In the early morning hours of June 8, 2015, the life of 39-year-old Krystal R. Torres-Smith, a member of the Oneida Nation, was tragically cut short in Green Bay, Wisconsin. She was discovered in her vehicle at Communiversity Park on the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay campus, having been shot multiple times. Her death was not a random act of violence but the result of a prearranged meeting that took a fatal turn.
Investigators determined that Torres-Smith had arranged to meet Percy N.
Sims, then 27 years old, to sell him marijuana. It was during this transaction that Sims, a man with a prior armed robbery conviction and who was on the run from probation agents in Milwaukee, shot Torres-Smith at close range. The firearm used in the homicide was believed to have been stolen from a gun store that Sims was under federal investigation for burglarizing. Within days of the murder, law enforcement located and arrested Sims on unrelated charges while they built their homicide case against him.
Ultimately, Percy N. Sims was charged with the murder of Krystal Torres-Smith. In April 2016, he pleaded guilty to the crime. Two months later, in June 2016, a Brown County judge sentenced him to life in prison. He will be eligible for the possibility of parole after serving 40 years. The sentencing hearing was an emotional one, with many of Krystal's family and friends in attendance, including her teenage daughter who gave a victim impact statement. Before the sentence was handed down, Sims offered a brief apology for his actions.
