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A Florida rapper has been charged with shooting dead his pregnant girlfriend, three days after he was acquitted of murdering two men in a recording studio in 2020.
Billy Bennett Adams III, 25, lay in wait for Alana Sims, 22, on January 30 – having told her that they were going to a party to celebrate his acquittal.
Police said Adams killed Sims because he did not want to be in her life and he was not ready to have a child.
Sims was five months pregnant when she was shot dead by her car. Her 18-month-old son was found alive in the vehicle.
Billy Bennett Adams III, 25, is accused of shooting dead his five-months-pregnant girlfriend Alana Sims, 22, on January 30
Sims was mother to an 18-month-old son and expecting her second child when she was killed
Adams, who according to The Tampa Bay Times recorded three albums, two EPs and several singles, gave conflicting accounts to police after Sims’ murder.
He initially said he did not believe he was the father of her unborn child, and said he was at home on the night of January 30.
He then changed his story and said he was with friends, but nowhere near the crime scene.
Sims was lured to the scene of her murder, police believe
Adams gave police a video showing him with his friends, but investigators analyzed the footage and determined it had been altered, and was actually shot on February 1.
Adams then admitted killing her, police said – but insisted it was self defense after she pulled a gun on him.
‘Initially the defendant stated that the victim pulled a gun on him, and while the defendant wrestled with the victim he shot her,’ authorities said.
‘When the defendant could not demonstrate the events, the defendant changed his statement to the fact that the victim pulled a gun on him and he was able to get the gun away from the victim and then shot her in the head as self-defense.’
Adams allegedly said he knew Sims was pregnant and that he might be the father.
‘Mere days after he was acquitted of a separate crime, our homicide suspect did the unthinkable when he killed an innocent woman and her unborn child,’ said Lee Bercaw, Tampa’s interim police chief.
‘I hope this arrest brings some closure to the victim’s family, who is mourning the loss of two loved ones.
‘We are working with the State Attorney’s Office to ensure the suspect is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.’
Sims was killed three days after her boyfriend was acquitted of double murder
Sims’ funeral was held on February 12 in Tampa
Adams went on trial in Tampa on January 23, charged with killing Trevon Albury and Daniel Thompson in November 2020.
The group was at a makeshift recording studio in the city, in a shed behind a friend’s parents’ house, when a dispute erupted.
Adams said that he heard Albury and Thompson planning to rob the studio owner, Joseph Meeks.
He told the court he saw Albury pull a gun and put it to Meeks’ head, while Meeks was sat at his computer in the studio.
Adams said he shot Albury dead, and then show Thompson, when he dived for Adams’ gun.
Assistant State Attorney Melissa Grajales told the court the evidence at the scene did not support Adams’ account of where he stood and what he did when he fired the fatal gunshots.
‘This wasn’t self-defense,’ Grajales said. ‘These were executions.’
The jury believed Adams’ account, though, and at the end of a week-long trial acquitted him after four hours of deliberations.
