https://www.al.com/news/2022/0...eaha-state-park.html

‘He is my hero’: Florida student died protecting heartbroken girlfriend in robbery near Cheaha State Park
----------------
Hider asked them for their banking information and cell phone passwords.

“When she (the suspect) dropped her guard for a second, and lowered her gun for a second, he pulled out his gun and told her to get on the ground,’’ Paulus said. “She started messing with her gun and it was jamming but they shot at each other.”

“She was shot three times and he was shot once. Her femur was shattered so she couldn’t get away,’’ she said.
---------------
The full story:
Mikayla Paulus and Adam Simjee decided to take a spontaneous trip to Alabama’s Cheaha State Park before returning to college in Florida this week.

Traveling was something the couple of 4 ½ years loved to do together, and a day spent in nature seemed like the perfect way to end the summer.

Instead, it ended in a horrific nightmare when Simjee was fatally shot during a robbery attempt on a National Forest Service Road. Investigators say the robbery and subsequent killing were carried by a woman was with a group of other people “living off the grid” in a camp in the national forest.


“I lost the love of my life,’’ Paulus said in an interview with AL.com. “This will be with me forever.”

Authorities late Tuesday said Yasmine Hider, age unavailable, and Krystal Pinkins, 36, are charged with murder, two counts of kidnapping and two counts of robbery.


Pinkins is being held in the Clay County Jail. Hider remains in custody at UAB Hospital in Birmingham after she was wounded in an exchange of gunfire with Simjee.

Simjee, 22, was about to begin the finance program at the University of Central Florida, and Paulus, 20, was beginning work on her master’s degree in counseling, also at UCF.

“We were starting school on Monday, so we wanted to do one last road trip,’’ Paulus said.

“I guess our moms felt something because they didn’t want us to go and told us to be safe. I told my mom we would be safe because Adam had his gun.”

The couple arrived at Cheaha State Park in Clay County, taking in the waterfalls and Boulder Rock.


Adam Simjee and Mikayla Paulus
Adam Simjee, 22, and Mikayla Paulus, 20, were hiking in Cheaha State Park Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, when they were robbed at gunpoint and Simjee was fatally shot. (Contributed)

It was mid-morning when they were flagged down by two women who said they were having car trouble, and the couple stopped to help. That is the way they were raised, and what they had been taught to do.


“I called my dad (to ask for car repair advice), watched some YouTube videos and tried to fix car,’’ Paulus said. “When we realized it couldn’t be fixed, I asked if she needed anything else.”

“She (Hider) pulled a gun, said put your hands up, walk into the woods and drop your phone and keys,’’ Paulus recounted.

Simjee, she said, was a “proud supporter of the Second Amendment” and had tucked his gun in his waistband when they stopped to help the women.

“He had his gun in his waistband the whole time because he said it was suspicious and this is how people get robbed,’’ Paulus said.

“My whole body went numb, but I knew I would at least be OK,’’ she said. “I was terrified, but I knew at any point Adam was going to pull his gun out.”

“He always made sure that I knew that I was protected and taken care of,’’ she said.

Hider asked them for their banking information and cell phone passwords.

“When she (the suspect) dropped her guard for a second, and lowered her gun for a second, he pulled out his gun and told her to get on the ground,’’ Paulus said. “She started messing with her gun and it was jamming but they shot at each other.”

“She was shot three times and he was shot once. Her femur was shattered so she couldn’t get away,’’ she said.


The second female suspect - Pinkins - ran off into the woods once the gunfire erupted.

Paulus called 911 and remained on the phone with dispatchers for about 30 minutes. “I had to do chest compressions the last five minutes,’’ she said.

Simjee was unresponsive and never spoke again after he was shot.

“He went down, and he was struggling,’’ she Paulus said.

Sheriff Jim Studdard on Tuesday while they were searching for the second suspect - Pinkins - they were led to a large group of tents that had been sent up in the forest. He described it as a base camp, which was located about a half mile from the crime scene.

As authorities were approaching the base camp, they observed Pinkins standing near the tents. As officers were ordering Pinkins to the ground, a 5-year-old child ran from the woods holding a loaded shotgun.

Law enforcement officers told the child to put down the weapon however the child continued to his mother’s location before putting the gun on the ground. Pinkins is also charged with endangering the welfare of a child, and the child is now in the custody of DHR.


Paulus returned to Florida Monday to be with her family.

She said her relationship with Simjee was like a fairytale and she had been expecting an engagement ring from him any day.

“He kept it a secret,’’ she said, “but we were definitely going to get married and have kids and be together.”


Adam Simjee, 22, and Mikayla Paulus, 20, were hiking in Cheaha State Park Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, when they were robbed at gunpoint and Simjee was fatally shot. (Contributed)


This is what she posted on Facebook:

“Yesterday my world ended. I had to watch as my reason for being, my soulmate, my life partner, the future father of my child, died in the middle of a state park in Alabama. No words can begin to describe the shock and pain I’m in. We had our entire lives ahead of us.

Adam is the best person I’ve ever met on the face of this entire planet. He was the most pure soul and he died protecting me.

It comforts me to say he passed in one of his favorite places, the forest in the mountains.”

She said losing Simjee was her biggest fear.

“I always asked him what he expected me to do if he died,’’ she wrote. “His answer was to take care of our children, (at the time it was three cats) so that’s what I’ll do.”

Paulus said Simjee was creative, smart and selfless. “He would do anything for anybody,’’ she said.


He died protecting her, as he always said he would do.

“If he didn’t have his gun, I don’t know if I would have made it,’’ she said. “So, he really is my hero and that’s exactly something he would do.”

She said the pain is something she’s never experienced nor expected.

“There’s no way this is my real life right now. It’s absolutely horrible,’’ Paulus said. “I can’t imagine it being much worse.”

Asked about the two women who committed the crime, Paulus said, “They were starving and desperate and that’s what people do when they’re desperate.”

Paulus said she feels like she will forever be change.

“I definitely learned that you can’t help anybody anymore. You never know what people’s true intentions are,’’ she said. “You can’t help people anymore without worrying about your safety.”

A GoFundMe has been launched to help Simjee’s family. Donations can be made here.


“Adam, such an intelligent, hard-working, humble, loving human being,’’ the GoFundMe reads. “Adam died protecting Mikayla and will forever be remembered as a hero.”

This message has been edited. Last edited by: c1steve,

A couple of observations.
I suspect the fact the robbers were female played into his reluctance to shoot when needed.
Also, her marksmanship appears to be better than his.

Oh to be young. I’m sorry for her loss, and I’m sorry the young man didn’t just shoot their attackers. He might have lived. Sounds like he gave the robber time to chamber a round in what was an empty gun. I wouldn’t have stopped, and a gun isn’t a magic talisman. That’s the kind of situation where you drive on until you’re clear away and call the police non-emergency line and let them know someone is broken down and trying to flag down help. There’s a right way to help and a wrong way. His naïveté got him killed.


Just awful.

Sad story. Some of the worst journalism I have seen. Confusing story.

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
Also, her marksmanship appears to be better than his.

Not necessarily. Not enough information.

We know the murderer was shot once in the leg, but don't know anything about where the victim's other two shots landed, or where the murderer's single shot landed on the victim.

Marksmanship is about landing hits where it's more likely to be effective, but nothing's a guarantee, and even poor marksmen get lucky at times.

Handgun bullets can be wildly unpredictable in their terminal effects. People have been killed from a single shot to the wrist that ricochets up the arm and into the thoracic cavity. People have survived multiple center mass shots, or head shots.

Also note that it reportedly took 30+ minutes for help to arrive after calling 911. There are any number of injuries that could be survivable if treated within minutes, but fatal after 30+ minutes without treatment. The fact that he was reportedly breathing for the first 25 out of those 30 minutes is telling. Could have succumbed to something like a pneumothorax, or moderate but uncontrolled bleeding, or shock, that might have been easily survivable with more rapid intervention.

Let's say (hypothetically) that they both shot each other in the leg once. If the murderer had a severed artery in the leg that she clamped off with a tourniquet, and the victim had a moderate flesh wound to the leg that didn't receive any effective treatment, it's entirely possible for the murderer's more serious arterial wound to be survived while the victim's less serious flesh wound proved eventually fatal from 30+ minutes of blood loss and shock from the resulting blood pressure drop.

quote:

Originally posted by c1steve:
“living off the grid”

I guess this is the new woke way of saying homeless criminal piece of garbage.

Lord knows we can't offend them.

^^^Yep. And “starving” is the new euphemism for needing a hit.

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
I wouldn’t have stopped, and a gun isn’t a magic talisman. That’s the kind of situation where you drive on until you’re clear away and call the police non-emergency line and let them know someone is broken down and trying to flag down help..

This x 1000. I read too many cases where good Samaritans got robbed and killed, when they stopped and helped stranded people who turned out to be scumbags of the earth.

Once, using a FATS simulator… One scenario found me yapping at the guy. Bank drive-through car jacking/robbery.


Feedback was, shoot don’t talk.

When I took my CCW license course years ago, each of the students got to do one scenario in a simulator.

6 of us went into the simulator room at a time. I was the 6th to do my simulator so I got to watch the other 5.

All 5 got killed because they were yelling "drop the weapon" and things like that instead of shooting.

I was the only one who killed the perp and lived.

People want to talk the perps out of it and believe the bad guys are like them. They're not. In addition, they hesitate before shooting someone.

In the words of Bernard Books,

It isn't always being fast or even accurate that counts. It's being willing. I found out early that most men, regardless of cause or need, aren't willing. They blink an eye or draw a breath before they pull the trigger. I won't.

Simple as this to me, if I believe there is a threat that justifies my use of deadly force I am going to USE it.

"Drop it and get on the ground" is for cops who are going to take someone into custody. I am not equipped or trained to do that.

If deadly force is warranted, any delay (in possibly your only opportunity to use it) gives the bad guy a potential chance to regain the upper hand.

I don't think you would have much to fear of prosecution where you stopped to help stranded (or fake stranded) motorists unknown to you and then while being the victim of a highway robbery defended yourself. Dead perp with gun pretty much corroborates your explanation of the situation.

I remember the one thing my CCW instructor told us so many years ago. The bad guy should only see your gun when the bullets are in the air.

I hope if I am ever in a crisis situation like this I will remember my training. I've never drawn my pistol, so I can't say for sure what will happen. I read once that sometimes when troops first experience combat, their aim isn't true.
I do think reading this story will help my response as it gives me a real world what if to bolster the training of if you draw you should shoot.

Another take that hasn't been mentioned is that Alabama has the death penalty, so the shooter will most likely be looking at an injection. The accomplice's fate is a toss up.

It would be very hard, when as a young person, to shoot someone else, esp. a woman.

I am ready for it now, but was not when I was 20 years old. The young are relatively innocent, as one experiences life they eventually learn how evil and cruel others can be.

Tough situation. I'm sure that if the male robbery victim survived, and the female robber died, the court of public opinion would be up in arms about him shooting her 3X to her one shot. They'd be crying about excessive force and toxic male aggression.

Sure, his shoot was justified self-defense, and, "Better to judged by 12 than carried by 6," but still...

As 220-9er put it, I would bet reluctance to shoot a woman played a part.

quote:

Originally posted by c1steve:
It would be very hard, when as a young person, to shoot someone else, esp. a woman.

I am ready for it now, but was not when I was 20 years old. The young are relatively innocent, as one experiences life they eventually learn how evil and cruel others can be.

Amen

quote:

Originally posted by c1steve:
It would be very hard, when as a young person, to shoot someone else, esp. a woman.

I am ready for it now, but was not when I was 20 years old. The young are relatively innocent, as one experiences life they eventually learn how evil and cruel others can be.

True for some, but not all. My Dad started telling me when I was a kid, maybe 10 years old, that if someone came in the house that didn't belong with bad intent, to shoot and think about it later.

I was perfectly willing to do it under the right circumstances.

While working on speed drills from a holster, my instructor said, “if you ever have to pull your weapon, the best case is to hope your involved in a shooting and not a shootout”! If the weapon gets pulled, you’ve already gone through the checklist for justification of deadly force. The goal is to shoot accurately fast and don’t stop until the targets are neutralized. In a shootout the other shooter just just needs to get lucky, which in this case it sounds like she did. I wonder if that young man would be alive if he had more training. Sad situation for the victims all the way around.

What an awful event.

I'm so naive, that I gave a guy with a gas can a ride into town, and back to his out of gas pickup truck on the way home from a league match last month.

quote:

Originally posted by dking271:
While working on speed drills from a holster, my instructor said, “if you ever have to pull your weapon, the best case is to hope your involved in a shooting and not a shootout”!

IIRC, someone here had a similar saying as their signature line for many years. Something like: "Make it a shooting, not a gunfight."