Forensic experts disagree on woman’s wounds in Stand Your Ground hearing

Forensic pathology experts disagreed Wednesday while testifying about the wounds an Horry County woman said she suffered when her husband attacked her before she shot him in their home.

The experts were among several witnesses called Wednesday, the third day of a Stand Your Ground hearing in the case of Heather Sims, 33, who is charged with murder in her husband’s Aug. 11, 2013, shooting death. She is seeking immunity from the charge.

Sims told police her husband stabbed her with a kitchen knife in the stomach and cut her arms before she shot him in the bathroom of their home on Old Reaves Ferry Road.

Police found David Sims Jr., 35, dead from a single gunshot wound to the chest, lying on his back in the couple’s master bathroom. A single shell casing was found in a chair in the bedroom near the bathroom door.

Kim Collins, a forensic pathologist, testified the three cuts to Heather Sims’ forearms were defensive wounds.

“The location of the wounds, they are classic for defensive wounds,” Collins testified during the hearing.

But later Wednesday, Werner Spitz, also a forensic pathologist, testified all of Heather Sims’ wounds, including the puncture wound to her stomach, were self-inflicted because they were shallow.

“These wounds are what I would call scratches, they are very superficial with a sharp object,” Spitz said. “These wounds are self-inflicted. These injuries are shallow.”

He said the wounds were not deep because when the skin is penetrated the pain receptors activate and Heather Sims would’ve been in pain.

“The knife may have gone no deeper than 1 mm,” Spitz said of the stab wound.

Heather Sims testified earlier in the day that she left Grand Strand Medical Center with a band-aid on her stab wound and she did not receive any stitches or staples.

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 states such force is allowed if the person is not doing something illegal or to prevent death, great bodily injury or if a violent crime is occurring. According to the law, a person, other than a law enforcement officer, who uses 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.

Also on Wednesday, there was testimony about the knife that was found in David Sims’ hand when police arrived.

Heather Sims testified it was possible she moved the knife while doing CPR and talking to dispatchers on the telephone. But she said David Sims had not dropped the knife after she shot him.

“I don’t recall moving the knife. I never moved the knife,” she said. “At the time there were a lot of things possible. ... There were so many questions about the knife, so many scenarios that I said it was possible.”

Adrienne Hefney, a forensic DNA analyst with the State Law Enforcement Division, testified she tested the knife and there was blood on the blade from David Sims and Heather Sims, but there was no blood on the handle. She also testified she could not find enough DNA on the trigger of the 9 mm gun to show who fired it.

A pair of needle-nose pliers, which were found on the top of the toilet in the bathroom, also had a mix of DNA from Heather Sims and David Sims on it, Hefney said.

When police arrived and found David Sims, the knife was lying on his hand upside down, said Jill Domogauer, an Horry County police crime scene investigator.

“It was resting on his hand,” Domogauer said as she explained crime scene photos. “It was backwards.”

Collins testified that it didn’t matter how David Sims held the knife during the attack.

“It makes no difference up or down. They don’t sit there and think how they are going to hold the knife,” she said.

Maddox asked her to clarify her answer because he said it goes to whether Heather Sims placed the knife in her husband’s hand after the shooting.

Experts also testified Wednesday that David Sims at some point after being shot fell to his knees based on blood splatter and droplets on his pants.

Domogauer said there was nothing broken or out of place in the bathroom or adjacent bedroom as if a struggle had occurred there. She also said police did not find a rag that Heather Sims testified she used to wipe peanut butter from David Sims’ nose and face while doing CPR and blood from her hands.

Heather Sims said she did not know what she did with the rag.

Authorities found blood in the palm of David Sims’ hand, which experts said likely was transferred from his gunshot wound when he grabbed his chest. It was the same hand the knife was found lying in.

Heather Sims also testified she didn’t remember what she did with David Sims’ cellphone, which she took from his pocket while doing CPR and waiting for authorities to arrive. She said she tried to use it to call for more help because she had used the house telephone to call 911 and dispatchers were talking to her on that line.

Heather Sims testified her dad found David Sims’ phone in a kitchen drawer near the entrance to the house. On Aug. 13, 2013, two days after his death, Heather Sims testified she erased his cellphone to unlock it, so she could use it as her own because police had her phone.

“I wasn’t in the state of mind to go look for another phone; I had his and it seemed logical to use his,” Heather Sims testified and also said she did not attend her husband’s funeral. “I didn’t think I would be welcome there.”

Testimony is expected to resume Thursday morning.

This story was originally published July 8, 2015 at 8:37 PM with the headline "Forensic experts disagree on woman’s wounds in Stand Your Ground hearing."