The Cold-Blooded Slaying of Adam Simjee

The Cold Blooded Slaying of Adam Simjee

(Road Trip True Crime)

Introduction

In the summer of 2022 the Clay County Sheriff’s department responded to a call in Talladega National Forest. When they arrived at the scene they found 22 year old Adam Simjee laying on the ground as his panicked girlfriend, 20 year old Mikayla Paulus performing CPR on the college student. What was meant to have been a romantic time of bonding for the young couple had just been turned into a tragedy of Shakspearean proportions.

Chapter 1 - The Trip

Adam and Mikayla were students at Central Florida University and were taking a road trip to spend a good amount of time together before classes started up again. They knew once school was back in session for what would have been Adam’s final year of college. They also knew that there would be less time for them to get nice romantic evenings together. And it was as they were traveling through the Talladega National Forest that a fateful encounter would shatter multiple lives, and end with a young man needlessly losing his own.

The young couple were driving down an old forestry road when they were flagged down by 21 year old Yasmine Hider. When they spotted the young woman on the side of the road she clearly looked distressed. Once she had Adam and Mikayla’s attention, Hider proceeded to ask them for help getting her vehicle started. Hider then began to lure the couple further into the woods where her dark motives would become clear when she pulled a gun and forced them deeper still into the forest where she attempted to rob the couple telling them both to empty their pockets before marching them further into the woods.

From this moment on Adam did everything he could to get Mikayla out of those woods alive. As it turns out Hider wasn’t the only one armed that day. While Adam drew his own concealed handgun he tried telling Hider that everything of value they had was in the car and that she was welcome to it, that no one had to get hurt. Hider was alarmed when Adam had pulled his own firearm and said “Are you serious?” before there was an exchange of gunfire, an explosive frenzy of violence. After things were silent again both Adam and Hider were on the ground wounded and Hider reportedly said “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

During the firefight Hider had been struck several times in the torso. Adam had been shot in the back, Mikayla called him a hero and said he was shot while trying to protect her. In the aftermath a second woman that Mikayla had spotted watching them approached the wounded Hider after Hider had called for help. The second woman then fled into the woods leaving Hider behind. Once the second woman was gone Mikayla called 911 and got in touch with emergency personnel after which she began performing CPR on Adam until deputies and other first responders arrived.

Sadly Adam Simjee was unable to be revived, and he passed away from his injuries in those woods. Hider on the other hand survived her injuries, and after being found nearby was airlifted to a local hospital. She underwent numerous surgeries and recovered in the hospital under the watchful eyes of deputies. But the search for the second person would set in motion an unsettling string of discoveries that no one would see coming.

Chapter 2 - Searching the Woods

The search that resulted from Mikayla saying she saw a second person watching from the nearby trees was going to yield more than anyone could have possibly foreseen and this entire case would take an even darker turn. As if it weren’t dark enough already.

While searching for the alleged accomplice the deputies would find some very alarming things indeed. Namely in the form of a large encampment set up deep within the forest as a kind of basecamp. In the hours since the shooting police had received reports that there might be a large camp of people living “off the grid”, and this site was less than half a mile from where the attempted robbery had taken place. There were indeed a large number of tents erected in the area and upon spotting a woman near one of them the police called out to her.

As they ordered her to the ground an armed five year old boy with a loaded shotgun ran out of the woods. Despite being ordered to drop the weapon the child proceeded to the woman’s side before laying his weapon down. The woman was identified as Krystal Pinkins and the armed 5 year old was her son. The Department of Human Resources was alerted and they took custody of the boy while his mother was hit with a litany of charges including “endangering the welfare of a child”. Other charges included one count of murder, two counts of robbery and two counts of kidnapping. Yasmine Hider was also charged with one count of murder and two kidnapping and robbery charges.

Mikayla Paulus for her part was not physically harmed during the events that took place that day in the Talladega National Forest, however she was deeply emotionally traumatized by them. Understandably the loss of Adam weighed heavily upon her; especially when she saw it as him sacrificing himself to keep her safe. 

Yasmine Hider readily admitted to faking distress to get the couple to stop for her. She admitted that her goal was to lure them deeper into the forest to rob them. And while her intent may never have been to harm either Adam or Mikayla, her actions that day cost a young couple their future and a much beloved young man his life. Ultimately she was sentenced to 35 years in prison for robbery, the second degree murder of Adam Simjee and the kidnapping of Mikayla Paulus. Pinkins was found guilty on all charges but the kidnapping, and Hider even testified against Pinkins at her trial. In Pinkins’ case she was sentenced to the maximum of life in prison for robbery, murder, and the unlawful use of a firearm during a crime of violence. The entire thing had allegedly been Pinkins idea and she had even provided Hider with the firearm that killed Adam Simjee.

Conclusion

It took me a little bit to come up with some closing thoughts for this one. It’s one of those things where if you’re not careful in how you couch it you either sound like a naive idealist saying “Help everyone regardless of your own safety!” Or it goes the other way and becomes a weird kind of nihilistic rally. I think the best middleground I can find is to say that unfortunately in such a big world with so many people that regardless of our best efforts to prevent them, tragedies will always find a way to happen. All we can do is stay vigilant, if your gut says that maybe something is off about the person asking for help then you should listen to it. Follow your instincts, after countless generations on this earth I think most of us have really good ones, pay attention to them.