On the night of May 15, 2021, tragedy struck in University City, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, when 71-year-old Jewish female Barbara Gayle Rich Goodkin was traveling home with her husband. The couple was driving eastbound along the 8200 block of Delmar Boulevard around 10:50 p.m. after enjoying a dinner out. Without warning, a silver SUV pulled alongside their vehicle, and shots were fired into their car.
Her husband, Stanley, was struck in the chest but his cellphone blocked the bullet, saving his life; however, Barbara was critically wounded by a gunshot to the head. Despite being rushed to a local hospital, she succumbed to her injuries and died the following day, May 16, 2021.
Investigators quickly linked the attack to another senseless murder that occurred just an hour later in nearby Brentwood. Dr. Sergei Zacharev was found shot to death in a restaurant parking lot, and ballistics evidence matched the weapon used in the attack on the Goodkins. Law enforcement agencies, including the Major Case Squad of Greater St. Louis, launched a manhunt for the perpetrators, identifying a silver SUV seen at both crime scenes. The search eventually expanded beyond Missouri as authorities connected the St. Louis shootings to a violent multi-state crime spree spanning South Carolina and Tennessee.
The suspects were identified as Tyler Terry and Adrienne Simpson, a couple from South Carolina. Their rampage included multiple homicides and shootings across the different states. Simpson was arrested first in South Carolina following a high-speed chase that ended in a crash. Terry fled into the woods, sparking a massive, week-long manhunt involving hundreds of officers before he was found hiding in high weeds and taken into custody without incident. Authorities discovered that the couple had no known connection to St. Louis or their victims, characterizing the attacks as random acts of violence committed while the pair was passing through the area.
In the years following the arrests, the legal process brought closure to the victims' families. Tyler Terry, who was already serving a life sentence for murders committed in South Carolina, pleaded guilty in a St. Louis County court in July 2024 to multiple charges, including first-degree murder for the deaths of Goodkin and Zacharev. He received a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Adrienne Simpson followed suit in October 2024, pleading guilty to similar charges, including two counts of first-degree murder, ensuring that both individuals responsible for the spree would spend the remainder of their lives incarcerated.
