Horry County woman testifies about shooting her husband in their home

An Horry County woman, who is challenging a murder charge by saying she was protecting herself when she shot and killed her husband inside their home, spent most of Tuesday testifying about their relationship and details of the shooting.

Heather Sims, 33, of Conway, was the fourth witness to take the stand in her Stand Your Ground hearing in the Aug. 11, 2013, shooting death of her 35-year-old husband, David Sims Jr.

Heather Sims is charged with his murder.

Circuit Court Judge Cordell Maddox is presiding over the hearing on the state’s Stand Your Ground law, which allows for the use of deadly force against an intruder or attacker in a person’s home, business or vehicle.

The law also states such force is allowed if the person is not doing something illegal or to prevent death, great bodily injury or during the commission of a violent crime. According to the law, a person, other than a law enforcement officer, who uses such deadly force is immune to criminal prosecution and civil action.

Prosecutors are arguing the law should not apply in domestic violence situations like the Sims case.

On Tuesday, Heather Sims described how she and David Sims met and started dating in August 2009, got married on Dec. 18, 2010, had a baby in March 2013 and what happened the weekend of the shooting.

About 70 people, friends and family of David Sims and Heather Sims packed separate sides of the courtroom on Tuesday. The hearing was moved from a smaller courtroom to a large one to accommodate the attendees.

Heather Sims worked as a certified registered nurse anesthetist, which requires a master’s degree and which administers anesthesiology and epidurals, at McLeod’s Loris Seacoast hospitals, she testified. David Sims ran his own landscaping and decorative concrete business in Florence.

The couple built a home next to Heather Sims’ parents’ home along Old Reaves Ferry Road, and the home and land was in her name, she testified. They moved into the house in June 2012.

A year earlier, the couple had suffered a miscarriage and Heather Sims testified the stress of that miscarriage and building their home strained their marriage so they began seeing a counselor.

On July 31, 2012, Heather Sims said she called 911 after David Sims choked her, shoved her into a wall and threatened her while they argued and he took her phone. No arrests were made during that incident.

In July 2013, the couple began seeing their second marriage counselor after Heather Sims said they argued about “one thing after another after another. It was the small things that we could never get resolved.”

Arguments included the date for the dedication of their son, John David Sims, on July 28, 2013. She said David Sims stayed away from the house and family more, but their counselor had told him he needed to be more involved with the baby.

On the day of the shooting, Aug. 11, 2013, Heather Sims said David Sims got up with their son, gave him a bottle and put him on a play mat in the living room and then went back to bed. She said she got up and sat with the baby.

Later, the couple went to lunch at a chain restaurant then to a department store in North Myrtle Beach. She said they argued throughout the day about taking the trash off, driving his truck, her using diet pills and how the waitress treated them at the restaurant.

“He was mad at everybody that day,” Heather Sims testified. “Everything I was doing was under his skin.”

Heather Sims said they returned home and David Sims wanted to talk, but she wanted to wait until the baby was sleeping for the night.

Instead, about 6 p.m. that day, she said she went in to run a bath and David Sims came into the bathroom to fix their leaky toilet. She said they argued about an appointment with their marriage counselor and David Sims had a kitchen knife and a tool in his hands when he took her cellphone to look at it.

“He was gritting his teeth and his face was red. He said ‘You stupid [expletive], you are nothing but a damn liar.’ I said ‘David, why are you so mad at me?’” Heather Sims testified and noted her husband knew she had a fear of knives from when they dated. “He was calling me names and swinging the knife around.”

Heather Sims said she backed up to the threshold of the bathroom when she took a 9 mm handgun from the top vanity drawer on David Sims’ side of the bathroom. She testified she got the gun hoping David Sims would calm down and that she told him she wasn’t planning on using it.

She said she had placed the gun, which was registered to a man working for her father, in the bathroom about a month before out of fear for safety of her 4-month-old son, who was not walking yet. She said they kept the bathroom door closed all of the time.

During her testimony, Heather Sims said she was unaware a .38 revolver registered to her was in David Sims’ nightstand. She said she had another identical revolver in her vehicle. The bullets for the revolver were found in her nightstand along with the case for the 9 mm, according to photos shown during court of the contents of the drawer.

“I held it by my side and he said ‘what the [expletive] are you going to do with that?’ I was scared,” she testified, also saying that he threatened to “knock her teeth out.”

Heather Sims said David Sims had the knife and stabbed her in the stomach and cut her arm and hand during the argument. She was taken afterward to Grand Strand Medical Center for treatment.

“He started lunging toward me and I shot,” Heather Sims testified. “He stood there. I remember thinking what just happened. He stood there and I went and got the phone and I called 911. I remember my ears were ringing and my head was pounding. I didn’t know what to do.”

Heather Sims said when she returned to the master bathroom from the living room with the house telephone that David Sims was on the floor and she called 911 and started CPR because he did not have a pulse.

A hospital report showed that Heather Sims’ stab wound was less than .5 centimeters deep, said Nancy Livesay, who is prosecuting the case. However, Heather Sims went to her regular doctor the day after the incident and she recorded it as 1 to 1.5 centimeters deep.

Heather Sims testified that no one came to the hospital and told her anything about David Sims or his condition. She said she realized during an interview with a police detective, which was recorded and played Monday, that he was dead.

“I was his wife and nobody had the decency to sit down and tell me,” Heather Sims testified. “I was hoping against all hope the paramedics were able to get in there and do something for him.”

At the end of the interview with detectives, which was about 9 p.m. that day, a photo was taken of Heather Sims in her hospital bed with a sandwich and her father’s cellphone open to Facebook, Livesay said as she showed the photo to Heather Sims and the judge.

Heather Sims testified she took two bites of the sandwich and was trying to deactivate her Facebook page because members of David Sims’ family were leaving derogatory comments on her page.

When questioned about leaving some of the details out about exactly what David Sims said to her before the shooting, Heather Sims testified, “At that night I didn’t want to speak badly of my deceased husband.”

Prosecutors will continue to question Heather Sims on the witness stand when the hearing resumes at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday.

This story was originally published July 7, 2015 at 7:51 PM with the headline "Horry County woman testifies about shooting her husband in their home."