Coroners service reopens investigation into teen’s death
The B.C. Coroners Service is reopening an investigation into the death of a Victoria teen who died in 2021 from a toxic combination of alcohol and a date-rape drug.
Tracy Sims believes her daughter, 18-year-old Samantha Krysia Sims-Somerville, was drugged. She has fought for years to have the case reopened.
Sims said she was in shock when she received an email from the B.C. Coroners Service informing her it would reopen an investigation into the death of her daughter.
“All that was rushing through my mind when I received that was: ‘Finally someone’s listening to me. My daughter’s death does matter. She is important,’ ” Sims said.
Victoria police initially told Sims they believed a crime had been committed because there were two victims.
Samantha’s friend, Brooklyn Friese, had also been rushed to hospital from the same party and was put on life support but survived a near-fatal overdose of GHB and Rohypnol.
The doctor in the ICU that night told Sims he suspected foul play.
In September 2022, police closed their investigation without recommending charges and the B.C. Coroners Service concluded the death was accidental, based on the police investigation.
Sims believes Samantha was murdered. She believes the two young women were deliberately recruited by a mutual friend, invited to a party on Yates Street 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 has filed a complaint with the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner against the three officers who investigated Samantha’s death, alleging officers ignored important evidence, including messages sent by the friend who invited her daughter and Friese to the party.
The messages say the girls were drugged and names the man who may have drugged them. Sims also alleges that the officers did not look into the friend’s involvement in Samantha’s death.
Sims is appealing the coroner’s finding that Samantha’s death was accidental.
Last week, she wrote to acting chief coroner John McNamee, appealing to him directly to reopen an investigation.
“I just said, ‘Look, I’m begging you. It’s within the public’s interest. It will give them peace knowing that there is some hope in the justice system,’ ” Sims said. “She did not do this herself.”
When she received a response this week, she thought the quick reply meant bad news.
Instead, McNamee said he would reopen the investigation based on new evidence that was not available at the time the previous investigation was completed.
The news is bittersweet for Sims, who said she feels relieved after fighting for justice for her daughter, and sadness and anger that she has had to fight so hard.
“My daughter’s gone at the hands of others but I fought and fought and fought and people are starting to listen,” she said.
Victoria lawyer Donald McKay, who is helping Sims, said it has been an uphill battle and it wasn’t clear her efforts would ever come to anything, “so this is very hopeful.”
He and Sims are still awaiting the results of the complaint filed against police.