B.C. coroner renews probe into teen's death as mother calls Victoria police investigation 'inadequate'

Coroner to reopen teen death investigation The BC Coroners Service will reopen an investigation into the death of an 18-year-old girl.

A Vancouver Island woman has successfully pushed for a renewed investigation into her daughter’s death, nearly three years after it was deemed an accident.

“This was not accidental. This was homicide and there is evidence to support that,” Tracy Sims told CTV News in an interview Friday.

Her daughter, Samantha Sims-Somerville, was 18 when she died in April of 2021.

An autopsy revealed the young woman died from a fatal combination of GHB — commonly known as the “date rape drug” — and alcohol, though Sims said Samantha’s blood-alcohol level was below the legal limit.

This week, the BC Coroners Service reopened its investigation into Samantha’s death. The service can renew a probe when substantial new evidence has been discovered.

“I can’t even explain to you how I felt. I fell to my knees,” said Sims, who had appealed the coroner’s initial conclusion that Samantha died of an accidental overdose.

Sims believes Samantha and one of the teen’s friends were drugged at a party in Victoria. Some of the people there were convicted drug traffickers, she said.

“My daughter was misled and taken to an apartment with five or six individuals that she did not know,” she said.

“I believe they were drugged with the intention of sexual assault.”

Both women lost consciousness, but Samantha’s friend survived.

Rape kit denied

After rushing to the ICU, Sims found her child on life support, with bruises on her upper legs and her hair in ringlets.

“That would’ve meant she had to be submerged in water,” Sims said. “The last photo of her going to that (party), she had bone-straight hair.”

Despite evidence that Samantha had been sexually assaulted, Sims said hospital staff did not perform a sexual assault forensic exam.

“My daughter was supposed to have been able to give consent, (but) she’s in a coma with two-per-cent brain activity,” Sims said.

Victoria police investigated and closed the case in September of 2022, she said. No one was ever charged.

'Absolutely inadequate'

Sims said officers told her there wasn’t enough evidence to charge anyone in Samantha’s death.

“It’s an understatement by saying it was absolutely inadequate. In fact, it’s generous to say that they actually even investigated,” she said.

The mother said her conviction that Samantha’s death was a homicide is supported by heaps of evidence — in fact, her kitchen table is covered in it. Among the documents Sims has printed out and stacked in neat piles are screenshots of texts from people at the party saying the young women were drugged.

Sims said she also has a police record that shows a VicPD officer signed off on destroying the belongings Samantha was carrying the night she died.

“They never let me know that they had all my daughters possessions and I begged and cried to have them back,” she said. “They destroyed everything from makeup to jewelry to the last thing she wore, her backpack, all her DNA.”

Sims said police also wiped Samantha’s phone — something she’s baffled by.

“They promised me Samantha’s phone back and its entire contents and then on the day the case was closed, I was given back a wiped phone,” she said.

Police Act complaint

Sims has filed a Police Act complaint against four Victoria police officers involved in her daughter’s case. The Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner will oversee the investigation, which Sims said will be conducted by a VicPD sergeant.

“I have a bad association and a fear of Victoria police. I do not want to deal with them. They have contributed to my trauma, my grief,” she said.

VicPD said it cannot comment on an active investigation.

“We support the BC Coroners Service investigation and offer our heartfelt condolences to Ms. Sims and her family in the wake of this tragic death,” a department spokesperson said in an email.

'I will never ever stop fighting'

Sims hopes the coroner’s renewed investigation will give her a chance to grieve her only child.

“I’ve lost my daughter and I’ve had to play all these different roles just to get my daughter a basic investigation that she is entitled to and deserves,” Sims said.

Samantha was an artist, a poet, a writer, a singer and an animal lover. She did not have a history of drug use, Sims said.

She was gentle, generous and always willing to lend an ear to the kids who got picked on at school.

“Samantha … I love you so much. You were so young. You were too good for this world. You served your purpose and now you’re somewhere else,” she said.

“I will never ever stop fighting for you until my last breath.”