An Urbana man was found not guilty of murder on December 8

URBANA — After two days of eyewitness testimony, video footage and forensic evidence, a jury acquitted an Urbana man of first-degree murder in a Dec. 8, 2023, shooting.

Turhan L. Sims, 35, was accused of shooting his friend Kadeem Moore, 34, during an argument between Moore and Moore’s girlfriend.

As the court was told on Tuesday, Sims lived for some time with the girlfriend’s spouse and children.

The state continued its case Wednesday, introducing Facebook messages between Sims and the girl into evidence that appeared to suggest there was some sort of romantic relationship between the two.

When Moore’s friend, a Champaign woman, testified Tuesday, she said she and Sims did not sleep together, but text messages from her phone showed the couple calling each other “baby” or “bae,” and she said to him who wants him in bed with her.

The day before filming, Sims asked the woman if she and Moore were back together, and she told him, “We don’t have labels.”

On Tuesday, Special Deputy U.S. Marshal David Griffeth testified about Sims’ Dec. 18 arrest at a Golden Hour convenience store in Champaign.

Security camera footage shows Sims hiding the firearm on a shelf between bags of chips, after which Griffeth said he ran into a pantry to try to hide.

When Griffeth entered the store, Sims exited the warehouse smoking a cigarette and surrendered.

Forensic investigators later determined that the firearm used in Moore’s murder had traces of Sims’ DNA on it, as well as that of several unidentified individuals.

Several videos obtained from his phone also showed Sims holding what appeared to be the same gun.

Public defender Elizabeth Pollock brought a friend of Sims’ who had been with him earlier that day as a witness; he testified that while in his car, the Champaign woman took a gun from her purse and handed it to Sims.

However, he did not recall many details about the appearance of the gun because he was angry that there was a loaded gun in his car at all.

When Larson asked how he knew it was loaded, he said, “Man, every gun is loaded.”

Griffeth brought Sims to the Urbana Police Department, where Detectives Darrin McCartney and Kenneth Sprague questioned Sims for about four hours.

In court Wednesday, Larson played several clips from that interview, in which Sims repeated the “I’m not a killer” and “I’ve never killed anyone” options.

He claimed to have heard gunshots from outside the apartment, but did not witness the December 8 shooting.

At one point he said Moore’s girlfriend would back up his side of the story, while at another he said: “If she killed him and says I did it, I’m going to jail.”

McCartney told Sims he had video of him there “when it happened,” but Sims’ most recent surveillance footage shows him leaving the apartment about 13 minutes before the shooting.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Larson showed several security camera videos that he said show the camera doesn’t always activate when someone comes into view and relies on the technology’s ability to recognize a person’s figure.

Pollock, however, noted that no one had any video of Sims on stage during filming, and Sims told McCartney that the footage could not exist.

Sims, who was present during the trial, chose not to testify.

Larson’s closing arguments centered around Sims’ relationship with Moore’s girlfriend, saying he wanted Moore removed.

“Kadeem was the problem and the solution was in his belt,” Larson said. “(The Moore girl and her daughter) are the victims in this case, subjected to the violence that Turhan and Kadim brought into their home.”

He also played excerpts from body camera footage and Moore’s girlfriend’s 911 call.

“This is not the voice of someone who knows how to frame poor Mr. Sims,” Larson said.

Pollock’s closing arguments centered around the idea that if Sims had confessed to the shooting, he would have had a light case for second- or third-degree murder, rather than first-degree murder.

“All Turk (Sims’ nickname) has to do, if he did it, is say yes, I did, and it was to protect (Moore’s girlfriend),” Pollock said.

She also questioned the friend’s decision to continue talking to Sims and spending time with him after the shooting and before his arrest, as well as the six- or seven-minute lapse between the shooting and the 911 call.

Pollock speculated that one of several witnesses may have been responsible for the shooting, prompting Moore’s girlfriend and her daughter to conspire to say Sims did it.

“Unfortunately, I think the two most likely scenarios are that someone who was still in the apartment was scared that Brittany was finally going to get it from this guy,” Pollock said.

Pollock also emphasized to the jury that any reasonable doubt as to the defendant’s guilt the jury must find “not guilty.”