Gary Melke - 12/3/1985 - Hanahan, SC
Christopher Zerr - 12/3/1985 - Hanahan, SC
John Steven Harrigan - 12/10/1985 - Glendale, CA



Mitchell Carlton Sims


Summary of Offense:

On December 10, 1985, Sims ordered a Domino's pizza delivered to the motel room he was sharing with girlfriend Ruby Padgett. Upon arrival, deliveryman John Harrington was stripped, gagged with a washcloth, and drowned in the bathtub. Sims wore the dead man's uniform when he returned to the restaurant, looted its safe, and left two employees locked in the freezer, bound in such a way that they were forced to stand on tip-toe to avoid hanging themselves. This time, both victims managed to escape, and they identified a photograph of Sims as their assailant. Domino's offered a $100,000 reward for his arrest, but once again, the bird had flown.

By December 11, Sims and Padgett were hiding in Las Vegas, where he registered as "Jeff Richardson" at a cheap motel. Harrington's stolen pickup was recovered from the parking lot of a casino on December 21, and mass publicity resulted in the arrest of both suspects on Christmas morning. An unemployed iron worker had taken the couple home for drinks before seeing their published photographs, after which he promptly turned them in for the reward. Sims and Padgett waived extradition to California, there pleading innocent to all counts in the Glendale robbery and murder. Fearful of execution in South Carolina, they resisted extradition to their home state, and California's governor agreed in February 1986, asserting Glendale's priority in placing the killers on trial. Mitchell Sims was convicted of Harrington's murder on May 20, 1987, and a month later his jury recommended the death penalty.

On September 11, 1987, in Los Angeles County, he was formally sentenced to die in the gas chamber at San Quentin.

Sims is also on the South Carolina death row roster for a similar offense. See http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/...lina-Death-Row