The death of a teenager from alcohol and date rape, drugs, is murder

Mother Victoria, whose teenage daughter died in 2021 from a toxic combination of alcohol and drugs, has received confirmation that her daughter’s death was not an accident.

Tracy Sims learned Wednesday that the death of her daughter, 18-year-old Samantha Sims-Somerville, has been ruled a homicide by the British Columbia Coroner’s Office after it was initially classified as an accident.

“Right now I’m processing the news that my daughter was killed,” Sims said.

It’s something she’s long believed and fought to acknowledge after police closed their investigation into Sims-Somerville’s death without filing charges.

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 injected with lethal doses of HOMK.

She believes there are people who are criminally responsible for her daughter’s death and has fought to have charges brought.

Sims-Somerville and a friend were rushed from the apartment to the hospital, where the teenager died the following evening, April 10, 2021, due to a lack of oxygen to her brain caused by the combination of alcohol and drugs in her system.

A friend was on life support and suffered a near-fatal overdose of HOMK and rohypnol.

Sims-Somerville’s mother spent three and a half years after her daughter’s death fighting for justice.

She got a call from the coroner’s office Wednesday to say Sims-Somerville’s death had been ruled a homicide.

“Further investigation revealed evidence that Samantha and her friend intentionally obtained an unregulated substance, without their knowledge, from another individual at the residence,” said the coroners’ report, which calls “homicide” a neutral term that does not imply guilt or blame.

A toxicology test revealed mild alcohol intoxication and revealed HOMK, the concentration of which is difficult to determine due to rapid metabolism, the report said.

Sims appealed to the coroner’s office to reopen the investigation. In March, the agency agreed to reopen the investigation because of information that was not available during the initial investigation.

While the news is painful, it feels like a successful end to a long struggle, she said.

“It’s the best thing I could have done for Samantha,” said Sims, who spent years immersed in her own investigation into her daughter’s death.

She is not sure what will happen next, but would like to see charges brought against her. “I did everyone else’s job. What mother should do what I did?”

Although foul play was initially suspected, Victoria Police closed the investigation in September 2022 without laying charges.

Unsatisfied, Sims filed charges as a private citizen against the two people she believes are responsible for her daughter’s death. She has compiled a 45-page package of evidence, including text messages and social media posts, that she believes implicates two people in her daughter’s death.

In March, the British Columbia prosecutor’s office declined to approve the charges, telling Sims the case did not meet the necessary standards of a substantial likelihood of conviction based on the evidence and in the public interest.

Sims said she hopes the information she previously provided will be enough to get charges approved.

“It’s all there. Names, evidence and their presence at that place at that time with photos, videos, texts and other statements that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt who did it,” she said.

A spokesman for the prosecutor’s office said it would not review the previous decision and would only consider charges if the police or another party made a recommendation.

Victoria Police spokeswoman Cheryl Major said the department had given all its evidence to Crown counsel after Sims was sworn in in private prosecutions.

“At this time, it is too early to determine whether there will be any further action on this file,” Major said in an email, noting that the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner is actively investigating the file. She declined to comment further.

Sims filed a complaint with the OPCC against the three officers who investigated her daughter’s death, alleging that the officers ignored important evidence.

She said she had lost confidence in Victoria Police and wanted her daughter’s death investigated by another police force.

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