Heather Sims, charged with murdering husband, takes the stand at trial

Heather Sims, the 33-year-old Conway woman accused in the shooting death of her husband, took the stand Thursday and gave testimony about the couple’s history and events leading up to the shooting.

Heather Causey Sims was charged with murder after Horry County authorities found her husband, 35-year-old David Sims, dead from a single gunshot wound to the chest at their home on Aug. 11, 2013, and Heather Sims said she acted in self dense after the couple fought at their home.

After stretching long into the night Wednesday, proceedings picked up Thursday morning in the courtroom of Judge Cordell Maddox and a few more witnesses took the stand before Sims herself gave testimony on the eve of the trial’s closing.

Dr. Charles Smith, a cardiovascular surgeon, testified there was no way to tell if CPR was done incorrectly because it wasn’t possible to tell whether it was performed.

He said he drew this conclusion by reviewing pathology reports and crime scene photos.

Heather Sims’ childhood friend took the stand afterward and testified that Sims had always been a good friend and hard worker, and that she didn’t think Sims could kill anyone unless she was in danger.

“Heather has always stood for faith, family and friends,” she said before later breaking down into sobs during testimony.

A man then took the stand and said he saw David Sims quickly lose his temper once when a worker wasn’t doing things the way he liked.

Heather Sims took the stand later Thursday morning and gave an account of the couple’s history.

She described how she met David Sims at a mutual friend’s wedding, and how they then started dating later in August 2009. She said they were married on Dec. 18, 2010, and had a baby in March 2013.

She also outlined the many stresses and struggles in between, like the couple’s trouble communicating, the strain they underwent while building a home near her parent’s house on Old Reaves Ferry Road where the shooting occurred, and the stress of suffering a miscarriage.

She said those issues led the couple to seek a marriage counselor.

Heather Sims said the couple didn’t have any infidelities between them, but couldn’t seem to resolve small, everyday issues.

She also spoke about an incident that occurred on July 31, 2012, that she alleged involved David Sims choking her, pushing her against the wall and threatening her. She said she called 911 after the incident, but no arrests were ever made.

The morning of the shooting, she said she got up with the couple’s son, John David Sims – who was about 4 months old at the time – and gave him a bottle, then placing him on his play mat.

Later, David Sims awoke and said he wanted to go to lunch.

Heather Sims said the couple fought about taking out the trash and driving his truck before leaving, and said the fighting continued throughout the day.

She said David Sims even seemed unhappy with their waitress at the chain restaurant the couple visited before going to a North Myrtle Beach department store.

“It was tense. The whole day was tense,” Heather Sims said.

The couple also argued about her use of diet pills.

When they returned home she said he wanted to talk, but she wanted to get the baby to bed first and that made him angrier.

Later, Heather Sims was running a bath about 6 p.m. when David Sims came into the bathroom with a kitchen knife and pliers to fix a leaky toilet, demanding that they talk.

She said the couple argued about an appointment they had with a marriage counselor, and that David Sims took her cellphone from her to look at it.

The fighting escalated, and Heather said he started swinging the knife around and calling her names when she backed away to the threshold of the bathroom and took a 9 mm handgun from the top vanity drawer on David Sims’ side of the bathroom. She told the court she got the gun out in effort to calm things down and didn’t plan on using it.

She also said she didn’t know a .38 revolver registered to her was in David Sims’ nightstand.

Heather Sims said she suffered a stab wound to her abdomen and several cuts to her arms during the incident before she shot.

Earlier in this week, state prosecutor Nancy Livesay called Dr. Werner Spitz, a forensic pathologist, who testified he believed wounds Sims suffered the night her husband was killed were self-inflicted because of their location and superficial nature.

Heather Sims’ defense attorney, Morgan Martin, asserted the information Spitz offered was a matter of opinion – not fact.

Heather Sims said David lunged at her after she was cut, and she pulled the trigger and shot.

“He lunged at me, and when he did, my hand went up, and I shot,” she said.

She said she called 911 and vigorously performed CPR in an attempt to save her husband’s life while waiting 24 minutes for first responders.

Heather Sims worked at McLeod’s Loris Seacoast hospitals as a certified registered nurse anesthetist, which requires a master’s degree, and she administers anesthesiology and epidurals in that role.

“I did CPR till I had no skin on my toes,” she said. Sims explained she did CPR while kneeling on the knuckles of her toes on the couple’s tile master bathroom floor.

“I watched my husband deteriorate yet in front of my face, and it was the most helpless feeling,” she said.

Heather Sims later got treatment at Grand Strand Medical Center. She said she didn’t immediately speak about the events leading up to the shooting because she didn’t want to say anything negative about her husband.

Livesay asked Sims why, before the shooting, she moved the gun to a drawer in the bathroom rather than leaving it in a lockbox in the bedroom.

“So you thought it was safer to move a gun from a box meant for safety to a drawer full of dental floss and Q-tips?” Livesay said.

Sims argued that she didn’t like keeping a weapon in a bottom drawer where her son, John David, could reach it.

“And my dad keeps a gun in his bathroom, so it seemed like a safe place,” Sims said.

Sims set her husband’s phone back to factory settings two days after the shooting, which eliminates any data on the phone, including text messages, voicemails and search history.

Sims’ defense attorney, Morgan Martin, asserted that Sims did not delete any incriminating evidence from David’s phone.

“I just wanted to be able to use it, and that’s what Apple told me to do,” she said.

Livesay, the prosecutor, also argued that Sims did not show enough emotion during her police interview at the hospital. Sims argued she cried in between police questions, but composed herself enough to answer anything police asked.

David Sims’ took out a personal insurance policy on himself shortly before he was killed, but Heather Sims said she did not know it was finalized by the time of the shooting. Sims said that though David had several large debts – including a mortgage and credit cards – she had about $90,000 in her own checking and savings accounts.

“I loved David,” Sims said. “It was never about the money.”

After Sims’ testimony, prosecutors called both of David Sims’ ex-wives to the stand. Both women, who live in South Carolina, said David was a peaceful person and their divorces were not due to violence during the relationship.

The trial is expected to conclude Friday as prosecution and defense make their closing arguments, and a verdict could also be reached.

Over the summer, Sims tried to challenge her murder charge and sought immunity under the state’s Stand Your Ground law, which allows deadly force against an intruder or attacker in a person’s home, business or vehicle. The state said the law excludes people living in the same residence and doesn’t apply when there is a domestic situation in the home, and Sims lost the motion in August.

This story was originally published November 19, 2015 at 8:00 PM with the headline "Heather Sims, charged with murdering husband, takes the stand at trial."