A Lee’s Summit man with Platte County connections has been convicted of murder in Clay County.
Marcus Simms, 36, was found guilty after a three-day jury trial in Clay County last week. Simms was charged with first-degree murder, armed criminal action and tampering in the death of his girlfriend, Michele Boldridge, and theft of at least one vehicle following the crime.
Michael Simms
On April 30, 2014, Kansas City police responded to several calls of a naked black man running around in an apartment complex off North Hickory Street. He was reportedly covered in blood. Although Simms was gone by the time police arrived, they were able to identify him via a bloody jacket containing his ID card and checked his apartment, discovering Boldridge’s body. A neighbor told police they had heard an argument, then thumping and a woman screaming, “Stop!”
At around the same time, Simms turned up at the Liberty School District bus barn, still naked, and stole a silver minivan after telling a Liberty bus driver that, “You don’t understand, someone just killed my girlfriend.” Much of the incident was recorded on surveillance video at the barn, including footage of a naked black man behind the wheel of the minivan.
Later, Parkville police responded to a crashed minivan at Highway 152 and Interstate 435 and took Simms, still naked and bloody, into custody.
During the investigation, police located another vehicle, a Ford Focus, which Simms apparently used to travel from his apartment complex to the bus barn. The vehicle had dried blood on the steering wheel, gear shift and on a cell phone in the vehicle.
Another resident of the apartment complex discovered damage to his vehicle and what appeared to be blood on both the interior and exterior.
DNA testing of the blood on the vehicles showed the blood belonged to both Simms and Boldridge.
According to a statement from the Clay County Prosecutor’s Office after the conviction, police located a human eyeball in one of the vehicles Simms accessed. The victim died from a dislocated spine and multiple sharp force injuries and was missing an eye.
The case attracted attention not just due to his arrest in Platte County, but also because Simms worked as an assistant coach for the Platte County High School freshman boys basketball team for three seasons, from October 2011 to February 2014. He was not working for the district at the time of the murder.
Simms’s conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole, along with the jury recommended sentences of 100 years for armed criminal action and seven years for the tampering charge.
Clay County Circuit Court judge Janet Sutton has ordered a pre-sentencing assessment report and continued the case to Thursday, Dec. 5, where Simms may be sentenced for those crimes.
Simms also faces another first-degree murder charge in the strangulation death of a former cellmate at the Clay County Detention Center.
On May 29, 2017, 26-year-old Brian Parisi — who was in jail on various drug charges — was found unresponsive in the cell he shared with Simms. He died June 1, 2017 at Liberty Hospital. Simms was indicted by a grand jury in January 2018.
Simms was scheduled to plead guilty in this case before judge Shane Alexander in Clay County but refused to appear in court on Thursday, Oct. 31. Another hearing is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 14.