The Vancouver Island Integrated Major Crime Unit will take another look at the investigation into the death of a Victoria teenager that was initially ruled accidental.
Victoria Police Chief Del Manak told Victoria council Thursday police are sending the case to the crime unit in the wake of a B.C. Coroners Service ruling that the 2021 death of 18-year-old Samantha Sims-Somerville was a homicide.
After the completion of the initial investigation in 2022, Manak said Victoria police had other investigators within the department look at the case and they could find no new evidence about Sims-Somerville’s death.
“This is an extremely tragic situation and … our collective hearts go out to the family. To have an 18-year-old overdose and die is, it’s senseless,” Manak said. “The Victoria Police Department took this complaint seriously. We investigated as far as we could.”
While foul play was initially suspected, Victoria police closed their investigation without recommending charges in September 2022.
Tracy Sims has been fighting to have her daughter Samantha’s death recognized as a homicide ever since.
Sims believes her daughter and a friend were recruited by a mutual friend, invited to an apartment on Yates Street where there were older men they didn’t know, and drugged with lethal doses of GHB.
She believes there are people who are criminally responsible for her daughter’s death and has fought for charges to be laid.
Sims-Somerville and the friend were rushed from the apartment to hospital, where the teen died the following evening, on April 10, 2021, of a lack of oxygen to her brain resulting from the combination of alcohol and drugs in her system.
The friend survived a near-fatal overdose of GHB and Rohypnol.
Sims-Somerville’s mother has spent the three and a half years since her daughter’s death fighting for justice.
Sims had appealed to the coroners service to reopen its investigation. The service agreed in March to reopen its probe due to information that was not available during the original investigation.
Sims has also pursued charges as a private citizen against two people she believes are responsible for her daughter’s death. She compiled 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.
In March, the B.C. Prosecution Service declined to approve charges, telling Sims the case did not meet the required standard of a substantial likelihood of conviction based on the evidence and being in the public interest.
The prosecution service recently told the Times Colonist it will not revisit the previous decision, and will only consider charges if a recommendation is brought forward by police or another party.
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