Sims left behind a toddler son and an unborn daughter her family knew as Leilani when she was killed in New Tampa.
TAMPA, Fla. — Alana Sims’ son was not yet 2 when his mother was killed beside her SUV in New Tampa. By the time a jury convicted Billy Adams III more than three years later, relatives said the boy was in kindergarten, growing up with a loss that had become central to the family’s account of what the crime took from them.
That family impact moved to the foreground during Adams’ September 2026 penalty proceeding. Jurors had already found the 28-year-old guilty of first-degree murder in Sims’ death and of causing the death of her unborn child. Sims, 22, was about five months pregnant and planned to name the child Leilani. Her sister, CarliAnna Robinson, told the court that Sims’ life, her children and the family all mattered, describing pain that relatives expected to carry long after the trial ended. The jury ultimately recommended life for Sims’ murder but voted 8-4 for death on the unborn-child count.
Sims was killed Jan. 30, 2023, after driving to an unfinished part of the Easton Park subdivision in New Tampa. Her Ford EcoSport was near the place where she was found. Her young son remained inside in a car seat and was physically unharmed. Sims had been shot behind the head, according to evidence described at trial. The prosecution said the isolated setting was not accidental: Adams had persuaded Sims to go there as part of a plan he had made before she arrived.
The state said Adams and Sims had been sexually involved and that both believed he was the father of her unborn child. At the same time, Adams was involved with another woman and wanted to preserve that relationship. Prosecutors presented messages to argue that he viewed Sims’ pregnancy as an obstacle to the life he wanted. Investigators later determined that Adams was not the biological father. The prosecution maintained that he did not know that when Sims was killed, making his mistaken belief about the pregnancy part of the motive jurors were asked to consider.
Messages between Sims and Adams gave jurors a view of the trust prosecutors said he exploited. Shortly before the killing, Adams wrote that he wanted to see Sims, expressed affection and discussed living together, according to trial reporting. Sims at times appeared skeptical because the tone was different from what she had recently heard from him. She nevertheless went to the location he provided. Prosecutors characterized the exchange not as reconciliation but as a deception intended to bring a five-month-pregnant woman to an unfinished stretch of roadway away from witnesses.
The prosecution paired those messages with communications Adams had with his other girlfriend. One message sent before Sims’ death suggested that a problem involving Sims would soon be finished. Investigators also uncovered searches concerning probable cause for arrest and whether gloves could prevent gunshot residue from reaching a person’s hands, according to reporting based on the case records. The state argued that such evidence made little sense under a theory of an unexpected struggle but fit its account of a shooting planned before Sims reached Easton Park.
Adams’ own statements became important as detectives built the case. He initially denied being with Sims that night and offered video in support of an alibi, according to investigative records. Authorities said the timing of that video had been altered. Surveillance recordings and cellphone information instead placed him in the area. After detectives challenged his first account, Adams gave a different version in which the gun discharged during a confrontation. Prosecutors rejected the explanation and argued that Sims’ wound, the electronic trail and the pre-meeting messages pointed to deliberate action.
Jurors agreed with the state. On Sept. 1, after about five hours of deliberations, they convicted Adams of first-degree murder in Sims’ killing and the separate offense involving her unborn child. The verdict ended the guilt phase but immediately opened another proceeding in which jurors had to evaluate Adams as well as the circumstances of the crime. The state sought the death penalty. The defense sought life without parole, a punishment that would keep Adams in prison for the rest of his life but avoid execution.
The penalty phase placed Sims’ unborn daughter at the center of the state’s argument. Prosecutors referred to her as Baby Girl Sims and said Sims had chosen the name Leilani. A medical examiner who performed the autopsies testified about the stage of Sims’ pregnancy and fetal development. Prosecutors argued that Adams’ decision to kill a pregnant woman caused two deaths and that the unborn child’s death warranted separate consideration under Florida law. They also argued that the underlying killing was cold, calculated and premeditated, relying again on the planning evidence introduced during the trial.
Sims’ family testimony gave jurors another measure of harm that could not be reduced to the physical evidence. Robinson spoke about the family’s continuing grief and the future Sims no longer had with her children. The toddler found inside the SUV became an especially stark part of that account. He survived the night without physical injury, but relatives told jurors that survival did not mean the crime left him untouched. His mother would not be present as he moved through school and childhood, and the family would have to explain a loss that occurred before he was old enough to understand it.
The defense asked jurors to consider a different set of human details before deciding whether Adams should die. Relatives described him as having grown up in a family that remained connected to him. His stepmother said she had helped raise him since he was 6 after his biological mother left and described him as her “bonus son.” Jurors learned that Adams had been a strong student, had graduated from Wharton High School and later earned a business degree from the University of South Florida. The defense argued that those facts did not excuse the convictions but were relevant to whether execution was necessary.
Assistant Public Defender Jamie Kane also emphasized what a life sentence would mean. Adams would not be released, the defense told jurors, and life without the possibility of parole remained an extreme and permanent punishment. A former Florida corrections official testified about the conditions and responsibilities Adams could face under a life sentence compared with death-row confinement. The defense’s strategy asked jurors to separate punishment from vengeance and to decide whether the state had shown that death was warranted after they considered both aggravating and mitigating evidence.
The jury’s answer differed depending on which death it was considering. For Sims’ first-degree murder, jurors recommended life imprisonment without parole. For the unborn-child count, eight of the 12 jurors supported death, meeting Florida’s statutory threshold for a capital recommendation. The split outcome was notable because it treated the punishments arising from the same act differently. State Attorney Suzy Lopez, standing with Sims’ relatives after the proceeding, said prosecutors did not celebrate the decision and expressed hope that it could provide some measure of peace to the family.
Under Florida law, however, the jury’s 8-4 vote did not itself constitute the final death sentence. When at least eight jurors recommend death and the required aggravating findings have been made, the judge may impose death or life imprisonment after weighing the aggravation and mitigation. A jury recommendation of life must be followed. Adams therefore faces life without parole for Sims’ murder, while the court retains responsibility for determining the final punishment on the unborn-child count. Reports characterizing the jury’s September vote as a completed death sentence went further than the sentencing process established by state law.
Adams’ earlier criminal case remains part of the chronology but was separate from the evidence establishing his guilt in Sims’ death. Three days before Sims was killed, he had been acquitted of murder charges stemming from an unrelated 2020 recording-studio shooting. He testified in that case that he acted in self-defense, and jurors found him not guilty. The later prosecution had to prove the Sims case independently, and the jury’s 2026 verdict rested on evidence concerning Sims, the secluded meeting, the digital trail and Adams’ accounts to investigators.
The latest reliable information reviewed does not establish that a judge has since converted the 8-4 recommendation into a final death sentence. What has been decided is that Adams is guilty of Sims’ first-degree murder and the death of her unborn child. For Sims’ relatives, the legal distinction does not change the absence described in court: a 22-year-old mother was killed, the daughter she expected to deliver died with her, and a son who survived the night has continued growing up without his mother.
Author note: Last updated October 19, 2026.