TAMPA, Fla. — When Billy Bennett Adams III went to trial last month on charges that he killed two men in a Lutz recording studio, he told jurors it was self-defense. They found him not guilty.
When Adams was arrested Wednesday, this time on suspicion that he shot and killed a 22-year-old pregnant mother, he once again claimed it was self-defense, according to a court document.
But Tampa police didn’t believe him.
Thirteen days after he was acquitted of murder charges, the semiprofessional hip-hop artist known as Ace NH again showed his face in Tampa’s courthouse.
He’s accused of killing Alana Sims, who was found shot the night of Jan. 30, three days after Adams’ acquittal in the previous murder case. Sims, who was five months pregnant, was found lying beside her SUV in a New Tampa subdivision. Her toddler son was asleep and unharmed in the vehicle.
Adams, 25, appeared Thursday morning clad in jailhouse red, restraints on his wrists and ankles, on a video feed from a Falkenburg Road Jail assembly room.
Prosecutors filed a court paper asking a judge to order that Adams be detained until he can again face trial.
Hillsborough County Judge Scott Farr ordered Adams to remain in jail until the state’s request for detention can be heard. A hearing is set for Monday.
The court paper and an arrest affidavit offer new details of a Tampa police investigation that quickly focused on Adams.
Officers were called around 10:16 p.m. on Jan. 30, after someone driving in the area of the 10700 block of Pictorial Park Drive noticed Sims lying on the ground in a pool of blood near the driver-side door of the Ford Ecosport SUV she had been driving. Sims had been shot in her head.
An unnamed witness, identified in the court paper as the vehicle’s owner, told police that Sims had planned to attend a party for her boyfriend that night.
Her family members identified her boyfriend as a man named “Ace.”
In a news conference Wednesday, Tampa police Major Mike Stout said the party was to celebrate Adams’ acquittal.
Detectives went to Adams’ family’s home, which is in a gated community roughly a 7-mile drive from the crime scene. He told them he knew Sims, but didn’t know she was dead, according to the court paper. He claimed he hadn’t seen, spoken to, or messaged her in several months and did not believe he was the father of her unborn child.
He also claimed he’d been home all evening Jan. 30 and did not leave his house until the next day.
Police pulled surveillance video from the Easton Park subdivision, where the killing occurred. The video showed a black Chevrolet Malibu, with a license tag registered to Adams’ father, entering the subdivision at 7:22 p.m. on Jan. 30, according to the court paper.
Sims’ vehicle also entered the subdivision at 7:36 p.m. Adams’ vehicle was recorded leaving the neighborhood at 8:21 p.m., but Sims’ vehicle remained there, the court paper states.
Security records from the gated community where Adams lives showed the same Chevrolet Malibu leaving his neighborhood at 7:10 p.m. and returning at 8:32 p.m., the paper states.
When police searched the Malibu, they found two live 9mm bullets.
Confronted with the security time records, Adams changed his story, according to the court paper. He said he’d gone out that evening with friends. He showed detectives a video he said he’d taken with them that night. But the video showed no faces, the paper stated.
Police later determined the video’s date and location information had been altered, according to the court paper, and that it was actually recorded Feb. 1.
A search warrant for Adams’ cellphone turned up text messages he’d exchanged with another woman on Jan. 29.
The messages indicated that he was upset over Sims’ pregnancy, that he wanted to live his life and that Sims wouldn’t be included, according to the court paper.
An arrest affidavit details more of their discussion.
“I’m just so sad because I thought we was gonna have a real relationship at this point,” the other woman wrote. “And now she’s pregnant and still here.”
Adams replied with the word “no” several times.
“You not talkin me out of it,” he wrote. “Tomorrow dis s--- done.”
He continued: “I meant wat I said. We finna have OUR life. ... And it don’t include ha ass.”
“I want da life I’m posed to have mane,” he wrote later.
“This ain’t the way, baby,” the woman replied. She told him she didn’t want him to do anything reckless.
Other messages detailed in the affidavit appeared to show Adams communicating with a friend Feb. 1, telling him that police would be talking to him.
“Remember,” he wrote. “7-8:20. ... Tell em I pulled up on you.”
Data from the phone also showed a map search at 6:43 p.m. for the Easton Park subdivision, the court paper states.
When he was arrested and questioned again Wednesday, Adams admitted he’d met Sims at Easton Park, according to the court paper. He claimed that she’d pulled a gun on him, that he’d wrestled with her and shot her. He told detectives he’d thrown the gun away on his way home, the paper states. He also acknowledged that he knew Sims was pregnant and that he could be the father of her unborn child.
In addition to a new murder charge, Adams faces a charge of killing an unborn child by injury to the mother.
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