A Victoria mother who has been fighting to reopen an investigation into her daughter’s death is disappointed charges won’t proceed against those she believes are responsible for the teen’s death in 2021.
Tracy Sims put together a 45-page package of evidence including text messages and social media posts that she believes shows two people were criminally involved in the death of her daughter, Samantha Krysia Sims-Somerville. The allegations include administering a noxious substance and being party to administering a noxious substance.
Sims-Somerville was 18 when she died from a toxic combination of alcohol and a date-rape drug after attending a party at an apartment on Yates Street on April 9, 2021. She and her friend Brooklyn Friese were rushed to hospital from the party. Friese was on life support but survived a near-fatal overdose of GHB and Rohypnol.
Both the doctor in the ICU and the police initially told Sims they suspected foul play in her daughter’s death, but Victoria police closed their investigation without recommending charges in September 2022.
Sims believes her daughter was murdered and has been fighting ever since for justice. She believes the two young women were recruited by a mutual friend, invited to a party with older men they didn’t know, and drugged with lethal doses of GHB. Several of the men who were there that night are known to police.
She presented her information and swore charges against two people as a private citizen to a justice of the peace, said lawyer Donald McKay, who is helping Sims.
But she received an email this week from the B.C. Prosecution Service saying they had decided to stay the proceedings because the case did not meet the required standard of a substantial likelihood of conviction based on the evidence and being in the public interest.
McKay said the decision is premature, given that the B.C. Coroners Service recently reopened an investigation into Sims-Somerville’s death and the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner is investigating the actions of the three police officers involved in the case.
“There’s more information yet that they haven’t considered,” he said.
Sims went through an uncommon process of swearing charges as a private citizen, effectively bypassing police, McKay said, but he has seen clients succeed in the past in this way, generally in situations where police have declined to recommend charges.
Sims submitted text messages between the friend who brought her daughter and Friese to the party on Yates Street and the friend’s cousin two days after the party; the friend says “that guy definitely spiked [their] drinks. Because it happened [too] quick.”
Sims also provided messages from the friend who brought the girls to the party in which she says someone spiked their drinks and others in which she says she had no idea they were drugged. Sims alleges this contradiction was not addressed by police.
Sims submitted that multiple women have told her they were taken to parties by the same friend who brought Sims-Somerville and Friese to the Yates Street apartment and they, too, believe they were drugged and sexually assaulted.
She provided accounts of conversations after her daughter’s death with people associated with those at the party who detailed attempts to revive Sims-Somerville and a delay in calling police because of criminal activity in the home.
Sims said she is appalled and extremely disappointed by the decision to stay charges, but not surprised.
“They haven’t even waited for the outcome of OPCC investigation and the coroner’s report,” she said.
The B.C. Coroners Service reopened its investigation this month after a personal appeal from Sims to acting chief coroner John McNamee. He said in a response to Sims he would reopen the investigation based on new evidence that was not available at the time the previous investigation was completed. The coroners service had initially concluded the death was accidental based on the police investigation.
Sims is also concerned that a VicPD officer is leading the investigation into her complaint against the officers who investigated her daughter’s death and she would like to see an external police agency take over.
