrecords of investigations done
in 1966.
According to Rocky Bevis, whenDr C Roberts' office pastoral
office was blacklit, in otherwords and I don't mean to be

(50:12):
crude looking for semen In hischaracterization.
In essence, the entire room litup like a Halloween glow stick.
And in light of a murderinvestigation, this begs the
question, especially becausehe's a pastor of a southern
Baptist church right Strictsouthern Baptist church.

(50:35):
The question arises how is itgetting all these women to sleep
with him?
And it's believed and reportedthat the answer to that question
is that Dr C Roberts wasaspell-binding orator.
By one report he wascharacterized as being viewed in

(50:56):
a messianic light by thecongregation and by many people
and he was described as havingessentially a cult following.
Rocky Bevis, at one point,states many years later that he
believed that Dr C Roberts hadfollowers who would go so far as
to kill someone if Dr Robertstold them that that person

(51:20):
needed to die.
Well, and because of thatcharacterization, I wondered if
possibly there might be aconnection between Dr C Roberts
and the Ku Klux Klan.
And that might seem like an oddissue or question to you, being
that the Sims family were, fromeverything I can tell, as

(51:43):
waspish, white, anglo-saxon,protestant as they come.
But when I think of murder, andactually multiple murders which
could be a product of organizedcrime in the South, I think of
the Ku Klux Klan.
In any case, I quickly ruledthat out.
The research shows that in fact, dr C Roberts was passionate

(52:07):
about integrating the FirstBaptist Church in Tallahassee
during his tenure, in otherwords, bringing black people
into the fold in the church toworship equally alongside the
white people that belong to thechurch, and he actually
accomplished that.
So it seems highly, highlyunlikely that someone who has

(52:30):
that desire and brought aboutthat particular type of change
has any connection to somethinglike the Ku Klux Klan.
In another interview about Dr CRoberts' spellbinding oratory
skills, the person speaking saidthat Dr Roberts was called out
for all the convocations,prayers in the legislature,

(52:52):
graduation ceremonies and much,much more.
First off, this music is ashout out to the Florida State
Seminoles, as well as my bestfriend Tyler, who is Native
American.
Now, this being episode five,and if you've been paying
attention, you should be askingyourself one question right now

(53:12):
Was he resourceful enough, goodenough at research, cool enough
and nice enough to be able toshow us directly how smooth of a
character Dr C Roberts was?
Well, the answer to that'spretty obvious, isn't it?
The following is a portion of aSouthern Baptist fire and
brimstone sermon given by Dr C ARoberts In 1964, just following

(53:34):
the Homecoming Festivities,where Dr Roberts lets us know
plain and simple and veryclearly exactly how he feels
about what he saw at theHomecoming Festivities.
I hope that you appreciate thespecial effort I put into
finding exactly the rightexample of this for you from Dr
C A Roberts, and you'llunderstand what I mean in just a

(53:55):
few minutes.
Enjoy.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
Now Ms Green, in her book Sex on the College Campus,
was kind to the South.
Or, as she explored the greatareas of freedom that have been
taken in terms of a new morality, she would very quick to say
that the people in the South ingeneral, and the college
campuses in the South inparticular, had not yet gone as

(54:20):
far as the ones in the North orthe ones on the West Coast.
But what she meant by this wasnot that the ones in the South
had reached the point beyondwhich they planned to go no
farther.
What she meant was we're simplya little bit crudish in old
fashioned and therefore we needa little more time in the South.

(54:44):
But we're headed in the samedirection.
I think we had an opportunity,those of us who attended the
Power of Friday Night.
I think we had an opportunityto see the philosophy of the new
morality.
There have been so many thingsthat have made me proud about
Florida State and the brief timeI've been associated with her.

(55:04):
I must confess that FridayNight I've never been associated
with all of my life.
When I call those hundreds andhundreds of people who have
driven from all across the stateand all across the South to
give their children and theirfriends an impression of the

(55:26):
campus that they had loved sodearly.
And then I watched there asmothers and dads were quickly
trying to scramble their kidsout of the stadium before they
were completely overwhelmed withwhat they were seeing and
hearing.
When I watched our honors getMiss Helen Hayes sit there after

(55:46):
having been so impressed withour college in so many other
ways.
When I watched her sit thereand stunned disbelief what she
would see and hear hear.
When I heard of a Kentuckynewspaperman who said well,
there's one thing for certainI'd never send my daughter to
this school.

(56:07):
I appreciate Harry Day's attemptat apologizing for what took
place, but in a sense you can'tapologize for what was not just
the action of a few, but withthe action of a large number.
Not only that he didn'trepresent the action, but he
represented the philosophy ofthe great majority of the campus

(56:28):
, as sorority after sorority andfraternity after fraternity
followed, one after the other,trying to see which one could
reach a new load in an assaultto the intelligence of any
decent human being.
Who was a rightist, I franklywant you to know, I've just

(56:49):
never been so ashamed, and I'vebeen associated very closely
with most of these sororitiesand fraternities of this school
and know most of the leaderspersonally, and I want to be
quite honest.
Sometimes I honestly wonder howyou justify your right to exist
.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
Forward.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
So we got a good look at the new morality Friday
night and we're quite certainthat our town and our community
is a part of the direction inwhich our new countries go.
And I keep using the worddirection because it's very
important not only that we knowwhere we are, but that we know

(57:33):
where we used to be and that weknow where we're going.
This is important Because noone is simply a part of the
present.
You're no longer a part of whatlives.
When you walked into thisauditorium, you are ever a part
of the future in terms of thepast and you're moving in a
direction, and any historianmust know how to evaluate the

(57:58):
future and the present in termsof the past.
You read your Old Testament andso many of the things that we
say.
The Old Testament prophets,these preacher, historians, and
sometimes we think that some ofthe predictions they made as to
what was going to happen tosociety, we think that God gave
them some vision, some specialknowledge by telegram of what

(58:20):
was going to happen, when inreality they were doing nothing
more than making and educating aguess at what would ultimately
happen to a society if itcontinues to walk down certain
paths.
I think it should be bothcomforting and depressing to

(58:41):
know that, although we are verysophisticated in some of our
attitudes towards sex, we arenot as sophisticated as we can
get.
Yes, Forward.

(59:01):
Sophistications.
You call it whatever you wantto, my dear beloved, but you
need to know that what you and I, in our day, have been willing
to conceive is sophistication.
God in His holy book still saysthat it is sin and those things
that we are trying to maneuverinto an acceptable position in

(59:25):
our society.
If you will read the firstchapter of the book of Romans,
you will find are the verythings that, when they finally
began occurring in anothersociety in history, the Bible
says God gave them up, the onlykind of all the Bible.
When three times in one chapterof the Bible says and God gave

(59:45):
them up.
When men burned in their lust,women began to do the things
that were not convenient andturned to unrighteousness and
wickedness.
God gave them over to areprobate mind.
For God has a morality of sexand there are points beyond

(01:00:08):
which he will not allow asociety to.

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
And there you have it , ladies and gentlemen Dr C A
Roberts of the first Baptistchurch in Tallahassee, Florida,
1964.
Hypocrisy is such a sad andfrustrating thing, and now you
know how Dr Roberts became thefirst suspect in the murder of
Robert Sims, Helen Sims andJoyce Sims.
I'm not going to give you theconclusion regarding him being a

(01:00:34):
suspect until we run throughall of the suspects, so keep
listening to find out.
And this is where I leave youtonight.
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 stay safe out there andI hope to never be telling your

(01:00:57):
story.