03x06 - "Sim"ilar Circumstances

[bunniefuu]

-Oh!

NARRATOR: After working the night shift,

Robert Sims returned home and found his wife

unconscious on the kitchen floor.

To his relief, their -year-old son, Randy was asleep.

Undisturbed in an upstairs bedroom.

But their six-week-old daughter, Heather, was missing.

When she regained consciousness, Paula Sims

was the only witness to a crime that

baffles investigators to this day.

Robert and Paula Sims had recently moved into this frame

home in the St. Louis suburb of Alton, Illinois.

Neighbors described the Sims as a quiet and private couple, who

spent most of their free time with their children.

-They really seemed to be living the American dream.

That was one of the things that was

so intriguing about the story.

To have this kind of v*olence, this kind of tragedy

visited on such an All-American couple.

That was what really turned the story for us at the beginning.

NARRATOR: When police were called to the Sim's home

on April th, , they heard details of an unusual crime.

Paula said she was taking out the trash just after : PM,

when a masked man armed with a g*n

forced her back inside the house.

[paula screaming]

-You let go of me! Stop it!

NARRATOR: And knocked her unconscious with a blow

to the back of her head.

That was the last thing she remembered, before her husband

founder on the floor minutes later.

-Are you alright?

NARRATOR: Their infant daughter, Heather, was missing.

But the area around the bassinet was undisturbed.

Police could find no foreign fingerprints or footprints.

And no valuables were missing.

-We stayed there at the scene, it seemed like forever.

I know we were there for a good half-day.

SGT. VENTIMIGUA (VOICEOVER): We looked everywhere.

Every conceivable place where there child might have been,

we looked.

NARRATOR: Assuming the worst, police also searched the bottom

of the Mississippi River, near the Sims' home.

-We had asked Mr. and Mrs. Sims if they had any enemies that,

for whatever reason, might want to steal their baby in order

to punish them in some way.

And they were pretty adamant that they didn't have anybody

that they would suspect of doing that.

NARRATOR: A neighbor reported seeing a suspicious character

walking near the Sims' home.

Another informant saw on an individual burying something

that night behind a nearby factory.

All of the leads were dead ends.

Police had little to go on.

And no motive.

-Seldom does anybody take a baby just to be taking it.

There's usually a ransom demand, which we had none.

-We found no evidence that there was any extramarital problem.

Any involvement of a boyfriend who might suspect he's

the real father of the child.

And he wanted his child.

We couldn't find anything that would explain why someone would

target the Sims for kidnapping.

NARRATOR: Four days later, Charles Saunders

was fishing on the Missouri side of the Mississippi River.

Around noon, as Saunders was about to leave,

he stopped to empty some trash into a barrel.

Inside, he noticed a large, black garbage bag.

Because of its size, it looked suspicious.

Inside, he discovered the well-preserved remains

of a dead baby girl.

Homicide investigators converged on the parking lot

where the body of a baby girl was found in a garbage can.

SGT. VENTIMIGUA (VOICEOVER): Lying on her back, face up.

Her head titled to one side.

Still rather pink.

-It appeared that uh, if you'd look at her

you'd think at first she's asleep.

But she was in the bag, dead.

NARRATOR: Hand and footprints from the dead baby

were compared to the prints of Heather Sims, taken

at the hospital just after she was born.

The body was positively identified as Heather Lee Sims.

Medical examiner Dr. Mary Case performed the autopsy.

One of the first things she noticed--

three small vertical cuts on the inside of the baby's lip.

DR. CASE (VOICEOVER): Obviously this is not, for example,

a sudden infant death, which is a natural death.

It's not a death by accident.

It's not a death by su1c1de.

So it's a homicidal death.

And when I began the examination,

there is no g*n shot wound.

There is no s*ab wound.

There's no battery.

And the inner lip showed changes that I associated with someone

placing their hand over the nose and mouth,

and causing suffocation.

NARRATOR: When death occurs, blood

settles in parts of the body closest to the ground.

This is called postmortem lividity,

and is usually dark red or purple in color.

Heather's face showed signs of lividity,

but, it was cherry red in color.

This told Dr. Case that the body had been placed in a freezer

during the time lividity occurs--

to hours after death.

And there was another clue the body had been frozen--

DR. CASE (VOICEOVER): The external appearance

was that there was no decomposition.

-When I looked internally-- and then

I even had to look microscopically--

at those internal organs to see this,

but there was early decomposition beginning.

But it was a little bit more advanced than externally.

NARRATOR: Dr. Case concluded that Heather

Sims had been suffocated.

Placed in a freezer, face-down.

Then placed in the trash bin, face-up.

Either the night before, or the morning that the body

was discovered.

Assistant State's Attorney Don Weber

was keeping a close eye on this case.

There was no evidence linking Paula

or Robert Sims to the crime.

But Weber decided to take a closer look at their story.

Something Robert Sims told the FBI disturbed him.

-He had made the statement to the FBI, that said,

during the time that Heather was reported missing and the time

she was found, that they had the longest and-- longest lasting

and best sex that they'd ever had.

And that is such a startling statement to me.

-I couldn't-- I don't believe the other people involved

in the case could really think that would be a normal response

after your baby was kidnapped.

NARRATOR: And when authorities looked into the couple's past,

they found an alarming coincidence.

At Heather Sims' funeral, Robert and Paula Sims

looked every bit the grieving parents to the outside world.

But a background check revealed the Sims

had experienced another kidnapping.

Three years earlier, while living in another town,

the Sims' first daughter, Loralei,

had also been kidnapped.

It was the same scenario.

Robert was at work.

And Paula said a masked intruder confronted her in the house

and kidnapped her baby.

A few weeks later, the infant's skeletal remains

were found scattered in a field behind the Sims' home.

Although authorities had their suspicions at the time,

they could find no evidence linking Robert

or Paula Sims to Loralei's m*rder.

FRANK YOCOM (VOICEOVER): The remains

appeared to have been moved to buy some type of animal.

The quality of the remains

-were of such that, uh, the investigation, um, could not

be put together, as far as making a case for m*rder.

The Sims themselves became even stronger suspects after that.

And in my opinion is that they got away with m*rder.

NARRATOR: But in the case of Heather's abduction,

there was something about Paula's head injury

that didn't sound right to prosecutor Don Weber.

So Weber paid a visit to the medical examiner,

Dr. Mary Case, who had a unique background.

She was not only the pathologist who performed Heather Sims'

autopsy, she was also a board certified neuropathologist.

An expert in the study of the brain and nervous system.

-Paula says that she saw the guy outside.

That the guy made her come inside.

That he gave her instructions inside.

That once she was inside, he hit her-- And she gestured,

Paula gestured, with a karate chop on the back of the neck.

And that knocked her out.

And she was out for about minutes.

And that she remembered getting hit.

And I said, is that possible?

And I remember, Mary Case thought about it

very carefully.

And she sort of leaned back in her chair.

And she said, now that's impossible.

NARRATOR: When an individual is hit hard enough to cause

unconsciousness, the soft brain tissue

collides with the hard inner surface of the cranium,

creating a brain injury.

This disrupts the electrical activity in the outer areas

of the brain, where memories are stored.

And it's this disruption which prevents memory from forming.

Not only of the traumatic event, but for several minutes

preceding the traumatic event.

This explains why individuals knocked unconscious

in an automobile accident, for example, remember very

little about the accident, or the events

leading up to the accident.

When police learned about this neurologic inconsistency,

they looked for some connection between Paula Sims

and the location where the body was discovered.

Police found some three-dimensional shoe

impressions in the dirt, a few feet away from the trash bin.

They appeared to be from an athletic shoe,

but they did not match any of the shoes

found in the Sims' home.

Next, police sent the black garbage bag,

which contained Heather's body, to the FBI laboratory

in Washington, DC.

Forensic Examiner David Attenberger

had little to work with, since there were no fingerprints,

hairs, or fibers found on the bag.

-The baby was found in a black garbage bag.

The bag itself was made by Poly-Tech

Corporation out of Minneapolis.

Kmart was the retailer of the bags,

and they were sold under the brand name of Curb Side.

NARRATOR: However, more than one million

of these Curb Side garbage bags were

made for Kmart each and every day.

Attenberger compared the edges of the bag containing Heather

Sims' body to the first unused garbage

bag from the Sims' kitchen.

But the stretching that occurs when bags are pulled

from the roll made matching the ends impossible.

But the bag Heather Sims was in did

have a signature characteristic.

Trash bags are made from large sheets of melted plastic.

A blade makes the perforations so that the bags

can be ripped from the end of the roll.

At the same time, a heat seal melts

the bottom of the bag shut.

-The heat seal-- as we found out from the manufacturer--

as the plastic traveled beneath and through the heat seal,

more debris collected on that heat seal.

The more debris that collected on there, the more unique

identifying characteristics that we found.

We found incomplete melting the heat seal.

NARRATOR: This incomplete melting caused a small opening

in the bottom of the Heather Sims bag.

Debris on the seal also produced a small puncture

a hole in the bag.

When Attenberger analyzed the bags found in the Sims'

kitchen, he found the same puncture

hole in the same location.

And he also found the same small opening

in the bottom of the bags, caused

by debris on the heat seal.

The last step was to analyze the dye lines in the garbage bags.

As the plastic is pulled over the rollers

in the manufacturing process, it gets stretched.

Leaving lines, or stretch marks, in the plastic,

called "dye lines."

When the dye lines on the inside of the Heather Sims bag

were compared to the dye lines inside the first unused bag

found in the Sims' kitchen, the lines matched.

The tiny puncture hole, the defect in the bottom heat seal.

And the dye line comparison led the FBI

to conclude that the first unused garbage bag in the Sims'

kitchen was made within seconds of the bag

Heather Sims' body was found in.

Police now have their first piece of physical evidence

linking an item in the Sims' home

to where Heather's body was found.

They were no longer searching for a mysterious kidnapper,

but a cold-blooded m*rder.

When the FBI discovered that the Heather Sims garbage bag came

from the same roll of bags in the Sims kitchen,

they were now convinced that Paula Sims was involved

in her daughter's disappearance.

Investigators learned that Paula and Robert Sims

had an unusual marital relationship.

A relationship Charles Bosworth described

in his book, Precious Victims.

-When Paula brought the little girls home from the hospital,

she was essentially ousted from the marital bedroom.

In the first case, she and the Loralei

slept in the basement, which is where the family room was.

It was a walk out basement.

NARRATOR: Only after Loralei's death,

did Paula sleep upstairs again with her husband.

A year after Loralei's death, Paula gave birth to a son,

Randy.

And in , after moving to Alton, Illinois,

the Sims had another baby.

This time, a daughter, Heather.

In the hospital, Paula reportedly told her roommate

that she didn't want another daughter.

That she and Robert preferred boys.

-The evidence clearly suggested that boys were fine,

little girls were not welcome.

We were told repeatedly by witnesses that Robert adored

the little boy and was, uh, just completely

uninterested in the little girls.

Even in the hospital after their births.

NARRATOR: When Paula brought Heather home,

separate sleeping arrangements started again.

Paula and Heather in the living room.

Robert and two-year-old Randy upstairs.

-And one of the comments that Paula made

to one of her friends was that, these sleeping arrangements are

going to have to stop, or I'm going

to have to do something about it.

NARRATOR: Based on the garbage bag analysis.

And the inconsistencies with her head injury story, Paula Sims

was arrested and charged with m*rder.

On Saturday night, April th, ,

while Robert was working the night shift at the paper plant,

prosecutors believe that Paula suffocated

her daughter, Heather.

She placed the body in a garbage bag from the kitchen.

She probably wore gloves, since no fingerprints

were found on the bag.

After the m*rder, Paula drove across town

to her parents' home, where she placed

Heather's body in her parents' freezer.

Paula's parents were away that week on vacation.

Paula returned home in enough time to feign unconsciousness

before her husband returned from work.

The next day, when Paula's parents

heard about the kidnapping, they decided

to end their vacation and return home immediately.

-I don't want her to ruin your vacation.

NARRATOR: This required a change to her plan.

Paula now had to go back to her parents' home,

and remove Heather's body before they returned.

With nowhere else to go, prosecutors

believe she brought Heather's body back home.

Placing it in her own basement freezer.

By this time, police had concluded their search

of the Sims' home, and had left.

Three days later, Paula needed to get rid of the body once

and for all.

She made the two-mile drive over the Mississippi River,

across the Lewis and Clark Bridge, into a parking area.

And left the frozen body in a trash bin.

Where it was discovered by a fisherman a short time later.

-It was very premeditated.

Very well thought out.

Very coldblooded.

Very systematic.

NARRATOR: The prosecution had no trouble showing motive.

CAPT. MCCAIN (VOICEOVER): As you walk through the Sims' home,

it was very apparent that they had

a boy that they were very proud of.

Which would be very normal for a couple.

-But as you look around the house,

there was absolutely no indication whatsoever

that they even had a daughter.

There weren't any baby pictures.

There weren't any pictures at all-- on the tables,

or around the walls, or whatever,

to indicate that they had a baby at all.

NARRATOR: Paula Sims was found guilty of m*rder

and sentenced to life in prison.

-I think it's a tragic event, any time in society when

a parent comes to the point that they are so frustrated--

in whatever, for whatever reason--

that they decide to take the life one of their children.

-Well any time you've got the death of two--

and I might add very beautiful,

DON WEBER: Perfect, little girls-- it's a very sad case.

When you add the elements that their mother k*lled them,

it gets even worse.

On the other hand, justice prevailed.

NARRATOR: No charges were filed against Robert Sims, who denies

he had anything to do with these two crimes.

-There's no doubt in my mind the right person

is in prison right now.

For this particular crime.

She did it.

She m*rder*d her child.

She was tried by a jury of her peers,

and she is now doing life.

There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that she did it.

NARRATOR: And Robert Sims?

-(SIGHS)

Not enough evidence right now.

But, I haven't forgotten Robert.

And, I still have the case file.