Original subtitles

[suspenseful music playing]

[man] So, when I was a kid, my grandfather brought home a shotgun.

And I remember the first thought that went through my head

was, "Damn, it would be so much easier in life

if I were to just kill her and get this over with."

But it was just a thought.

You know, it was just… It was just a thought.

[suspenseful music continues]

[man] I wish I could go back and tell me not to do it.

To literally do probably just about anything else but that.

And I hate that it's ended up impacting so many people in so many negative ways.

Especially Ashley.

[Ashley] The loss of our victim's life weighs heavy on me.

And I don't think I've gotten over what happened to this day, fully.

But I'm not really a murderer.

And it's a… title I have to carry for the rest of my life now.

[music swells]

[music fades]

[theme song playing]

[man 1] I think we could all be dangerous people.

[man 2] People say you're a monster.

[man 3] I'm not sitting here saying I'm innocent.

[man 4] I just murdered some guy in cold blood.

[theme song fades]

[rain pattering]

[uneasy music playing]

[man] When someone knocks on your door after midnight,

something is not right.

My wife was concerned.

And thinking back on it, she was probably correct.

When I opened the door, I had a young couple standing there.

They were cold, and they were wet.

They told me that they'd had some car problems.

So I… I told them I'd drive them a couple miles down the road

to where they were going.

[dramatic sting]

What happened after that was totally beyond my comprehension.

I… I couldn't have imagined that, uh, they were even capable of that.

[police siren sounds]

[music fades]

[suspenseful music playing]

[Ashley] My name is Ashley Morrison, and I was sentenced to 30 years.

I was 17 when I got arrested.

[Christian] My name is Christian Sims.

I have a 35-year sentence for first-degree murder.

I was 16 when I was arrested.

[Christian] I've had a lot put on me in my life.

It was just too much.

I just couldn't take it anymore.

I me… Everybody has their breaking point, and I think that was mine.

[Ashley] When I look back,

I feel, like, this really big sense of loss.

And always that question of just, like,

"What if?"

[music fades]

[hopeful guitar music playing]

[Ashley] We moved to Texas when I was 11.

It was a small town.

They have generations that have grown up there.

At the school that we went to,

I was always really quiet and shy.

I was very insecure.

So, yeah, I guess I was kind of a nerd.

I definitely had bullies.

But band gave my life a purpose.

I was actually able to be a leader in my section.

Almost all of my friends were in band, yeah.

Me and Christian met 'cause we both played the clarinet.

And at first, he was very standoffish.

He didn't talk to anybody, he didn't have any friends.

Um…

And I remember liking the mystery of it,

where he gave off this impression of being somebody that was not…

Like, almost untouchable because nobody really knew anything about him.

It drew me more to him.

[music fades]

[Christian] As… As a teenager, I mean, I… I was fairly introverted.

I was living with my grandparents,

and if I'm just being perfectly honest, I hated it.

It was not enjoyable.

My grandmother was not very…

How do I put this?

She was very heavy-handed.

She, if I'm just being honest,

went out of her way to, uh, destroy quite a few friendships that I had formed.

So I just never allowed myself to get very close with people,

because I'd intentionally always set myself apart.

But with Ashley, you can say that she finally made me feel accepted.

I was in sixth grade when I met Ashley Morrison.

She was in seventh grade.

[laughs]

Uh…

I mean, she was a pretty girl.

I don't know if you would call it chemistry.

It was funny. We had some sort of rivalry going on.

She ended up texting me, and it kind of just went from there.

[Ashley] As I did get to know him, Christian told me about

how he had gotten adopted by, um, his grandparents

because of his home life not being okay,

his parents not being able to take care of him.

And that's why he never felt like he belonged.

He told me about his grandparents and how he wasn't really happy.

[pensive music playing]

Me and my mom didn't have the best relationship either.

But he made me feel like I had finally met somebody who understood me.

And it was so nice to feel completely just understood for once in my life.

That, um, I think in that moment,

is the moment that I fell in love with him.

We were obsessed with each other.

Looking back, it wasn't even like I was myself.

I was like an extension of him.

Like, it didn't matter what I wanted, what I thought.

Like, everything and anything for him. And I was okay with that.

[Christian] It ended up sparking pretty quickly.

I mean, we would see each other every day.

I guess because I fell in love

or whatever it may have been, I ended up letting her in,

ended up getting close to her, talking with her about stuff

that I didn't talk with anybody about, you know.

Most likely, that… that was what was drawing us closer together.

We were trying to find comfort in each other.

[Ashley] So, one night, me and my mom got into a really bad argument.

And, um, my very first instinct was to tell Christian,

because he'd protect me. He'd be there for me.

He and I got together, and we fabricated a story

for him to be able to move in with me,

because I thought that he'd be able to protect me.

[pensive music playing]

[Ashley] At first, it was great.

But I didn't know about his mental health until he moved in with me and my family.

I don't really think I fully comprehended it.

Little things would make him so angry.

He'd get angry around my sisters,

especially the youngest one, who was only three at the time.

And he had guns in the house, um, that he had brought with him.

It made it scary.

[Christian] At first, it was great.

Uh, I obviously didn't have my grandmother there making my life hell.

But it just seemed like the more time went on,

the less smooth things started to go.

And it just seemed like everything just kept tumbling and getting worse and worse.

And I just wanted to get away from it.

And suddenly just, like, you know, it's, "Fuck it. I'm just gonna leave."

I ended up telling Ashley, "Hey, uh, I don't know if you wanna come with me,

but I'm leaving."

And she said, "I wanna come with you."

I told her…

[softly] Well…

Anyway, she ended up deciding to come with me.

[Ashley] We had one plan, which was to run away together.

Typical teenager stuff.

But it transformed.

He mentioned wanting to kill his grandparents,

steal everything from them,

go start our own life. No rules, no authorities.

I wasn't okay with that.

Did I believe him? Not really.

But I just remember at that point, like, I wasn't really happy anymore

being with him.

[voice breaking] But he brought my family into it and threatened them.

When he said, "Well, if I just take away the reason that you would not go with me,

then you're gonna go with me one way or the other." Basically, regardless.

At that point, it didn't matter whether I believed it or not,

because I wasn't gonna take the risk

of not believing he was capable of something like that and being wrong.

[unsettling music playing]

I honestly don't remember how that day started.

I remember packing my bags…

and my mom coming into the bedroom and asking what was going on.

And I… I remember crying and telling her, like,

"I have to get out of the house. Like, we're moving out. Like, we're leaving."

And as I went to go out the door, my mom shoved me out.

She took my keys. She took my phone.

I wasn't coming back. I was…

[voice breaking] I was done in that family.

[uneasy music playing]

[rain pattering]

[Ashley] So, we started walking.

It was nighttime.

We walked for a long time.

We eventually got to a house…

where… we knocked on the door and asked for a ride.

This man gave us a ride

to somewhere in the vicinity of Christian's grandparents' house.

[music builds]

[Christian] We go to my aunt's house.

Uh, the door was locked.

I end up popping the screen off, opening the window. We go inside.

So I go looking through the house. I end up finding the gun.

I check all the rounds, load it back up.

Tell Ashley, "Hey, I'm going to be back in, like, 15 minutes. Just wait here."

And I leave.

[suspenseful music playing]

[dramatic sting]

[Christian] I go up to my grandparents' house.

I can see my grandmother in the house.

I grab some rocks out of the gravel driveway.

And, uh,

I threw the rocks at the washtub on the back, trying to get her to come out.

[softly] I don't know, man. This is…

[sighs] So,

she came out. As soon as she looked at me, I shot.

[dramatic music playing]

I ended up walking up to her.

She was still shaking.

So, I was thinking, "Well, she may still be alive."

So, I put another one in the back of her head.

[music swells]

"I fucked up." [chuckles]

That was the first thing that went through my head. "I fucked up."

"What have I done?"

[Ashley] He came back and was… manic.

I mean, I knew something wasn't right, that something was wrong in that moment.

He was waving the gun around,

talking about, "Hurry, get our stuff, get in the car,"

screaming at me because I wasn't moving fast enough.

I was confused.

He told me that he had killed his grandma.

[dramatic sting]

I don't really think I fully comprehended it in that very first moment

or even the moment after that.

He had told me, but, like I said, I didn't really believe him.

I don't really know which moment my brain decided to shut down

in the process of everything.

It was like a reality I wasn't gonna face.

What he said to do, I did without hesitation.

I never thought to save myself.

Um…

And I… I just… I don't know why I never thought to do that.

[suspenseful music builds]

[dramatic sting]

[suspenseful music swells, then fades]

[uneasy violin music playing]

[Christian] I told an officer immediately it was all me. She had nothing to do.

You know, if I'm just being honest, she's an innocent bystander in all this.

Like, she…

She definitely doesn't… doesn't deserve to be locked up for some…

for my mistake, you know?

[violin music intensifies]

[music fades]

[hopeful guitar music playing]

[man] There's no real words to describe

what it feels like to wake up one morning

knowing you've sat next to a murderer on the school bus.

To this day, it's still difficult to wrap my head around.

But I think that,

had Ashley not been in the picture, this wouldn't have happened to begin with.

My name is Eric Shelton,

and I went to school with Ashley Morrison and Christian Sims.

[guitar music fades]

I've known Christian for probably 12, 13 years.

I would describe Christian as… a private person.

You could tell that he was a very intelligent kid.

Um, smart, he was studious.

Um… He just wasn't the most outgoing.

[pensive guitar music playing]

There is no question that Christian was dealing with some demons from his past.

But he made good grades in school,

and you could tell just by talking to him that he had a future,

he had a plan, he was going somewhere.

Ashley was a year older than Christian and I.

[uneasy music playing]

And when you're in high school, a one-year age difference is huge.

The power dynamic between them was,

if she walked, he kissed the ground she walked on.

If Ashley asked Christian to jump off of a cliff,

not only would he do it, but he would ask her what he should wear when he does it.

It's hard to speak on what happens behind closed doors,

'cause obviously I don't know 100%.

But I saw what their relationship was like.

What she wanted, went.

But all of a sudden, when something bad happens,

of this nature,

that is punishable,

she says she has no participation at all whatsoever.

That's what sticks out to me.

[woman] From the beginning, we looked at this as a case

that there were two individuals involved.

But one of the difficult things for me is, you know, why did this happen?

To me, there was no clear motive.

My name is Jill Drake,

and I was an assistant district attorney here in Lamar County, Texas,

when this murder was committed.

[pensive guitar music playing]

I was involved with the case from the beginning.

When the call came in and we learned that it was the Sims family,

we all said, "Oh my goodness, Christian Sims,

he was a victim in a case previously."

And, kind of, the memories started flooding back.

Christian had been a victim of a child physical abuse case way back in '06.

It was quite a horrific case.

His mother's boyfriend had physically and potentially sexually abused Christian Sims

when Christian was eight years old.

[Christian, on recording] My mother ended up getting with some guy.

His name was Anthony Trenton Barbour. I remember his name.

I don't know. It's kind… It's kind of difficult to talk about.

He was just what you would call demented.

There's quite a few different things that ended up happening.

I mean, there's beatings, diff… different things like that.

I was scared, I would piss the bed.

And one of his remedies for that is that he would take a clothespin

and he would put it on, you know, my privates.

I… I guess you could call it sexual in nature.

[Jill Drake] As a child abuse prosecutor, it's very difficult for me to hear

the things that Christian says happened to him, some of which I know are true.

[voice breaking] And it hurts me to hear that.

It was just a horrible situation for this child to be in.

[pensive, soft music playing]

His grandparents, they were a very well-known and well-respected family.

And, you know, did the best they could and gave him a home.

But this child was going to have PTSD.

He was going to have to work through these issues

throughout the rest of his adolescence.

And we hoped that being in the loving home with the Sims,

um, that he would get that help.

[Christian, on recording] I move in with my grandparents.

And, uh, pardon my French, but fuck it.

[chuckles] I might as well just go ahead and talk about it. Uh…

You're not supposed to speak ill of the dead,

but my grandmother was definitely the worst,

most poisonous person that I've ever met.

My grandmother mentally, physically, and sexually abused me.

Uh, she would come in late at night.

She'd do pretty much the same thing Trent would do, except

instead of beating me and stuff, she's trying to cause me pain in other ways.

She would, uh, grab my privates and twist.

I don't know, she was just real… sadistic with the things that she would do.

Far worse than Trent.

[dramatic sting]

[Jill Drake] Well, that was very interesting. [sighs]

It's the first time I've heard any allegations of this nature.

I hate to discount when I hear a person say that they were abused.

I can tell you, I'm… I'm not sure I believe it.

If his grandmother had done something to him to make him kill her,

then it sure would've been important for him to tell his lawyer that at a trial.

[pensive piano music playing]

[Jill Drake] It's shocking to me to hear Christian say his grandmother abused him.

If… If that had come out,

we certainly would've investigated that further and taken that into consideration.

That's what we do. Prosecutors seek justice.

But he pointed a gun at her and shot her in the cheek,

shot her right in the face.

And, to me,

that is… his way of making himself feel better

that he's in prison for killing her.

[music continues]

[music fades]

[sheep bleat]

[woman] My mom was the best mom that you could ever have.

Just very giving and loving.

For Christian to even say that my mom would've ever mistreated him

is a complete outrage.

It's just another stab in the heart,

a stab in the back, that

my parents did all this for you, and then this is how you react.

I'm Laurie Geer,

and my mom was Annie Lois Sims.

[soft music playing]

[sucks teeth]

Um, here's a photo of my mom and dad,

and this would have been probably right after church.

There's my mom in the kitchen.

Yeah.

I wish I could call her today and ask her some cooking questions.

[pensive, guitar music playing]

When my parents first took Christian in,

it was 100%, you know, "This is what we need to do."

And there's no way in hell that my mom would have ever mistreated him.

That's not who she was, and that's never anything she would have ever done.

They, um, raised him like they did my brother and I.

But he had been through a horrific thing,

and so they tried to get him the help that he needed and the counseling,

and then provide a stable, you know, loving home

to help support from that side of things.

So, there was nothing that… that he would've needed that he didn't get.

[uneasy music playing]

The first time I found out about Ashley was when they went to prom together,

and I saw the pictures.

You know, you could tell from the picture that he was, you know, really into her.

But once Ashley came along, uh, Christian, you know, totally changed.

[soft music playing]

He became, you know, rebellious and argumentative, and,

you know, th… that kind of stuff.

I just don't believe that Christian would've done anything like this

if it weren't for meeting and being in a relationship with Ashley.

I hate Ashley Morrison.

You're not supposed to hate people, but I do.

Uh, I believe Ashley is just as guilty as Christian, 100%.

She just thought she could do whatever she wanted,

and that she wasn't gonna have to, you know, pay the consequence.

I knew Ashley had changed her story.

I think she's very manipulative.

[pensive guitar music playing]

[man] When you go into an interview, you hope for the best outcome.

And when I was going to interview Ashley, I was hoping that she would tell me

100% the truth about everything that happened

and answer every possible question I had.

But do I ever get what I want? No.

My name is Stacy McNeal.

I'm a Texas Ranger assigned to Paris, Texas.

When I first met Ashley,

my initial impression of her was

she looked like a typical 17-year-old high school student,

maybe a little bit on the immature side.

She spoke very freely and openly,

and she chose to go ahead and speak with me

outside the presence of her attorney.

She denied having any knowledge, at that time,

of Christian's grandmother even being dead.

And she made a statement

that Christian did not have a rifle when he'd left the house.

Ashley was saying,

"I'm just a poor, frightened girlfriend

that was afraid that Christian was gonna do something to my family

if I didn't just go along with him."

[dramatic music playing]

In the second interview,

she's trying to keep from implicating herself in a criminal offense.

But what she actually ends up doing

is implicating herself more thoroughly.

In the second interview, she's changed a lot of vital information.

She admitted to helping Christian load a rifle.

This was the first time that she admitted that Christian had a weapon when he left.

And then Ashley admitted that Christian had told her

it was his intent to go out to the residence

and kill both Mike and Annie Lois Sims.

She told no one, she took no action.

She didn't do anything to try to prevent this.

They were working together, in concert, to commit this offense.

No doubt you're a party to this. You're a defendant. You're a murderer.

[uneasy music playing]

[Jill Drake] You might think, "Okay. Well, you can't charge me with murder

unless I was the person who was the shooter."

Well, in Texas, if you help in any manner in the commission of a crime,

you are a principal.

You are the one who did it, whether you pulled the trigger or not.

And we believed Ashley Morrison aided Christian

before, during, and after the crime.

[music fades]

[soft piano music playing]

[Jill Drake] One of the key pieces of evidence at trial

were the text messages between Ashley Morrison and Christian Sims.

These are text messages that were on December 16th, 2014,

which would be two days before the murder.

Christian, "I'm going to my grandparents' and robbing them blind."

"I guess we will have to start early."

Ashley, "Yeah, without a car or money."

"Or yeah, all of those with my grandparents."

Ashley, "Yeah, I guess so."

Christian, "We could do it tonight."

Ashley, "I don't know if she's gonna let me go or not."

"Especially if Dad gets involved."

"Well, they can fuck off. I will kill your dad."

"Okey dokey."

As a result of these text messages,

it was very clear for us that they planned to leave,

they were gonna rob grandparents blind,

they were gonna kill whomever they needed.

It's all right there.

"I'm gonna kill your dad." "Okey dokey."

What was that?

She's… She's a participant.

[music fades]

[Ashley, on recording] I pled not guilty, 'cause I didn't feel that I was.

I thought that the truth was gonna get put out there,

and they were gonna see…

[voice breaks] Like, they were just gonna see me.

And, um,

that just everything was gonna be okay, and I was gonna be able to go home.

But they said, because I never reported him before it happened,

after he told me what he wanted to do,

I was just as guilty as if I had pulled the trigger,

even though I wasn't the one that pulled the trigger.

I didn't know that he was actually able to kill his grandmother.

I mean, he had told me,

but, like I said, I didn't really believe him.

[Christian] I understand the things that we had talked about and whatnot,

but those are just the ravings of somebody who was angry and hurt, you know?

I mean, just, what kind of… what kind of 17-year-old girl is gonna think

that her 16-year-old boyfriend's actually gonna do that, you know?

I mean, who could… who could reasonably expect that?

[pensive music playing]

Honestly, I feel like it's a bit unjust.

[on recording] Because in my mind, when I look back,

I don't think there was anything I could have done to have saved her.

[Jill Drake] I hear Ashley saying that she feels like it's unjust.

But we charged her, and she was convicted.

That's all there is to it.

This is just Ashley Morrison rewriting what happened in her own mind

so she can live with herself.

To me, it's an excuse.

It's just something for her to say at this point

to make her feel better about the fact that she willingly went with him.

[uneasy violin music playing]

[man] At the trial, the prosecutors said

that Ashley Morrison was a party to the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.

But the key piece of evidence that I'm concerned with

is Christian Sims' statement.

"It was all me. She didn't have anything to do with it."

[soft piano music playing]

My name is Roland Mosher,

and I am an attorney in the state of Texas.

I practice criminal defense, and I did most of the work on Ashley's appeal.

[keyboard keys clacking]

I think that there is a sense

in which Ashley was associated with Christian Sims' actions.

She didn't call the police.

She didn't refuse to get in the car with him.

She went with him.

But there's enough of a case to be made that Ashley was coerced.

It's critical to the assumption of the law of parties

that you be a willing participant.

And if you're being coerced, you're not a willing participant.

The state's case, essentially, is that Ashley, a 17-year-old girl,

didn't go out of her way to… disagree with or interfere with

her demonstrably emotionally unstable and homicidal boyfriend.

But if your crazy boyfriend comes to your front door and says,

"I'm gonna leave and you're coming with me and I'm gonna murder people today,"

it's very reasonable to conclude that, if you do something to offend him

or if your family does something to upset him,

that… they'll be next.

[pensive music playing]

[pensive music continues]

[woman] The person who's responsible for this matter is Chris,

not Ashley.

I think when people vilify Ashley,

it's partially because there's intent that's attributed to her

that I don't believe is at all accurate.

My name is Rycke Marshall. I'm a clinical psychologist.

I did an evaluation with Ashley Morrison.

And I have Ashley's full permission to discuss this case.

I met with Ashley on four separate occasions for a total of 12 hours.

She was friendly, but she was traumatized.

Almost childlike, in some respects.

And she's someone who could be easily manipulated.

For an adolescent to be interviewed by police, without an attorney present,

would be terrifying.

It's not a level playing field.

And I don't think it's surprising at all if her story changed.

Chris said,

"I could kill both your parents,

and I could make it look like a murder-suicide."

[dramatic sting]

It seemed like a very real threat to her,

so she had no choice but to go.

You know, it was Chris's plan.

It was his actions. It was his thoughts.

It wasn't what she wanted.

I just hate it when I think somebody's being treated unfairly.

And I think she would have a good chance of a different result

if she were tried again.

But, unfortunately, that's not what happened.

[soft, dramatic music playing]

[pensive guitar music playing]

[Ashley] So I changed my plea to guilty during my second trial

because… I was guilty.

And I am guilty.

Regardless of my frame of mind,

regardless of the fact that my family was threatened,

[voice breaking] regardless of those things, like, I had a choice.

I could've made the choice to try to stop him.

I could have made the choice to get help.

And I do take responsibility for my choices.

I don't know if I could have stopped it,

but a really big part of me wishes that I had just tried.

[music fades]

I was given 30 years all over again.

Honestly, it feels unjust, when I did not commit the murder.

That's me speaking from my point of view.

That's me speaking… from watching my life slip through my fingers.

But now it's my opportunity to tell the truth.

My interviews with police, I was terrified. [chuckles]

But I remember very distinctly thinking to myself,

"They'd never believe me if I tell them the truth of what really happened."

I wanted to paint things in a better light.

But I just wished that I had told the truth from the beginning,

because now it will always be a question of, "Well, what really was the truth?"

[Stacy McNeal, on recording] When I was gonna interview Ashley,

between the first and the second interview,

she'd changed a lot of vital information.

She admitted to helping Christian load a rifle.

And then Ashley admitted that Christian had told her

it was his intent to kill both Mike and Annie Lois Sims.

[Ashley] I did not go to his grandparents' house.

I did not commit the murder.

And, in my mind, I was never helping him load the rifle.

There was a bunch of bullets on the ground,

and he wanted me to pick the bullets up and count them back to him.

And that's simply all I did.

I mean, obviously, looking back now,

there's no way I couldn't think that he was gonna go harm somebody, right?

That's what everybody thinks. But at the same time,

you don't believe somebody is capable of something like that,

especially somebody you love, somebody that you're in love with.

[Jill Drake, on recording] It was very clear Ashley Morrison aided Christian

before, during, and after the crime.

They were gonna kill whoever they needed.

Christian, "I will kill your dad."

Ashley, "Okey dokey."

"I'm going to kill your dad." "Okey dokey."

What was that?

She's a participant.

[Ashley] Those texts, that looks horrible. Like, I understand that.

I understand, from the outside looking in, how bad that is

and how bad that looks.

But I know for me that I was brushing Christian off.

Any time I said "okay" or "okey dokey,"

that was my "whatever" to him.

I didn't take him seriously.

But it became serious.

I definitely regret

not trying to stop what happened.

And if I could say something to the Sims family, I would tell them,

even though it makes up for nothing, that I'm genuinely sorry.

But, at the same time, I cannot take responsibility for what he did.

I do believe I should be… in prison for my involvement.

Yes.

Do I believe that I should've gotten 30 years for my involvement, though?

No.

Because the man who pulled the trigger

and concocted the plan only got 35.

[dramatic music playing]

[Christian] I shot my grandmother because she had beaten and molested me as a child.

I would not have done it for any other reason.

But, from the outset, there was no, like, plan.

If I'm just being honest, uh, I'm an incredibly intelligent individual.

Uh, and I don't mean to say this to sound uh, like an asshole or anything like that,

but had I planned this out, it would have happened in a completely different way.

The reason why I didn't mention the… the prior abuse

is because I didn't think that I would be believed.

[Laurie Geer, on recording] For Christian to even

say that my mom would have ever mistreated him

is a complete outrage.

And that's never anything she would have ever done.

It's just another stab in the heart,

a stab in the back,

that... [sighs] ...my parents did all this for you,

and then this is how you react.

[Christian] Nothing I can do or say's gonna convince anybody.

They weren't there. They didn't have to experience it.

And, if I'm just being honest,

I don't have remorse for her being dead as a person.

Uh, I think that…

I think that she deserved a lot worse than what she got.

I just hate that it was... [scoffs] ...my dumb ass who did it.

I honestly couldn't say what Ashley thought.

[scoffs] What I think that she's probably told y'all

is probably some truth with a bunch of bullshit mixed in.

Like, she's talking about how she's scared of me and other shit like that.

I treated the girl like a princess.

Like, I never did anything to… to hurt her.

Uh, I didn't force her to do anything.

[dramatic music continues]

[end theme music playing]

[music fades]