Vancouver Island Integrated Major Crime Unit says the 2021 death of Samantha Sims-Somerville, deemed a homicide by the coroners service, didn’t meet its threshold for investigation
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.
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.” “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.
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. 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.
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