A mother who believes her teen daughter was killed with a lethal dose of a date-rape drug says she is “devastated and beyond frustrated” that the investigation into her death has been sent back to Victoria police, which did not recommend charges in the first place.
Victoria police Chief Del Manak told Victoria council last week that police were sending the case to the Vancouver Island Integrated Major Crime Unit.
The move followed a B.C. Coroners Service ruling that the 2021 death of Samantha Sims-Somerville, initially considered accidental, was a homicide.
But Tracy Sims was told Monday that the major crime unit met with senior VicPD investigators on Nov. 7 and told them the death did not meet the unit’s “threshold for engagement.”
In an email to Sims, seen by the Times Colonist, an RCMP officer with the major crime unit told Sims the office assessed the known facts of the investigation before making its determination.
The major crime unit, which is made up of officers from the RCMP and municipal forces, manages and investigates culpable homicides and missing-person cases where foul play is suspected, but no longer investigates suspicious sudden deaths, the officer told Sims.
“We did make a recommendation as to who would be best suited to conduct a comprehensive file review and the Victoria Police investigators were receptive to that recommendation. The decision to proceed for that review rests with Victoria Police,” the officer wrote.
RCMP spokesman Cpl. Alex Bérubé referred questions about why the investigation didn’t meet VIIMCU’s threshold to VicPD, which declined an interview request with an investigator familiar with the case.
Manak was unaware of the major crime unit’s decision when he spoke to council on Thursday, said spokesperson Cheryl Major.
VicPD is still looking for information from the coroner on the reclassification of Sims-Somerville’s death and police are determining their next steps, Major said in an email.
Sims has been fighting for the past three and a half years for justice for her daughter, including swearing charges as a private citizen against those she believes are responsible.
She believes her daughter and a friend were lured to an apartment on Yates Street and drugged with lethal doses of GHB, gamma-hydroxybutyrate, a central-nervous-system depressant known as a date-rape drug.
The two were rushed to hospital from the apartment on April 9, 2021, but Sims-Somerville died the following evening 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.
The B.C. Prosecution Service stayed proceedings because the case did not meet the required standard that there be a substantial likelihood of conviction based on the evidence and that prosecution was in the public interest.
Sims pushed the B.C. Coroners Service to reopen its investigation into her daughter’s death, and the agency agreed, saying there was new evidence not available when the previous investigation was completed. Last month, it reclassified the teen’s death as a homicide.
“Follow-up investigation revealed evidence that Samantha and her friend were intentionally provided an unregulated substance, without their knowledge, by another individual in the residence,” says the coroners report, which calls “homicide” a neutral term that does not imply fault or blame.
Sims said she tried to remain hopeful after Manak said he requested a review by the major crime unit, but the system has failed her daughter again.
“Just when I had hoped I may have some peace after a gruelling, exhausting three-and-a-half-year fight, again more frustration and disappointment,” she said.
