Ep. 4 - The Sims Family Slaying, Part 1

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.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:26

I am JK Richards, the founder, creator and host of your beloved True Crime series, where we treat crimes seriously as your mysterious, murderous and macabre podcast In the past and still to this day. I am a criminal defense attorney, where I view, assess, investigate, analyze and reassess evidence again and again. If you are one looking for true stories of mystery, intrigue, vice, corruption, may him violent malevolence, jealousy, greed, assault, insult, murder and the macabre, well, you are in the right place. Again, I am your host, jk Richards. Thank you so much for being here. It means a lot to me personally. I love entertaining others that's you with my unique perspective, and I love educating you along the way about how investigations work, how they should work and how the law and legal process intertwines with true crime. I think it's a unique perspective and I hope you do too. I would like to make a very genuine and sincere request here that, as you listen to this podcast, and especially if you are at home or work or are a passenger in a vehicle with someone else driving, to take just a few moments and leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, if you like my work. It may be an unattainable goal, but I am striving to put out content that you will like so much that I can maintain the all-five-star review that I've begun with. I didn't expect that, but I would like to maintain it and with your help, possibly I can Also if you care to do so. It would help us tremendously if you were willing to donate just a few dollars each month to support this content and for other charitable purposes that I've mentioned in the past. I'm working on some new things with regard to that and more information will be coming With all of that said, I'm reminding only once more to please go leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts if you like my work. We're on to our story In this, the fourth episode of the Triple M Podcast, mystery, murder and the Macabre.

Speaker 1: 2:41

We first find ourselves in Tallahassee, florida, in 1966. But this case spans decades and we'll be taking a look into all of it. This is the case that caused the loss of innocence for Florida State and possibly for the entirety of the United States. This is the infamous case of the Sims family slaying. I would like to start and I think it's most appropriate because of the heinousness of this case by introducing the family.

Speaker 1: 3:10

First, we have beautiful Helen Solly Sims. She originally was from Meridian Mississippi. She was born in 1932, and she was 34 years old when this case took place. She was the secretary and assistant to the renowned head pastor at the first Baptist Church in Tallahassee, florida, dr CA Roberts, which stood for Cecil Albert. Back then, men quite frequently used their first and middle initials Instead of a first name. Helen was a masterful pianist. People would come out of their offices during their breaks at the church just to listen to Helen Sims play the piano meticulously, melodiously, beautifully. Next we have Robert Wilson Sims, phd. He also was from Meridian Mississippi. He was born in 1924, and he was 42 years old at the time of this case. Robert Sims was the IT head, yep information technology Back in 1966, surprising right. He was the IT head at Florida State Department of Education, in other words, helping the entirety of the state of Florida bring computers into education. He was known and respected at the highest levels of government in Florida State.

Speaker 1: 4:29

Next we have Jenny Sims, who is 17. Judy Sims, who is 16. And Joy Sims, who is 12. Jenny and Judy, who again were 17 and 16 respectively, were enrolled in Leon High School and Joy was enrolled at the Raw Middle School. You'll hear more about these girls and about the entire family and their tragedy.

Speaker 1: 5:07

So it's the evening of October 22, 1966. And I want to give some context to this time period. Just 12 days earlier, on October 10, 1966, the Beach Boys released their iconic single Good Vibrations. We've all heard it a million times, love it. On October 13, 1966, us aircraft bombed North Vietnam. On October 19, 1966, the USSR and for those of you who don't know what that is, that's modern day Russia. The USSR performs nuclear tests at Eastern Kazakh Semipalat Inc. And on our day, october 22, 1966, the USSR launched Luna 12 for orbit around the moon and the musical group four tops song Reach Out I'll Be there also, a great song hit number one simultaneously in both the United States and Britain Alright.

Speaker 1: 6:03

Next I want to give you some context about Tallahassee, florida, at this time, based on looking at a map which may not be totally accurate. Yes, maps are often not accurate to shape due to taking a spherical geography and perfectly flattening it. Also, map makers possibly like to make maps look slightly more aesthetically pleasing than the real shapes of the geography would look to the human eye. Anyway, based on looking at a map, and if you encased Florida state inside a perfect square from east to west. Tallahassee is nearly in the middle again from east to west, and it is very near the northernmost border of Florida. Tallahassee is nearly on a perfect east-west line along the southern coast of the United States, from Baton Rouge, louisiana, to Tallahassee. So you'd have to remember that Florida is a big state and Tallahassee probably doesn't look like and doesn't have the characteristics of what most people think of when they think of Florida state. In my opinion, in my view, most people tend to think of what they saw in TV and movies in Miami and apply that to Florida, kind of generally speaking. That's not Tallahassee. Tallahassee is way north. So in 1960, the United States Census says that Tallahassee had a population of 48,174 residents. Tallahassee is a small town. It's very safe. It's a very cozy, safe and secure feeling place to live and you'll hear more about that later on in this episode.

Speaker 1: 7:42

Tallahassee is the capital city of Florida state, which many, many people don't know. Most of people assume that one of the more flashy or larger cities in Florida would be the capital, but that's not the case and it makes sense in this story that Tallahassee is the capital because, as I said, robert Sooms is the head of information technology for the government of Florida state within the Department of Education. So he works in the capital city. That makes sense. And finally, tallahassee is the home of Florida State University, the Florida State Seminoles. Well, since 1947 anyway, just after it was reorganized from a women's only college to a coed institution, the name, the Seminoles, was selected through a fan competition. Interestingly, there are reports that the newly established men's football team Remember just prior to this it was a women's only college, like the moniker of the Seminoles, so much that they stuffed the ballot box to ensure that it would win. So I now think that you have enough background about Tallahassee as a city to truly jump into this.

Speaker 1: 8:53

Now it's 11pm on October 22nd 1966. Again, we're in Tallahassee. The Florida State Seminoles football game has just gotten over. Jenny Sims returns home from babysitting for another family, presumably who had gone to the game. Jenny comes into the house. She goes to her bedroom, places some of her personal items there. The TV is on in the living room. She can hear a radio on in her parents' room, but the house is eerily quiet. The normal hustling bustle isn't going on. Her parents and her youngest sister, joy, had stayed home for the evening and had been listening to the football game or at least Robert Sims had been listening to the football game in the bedroom on the radio. As Jenny walked around the house, she couldn't understand why the TV was on in the living room. No one was anywhere to be found. She also noticed coffee cups on the floor in the living room where the TV was on. Jenny walks around the entire house confused and, I imagine, afraid. Remember she's a 17 year old girl 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 kids back then.

Speaker 1: 10:10

Have you ever had an experience where you go somewhere and, for some unknown reason, it just feels off, it just feels wrong? And I'm talking about a place that's normally safe, normally a safe haven, a respite from the world. But you go there. Maybe the lights are off, maybe it's dark. You're in a dark hallway and you just feel like something's there, something's watching you, something's ready to pounce. The hair on the back of your neck stands up, your body, for no knowing or logical reason, goes into fight or flight mode, but there's nothing to fight or to fly from. I imagine this is somewhat the type of emotions that Jenny Sims was experiencing. Something was off in her home, this normally safe place. She expected the usual hustle and bustle of her little 12 year old sister and her mother and father discussing the football game and probably asking how the babysitting job went.

Speaker 1: 11:16

I believe that Jenny knew something was very, very wrong and finally she decided to search her parents' bedroom. Now, for those of you who are younger, you probably don't understand, the parental bedroom used to be much more of a private, much more of a sacred place, if you will. Growing up, I never went into my parents' bedroom, except on special occasions or for certain purposes, and I can certainly tell you that I basically never, ever, went into my grandparents' bedroom, and they were of the generation who would have been parents at the time that this case took place. Jenny wouldn't have wanted to check her parents' bedroom, but it's the last place that she could check, and so she entered.

Speaker 1: 12:08

What Jenny Sims found in her parents' bedroom was straight out of the nightmares of every child ever. Her mother, her father, her little sister, who again is only 12 years old, are all bound, gagged and lying on her parents' bedroom floor. Her father is shot and gasping for 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, her innocent, beautiful little sister, joy who by all accounts was in fact a Joy was stabbed seven times and her pants and underwear were pulled down around her ankles. And this is where I have to give you, because of the context of this case, a very scary history lesson. I have emphasized several times already that this is 1966. The Devil's in the Details.

Speaker 1: 13:16

Ladies and gentlemen, now, in a situation like this, if you found yourself in a situation like this, ask yourself the question what would your first action be? What would you do? And now the history lesson. With that question in mind, in 1966, the National Academy of Sciences published a report titled Accidental Death and Disability the Neglected Disease of Modern Society. It was a landmark report in certain circles in the United States. It highlighted how accidental death and injury, especially for motor vehicles, had become an epidemic in the United States. The report urged a series of several different steps that reportedly were necessary to reduce unnecessary and avoidable death and disability.

Speaker 1: 14:10

So think for a moment In a time of crisis, like Jenny Sims walking into her parents' bedroom and finding her mother, her father and her young 12-year-old sister shot, stabbed and dying or dead. What would you do? What would you need and what would you want? In that moment? You would need help. Jenny needed, and if you were in her place you would have acted to call 911. But, as I've said, it's 1966.

Speaker 1: 14:39

The report that I mentioned was published that same year, in 1966, and I will give you one guess as to what one of the key demands of the report was the establishment of 911. 911 didn't exist At this time. The first 911 call was placed on February 16, 1968, in Halleville, alabama. So who should Jenny call? Where should she get help from? The answer will surprise you. I have to give it to Jenny Sims because, from what I can tell, she must have been an extremely bright, smart young girl and, from my research, in fact, both she and her younger sister, Judy, who was 16, were National Honor Society students and were known in their school again at Leon High School, for being among the smartest in their class. Likewise Joy, who was 12, also known for being highly intelligent. The whole family.

Speaker 1: 15:40

Now, I say this about Jenny right now at this point, because of what Jenny did, which I think many people would not have done or would not have known to do. She didn't run out of her house to a neighbor's house to get help. In other words, she didn't go somewhere to get somebody that probably couldn't help. Instead, she pulled out the phone book. This blows my mind away. But she pulls out the phone book, she looks up the phone number for the Beavis family mortuary. You see, back then hospitals and healthcare companies didn't run ambulances. Ambulances and transportation to hospitals from your home were provided by funeral homes, and I have to believe that they were at least somewhat trained in medical care, or at least CPR in relation to transportation of critical patients. Now, I don't think that they had the kind of training that paramedics have today, not by a long shot.

Speaker 1: 16:35

In any case, jenny Sims had the presence of mind, upon seeing her mother, her father and her sister stabbed, shot and dying, to pull out the phone book and call the mortuary. Then she ran to a neighbor's house and asked for help, screaming and frantic, as I'm sure any of us would have been if we were in her place. Odd as it may seem, mr Beavis and his son were the first on scene. The next door neighbor and Jenny were second. My best guess on this is that this relates to everything having sunk into Jenny's mind the images that she's seen. Just imagine you would be in shock. At first you probably wouldn't react that much, you would just be stunned. But more and more as the realization of the situation sunk in, more and more emotion would take over. So I imagine that Jenny probably became hard to understand and very frantic when speaking to the neighbor.

Speaker 1: 17:35

So Mr Beavis and his teenage son arrive, they go into the house and this really is when the investigation starts. Only because of their training and their knowledge in the funeral home business, the Beavis's don't disturb the scene of the crime at all, but they do, methodically make their way to the bedroom. They find the family and Mr and Mrs Sims are actually both still breathing at this point. But Joy, unfortunately, is clearly dead, having been robbed of her youth, her potential, her innocence, by her seven stab wounds. I can only imagine the horror and the fright that a young, innocent, little 12-year-old girl, especially who came from an idyllic home, would experience from this type of passing from this life. And the reason I think about it, despite its unpleasantness, is that I believe that Joy, as well as her mom, her dad and her two surviving sisters deserve me, deserve us, to remember her, and I think that's part of the heart of what's the point of true crime. Is it only entertainment? I would like to think that a big part of the point of true crime and the human interest in true crime is that it gives us insight into the horrors and traumas of others, which we then can maybe use to prevent such things from happening again in the future, or at least reducing them.

Speaker 1: 19:01

One of the first things that the Beavis' tried to do or do-do upon finding Mother, father and Joy in the bedroom, that sounded too much like a game of clue. Anyway, one of the first things they do is they take action to unbind the three of them, and to this end, mr Beavis instructs his son to go into the kitchen and get a knife so that they can cut the bindings on all three of them. No sooner does Mr Beavis' son leave the bedroom to follow his father's instruction. According to Mr Beavis himself, it dawned on him for the first time that possibly the killer could still be in the house, and he becomes fearful for his son. Now, I wish I knew, but I was not able to find any reports that indicated whether or not Mr Beavis rushed after his son. Everything I did find simply indicated that the son did come back with a knife.

Speaker 1: 19:57

Now, this is an odd thing to me. The Beavis' intentionally at least that's what the reports seem to indicate did not disturb the scene of the crime, but they are going to unbind these people, and that might seem callous for me, because you would unbind somebody who's still alive. But all the accounts, other stories I read about this crime, and the reports seem to indicate that Robert Sims passed away very, very shortly after the Beavis' came into the bedroom, and Mrs Sims was completely unconscious. In fact, I don't think she ever regained consciousness. So her bindings weren't probably the most important issue at the moment, and especially prior to law enforcement being able to see the scene. Regardless, the Beavis' did unbind all three of them. Okay, so we're at about 20 minutes now and I need an emotional shift.

Speaker 1: 20:58

And I'm actually in a perfect spot to tell you about another interesting little fact of this case, which is, ironically, that the first law enforcement officer who responds to the scene his name's Larry Campbell. It's his birthday today and when he was called out to the scene he was actually headed to his birthday party. He was turning 24. Originally, the call regarding this case came into police as a car fatality. Based on this, campbell actually asked if some other officer could take the call. Again, he was going to his birthday party. But then the call was changed to a multi-person car fatality. And then, while he was on route to the call, a signal 5 went out, meaning that it was a murder. And no, the happy music right now does not mean I'm happy about it being a murder. Rather, the music is indicative of the stupidity that ensued. I hate stupidity and yet by far it's the one thing that keeps me and all attorneys employed.

Speaker 1: 22:02

The next thing that happened in this case was a pissing match. You see, officer Larry Campbell was with the sheriff's department. Well, the city police showed up shortly after Larry Campbell showed up and had begun investigating the scene and making phone calls. And city police wanted to take the investigation over. And the county sheriff? Well, I don't know exactly what he said, but he basically told them to go fluff themselves. Yes, I substituted a word there. Now, given the outcome of this case, which I'm not going to spoil for you right now, I do wonder if the pissing match that took place played any significant part in where this case eventually got to. Again, not going to spoil it for you right now so Deputy Campbell is at the house and initiates his investigation. He calls the sheriff and also the chief of detectives, jack Dawkins, and again, that's really when the pissing match kicked off.

Speaker 1: 23:11

But moving past the pissing match, so at this point forward again, we're still at the very beginning of Deputy Campbell arriving and then, shortly after that city police arriving, the crime scene was absolutely trampled by many, many law enforcement officers going in, coming out, going in, coming out. It's quite clear from the record and from many reports that officers just were not giving any credence or attention to proper crime scene handling protocols and in fact, some officers and it seemed to be officers from the city police, though I don't know that for certain some officers put on a pot of coffee inside the crime scene, inside the home, because they figured it was going to be a long night as they investigated this multiple homicide. I just dumb people, I don't know. Okay, so question for all of you, with all of the criminal TV shows and movies and true crime podcasts that all of you have watched, listened to, possibly even taken part in either because, well, maybe you were a defendant in a case or maybe you were a victim or a witness in a criminal case. Have you ever actually been taught what is correct procedure and protocol in criminal investigations? Yes, to a degree. There is a lot of common sense to it, but I'm guessing that you've just passively watched things that have been presented to you in the past and that you don't actually know. Well, we're going to go over that.

Speaker 1: 24:46

If you've ever served on a jury or sat through the entirety of a criminal case in court which you would actually not be allowed to do if you're a witness, witnesses usually are kept separate and apart from the proceedings so they can't hear what other witnesses have testified to. This is called and referred to as sequestering witnesses, and this is done in just about every case. It's just not fair, right or proper procedure for any witness to hear what any other witness has testified to. If it were, otherwise, witnesses would be able to change their story or their version of facts to match what other witnesses had testified to. So, again, if you've ever served as a juror or just gone and watched the entirety of a criminal trial, you will have watched and witnessed the process that the prosecution always has to go through when law enforcement officers of any type testify, in that the prosecutors have to establish the credibility, the knowledge, the background, the training of law enforcement officers.

Speaker 1: 25:47

And, in fact and I suppose some people wouldn't know this, but law enforcement officers, police officers regularly receive continuing training in their profession of law enforcement. Now, cops often, when they're talking to criminals, like to say things like I'm just a dumb cop to make the defendant or potential defendant fill at ease about speaking freely. But the fact of the matter is, if you're talking to a police officer or law enforcement officer, you're talking to a trained individual who, among other things, is trained in interrogation, investigation and fact gathering with regard to crime or potential crime. And in fact, this is another among many reasons and I talked about this in the prior case in episodes one through three that criminal defense attorneys tell people always across the board don't talk to the police, that reason being they're trained and you're not. Now the point that I want to drive at here is that police, law enforcement, all cops, all law enforcement officers are trained about how to conduct investigations and yet in this case, the city police officers show up. They want to take over the investigation. I don't know if this was part of their strategy, but they basically set up shop inside the house and use materials inside the house to throw on a pot of coffee inside the crime scene, and those were trained officers.

Speaker 1: 27:11

Now I want to be clear. I am not holding police officers and law enforcement officers to a perfect standard. Law enforcement officers are humans. All humans make mistakes. That includes judges, that includes lawyers, that includes people on juries, and we all know perfectly well that perfectly innocent people get convicted of crimes all the time. If you doubt that, go do the research. That's unarguable. Dna has proven that with regard to capital cases and cases where people have been on death row wrongly for decades.

Speaker 1: 27:44

So, in relation to the training and the body of information and education that police officers and law enforcement officers have, and that they are provided intentionally through their profession, I am going to reference a document that is authored and published by the United States Department of Justice called Crime Scene Investigation a Guide for Law Enforcement. So this is law enforcement's playbook, the prosecution's playbook, at the level of criminal proceedings, of the investigation. Once you get past all of the introductory stuff and acknowledgments and into the substance of this report. The table of contents in and of itself is quite telling about how criminal investigations should be handled and conducted, again per law enforcement's, per the prosecution's own playbook. The what I am referring to as the substantive sections of this guide includes Section A Arriving at the Scene Initial Response, prioritization of Efforts. Section B Preliminary Documentation and Evaluation of the Scene. Section C Processing the Scene, which, under that point two below Section C, is Contamination Control. Section D Completing and Recording the Crime Scene Investigation. And Section E Crime Scene Equipment. Now what I really want to talk about is something that every single one of you has heard about in the past, and that is Chain of Custody and the issues related to Chain of Custody In this report under primary Section A, point 1, the procedure that's given in this training guidance manual for law enforcement.

Speaker 1: 29:27

The procedure states again in A1, approach the scene cautiously. Scan the entire area to thoroughly assess the scene and note any possible secondary crime scenes. Be aware of any persons and vehicles in the vicinity that may be related to the crime. Remain alert and attentive. Assume the crime is ongoing until determined to be otherwise. Treat the location as a crime scene until assessed and determined to be otherwise. My point here is that all law enforcement officers know you don't throw on a pot of coffee inside the crime scene.

Speaker 1: 30:02

There is a lot of documentation that absolutely must be made and maintained to maintain the integrity of an investigation. Every article, every item, everything that is observed or observable, that is within the crime scene or within a crime scene, has the potential to being an item directly related to the crime or the alleged crime that occurred. That's a fancy way of saying. We don't know, when we walk into a crime scene, what all was used, what implements, what things were used to carry out the crime or the alleged crime, and we don't even know the full extent of what all crimes occurred, which is why, very common sensically, just as the beavuses did, you can't walk into a crime scene and start grabbing things and using them for your own personal purposes. And with regard to chain of custody and the documentation that I mentioned just a moment ago, that is absolutely necessary.

Speaker 1: 30:55

At a future prosecution, the prosecuting attorney or attorneys have to be able to prove that the evidence was legally collected prior to trial and that's a decision that the judge makes and at trial, the prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to the jury that this evidence says what the prosecution is claiming that it says in the overall story of the case, in other words, the story that the prosecution is trying to or wants the jury to believe is the truth. So, if you count what I just said, there are multiple different, completely separate and distinct times or instances where prosecuting attorneys have to be able to, at a legal level, keep their evidence in the case. If the evidence was illegally obtained or if it has other problems and I'll speak about that here in a moment the judge can throw that evidence out long before we even get close to a trial. Then at trial, if a defense attorney is able to show that law enforcement didn't document can't prove who had what evidence when, how it was collected, who collected it, where it was put, where it was put next, in other words, the chain of custody. That's why we refer to it as the chain of custody, because no one officer picks up a piece of evidence and continues holding that piece of evidence until the case goes to trial. Every piece of evidence is handled, rehandled, handled again, over and over and over, and we need to ensure that things are not added to or taken away from that evidence, thereby preserving the integrity of the investigation that was conducted.

Speaker 1: 32:29

So, to make this point, I want you to all think about the OJ Simpson trial, right? So this is the trial of the century and a case that almost certainly all of you are very well versed in or familiar with to a degree. So I want you to think about the catch phrase that was used by the defense attorney delivering closing arguments on behalf of OJ Simpson, which won OJ Simpson the trial. What was that phrase? If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit. Here's a little known fact other than the fact that this is mentioned in documentaries about the OJ Simpson trial. Marsha Clark, who was the primary first chair prosecutor, absolutely was set on and wanted to have OJ Simpson try on the glove. And that's pretty obvious because OJ in fact did try on the glove at the prosecution's insistence. But what's not readily known by most people is that the second chair attorney prosecutor, who interestingly was black like OJ Simpson, was diametrically opposed to the idea of asking or requiring OJ Simpson to try on the glove. Well, being the boss, marcia Clark got her way and OJ Simpson was required to try on the glove and it didn't fit.

Speaker 1: 33:46

And you may or may not remember or you may not have been alive when the trial went on, but there was a lot of commentary and speculation as the investigation was going on and as the trial was going on about whether or not the glove had potentially been planted into evidence by police. And then there was the whole debacle with police officer investigator Mark Furman, who it came out during the investigation and or during trial I can't remember that essentially he was a racist or at least had made racist comments that had been recorded, and those comments led credence to the idea, or at least the conspiracy, that he and or other officers may have been willing to plant evidence because of their personal opinions and proclivities and views relating to race. So why am I talking about all of this with you? It comes down to this, in my experience the vast majority of people now believe that OJ Simpson is guilty of the murders that he was accused of and that he was acquitted of after trial. Why was he acquitted? The glove and the comment. If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit. So here we have a situation where the vast majority of people believe OJ Simpson committed these murders, but he was acquitted because evidence that, among other problems with the evidence had an unclear chain of custody.

Speaker 1: 35:05

There were questions about whether or not the glove had been planted. Who collected that evidence, how was it collected? Once that became an issue at trial, a prosecuting attorney would want and need to provide evidence and testimony from police officers about who exactly collected that piece of evidence, how they collected it, when they collected it. And then they'd want to be able to verify all of those what we call wingnut facts against employment records, such as this officer saying he or she collected this evidence at this place on this date at this time. Well, were they on duty? Are there other pieces of information or facts that tend to substantiate that or that tend to cut that evidence down? And if you're a prosecutor and there's a question there and you find this question or this issue before trial, then you're going to steer away from that at trial. And in the case of OJ Simpson they steered into that and it lost them the case A few days after October 22, 1966,.

Speaker 1: 36:13

The funeral of all three is held at the First Baptist Church in Tallahassee, with head pastor Dr CA Roberts presiding over the funerals. Now, up to this point I haven't talked about this much, but the First Baptist Church was kind of the social hub for the Sims family. Mrs Sims worked as the personal assistant and secretary to head pastor Dr CA Roberts. She had a front row seat to all the comings and goings within the church and, in addition to the church being her place of vocation, it was also the family's primary social circle. Had Robert Sims and Helen Sims been able to pick, in the end, the location for their funerals and who would preside over their funerals, it's quite possible that they would not have selected the First Baptist Church and likewise would not have selected head pastor Dr CA Roberts to preside over their funerals. And this is because of a fairly dark twist in this case that directly relates to Dr CA Roberts. Now, this dark twist is not just dark but truly shocking and totally unforeseeable, very odd. I would be very surprised if what happened next in this case has ever happened in any other case. It's possible, but it's just so unique. I would be surprised if I were to find out that something similar happened in any other case.

Speaker 1: 37:41

So the murders take place, florida is devastated, the United States is devastated, and I'll talk about that more in subsequent episodes. The funerals take place. Dr Sims, mrs Sims and Joyce Sims are laid to rest, meridian Mississippi, where both Dr Sims and Helen Sims were both originally from. And, like I said, dr Sims was very highly regarded in the state government of Florida State and actually because of that, the governor of Florida offered to the Sims family the ability to use an airplane or his personal airplane to transport the bodies from Tallahassee, florida, to Meridian Mississippi. They end up not taking the governor up on that offer because of fixtures in the plane not allowing for the caskets to be able to be brought into the plane.

Speaker 1: 38:35

Finally, the dark twist Several days go by. When the funeral is held, dr CA Roberts officiates. He was Mrs Helen Sims' boss and employer, however not at the time of her passing. You see, mere days prior to the Sims' home invasion attack and the murder of Dr Sims, helen Sims and Joyce Sims, helen had quit her job at the church suddenly and to everyone's surprise. But this in and of itself isn't nefarious, suspicious. But what I'm going to tell you next is so bear in mind that Mrs Sims, up until a couple of days prior to her murder, worked at the church and, with that in mind, consider how odd it would have been to the police when, all of the sudden, after the Sims family murder, dozens of women who belonged to the congregation of the first Baptist church where Mrs Sims worked and where Dr CA Roberts is the presiding pastor, start calling the sheriff's office to specifically and affirmatively tell law enforcement that they had nothing to do with the Sims family murders.

Speaker 1: 39:51

Well, that's very suspicious. Woman after woman after woman, dozens of women call law enforcement, all separate and independent of each other, to tell law enforcement that they had nothing to do with the Sims family murders. So, of course, law enforcement investigates this. And, as it turns out, dr CA Roberts was such a charismatic, enchanting and entrancing individual that he was having affairs with dozens of women in his congregation. And, logically, once the Sims family murders occurred, each one of these women grew concerned that some theory along the lines of a jealous lover could possibly point back to them. And so, independently, all of these women called law enforcement to make the same report that they were not the murderer. Between this and the fact that Helen Sims had quit just prior to her murder, law enforcement turned their eye to Dr CA Roberts, taking him from interring pastor to primary suspected perpetrator.

Speaker 1: 40:56

More on this and much more in episode five. I'm your host, jk Richards. Thank you so much for being here with me today. I hope you enjoyed yourself. I know that I did Please stay safe out there and I hope to never be telling your story.