Clay County judge orders man to serve life in prison for girlfriend’s murder
A 36-year-old man found guilty of murder for the 2014 stabbing death of his girlfriend has been sentenced to life in prison without parole, Clay County prosecutors said in a statement Thursday.
Clay County Circuit Court Judge Janet Sutton also sentenced Marcus J. Simms to 100 years on the armed criminal action conviction and seven years for tampering with a vehicle in connection to the killing of 31-year-old Michele Boldridge. The judge ordered the sentences to run consecutively.
The case stemmed from an incident that happened in the early-morning hours of April 30, 2014. Kansas City police were called to investigate a report of a bloody, naked man running around an apartment complex located off North Hickory Street, according to prosecutors. Neighbors who called 911 said the man claimed someone was trying to kill him.
Officers who found responded to the area found blood on the door knob of one of the apartments. Inside, police found Boldridge’s body. Prosecutors said the victim died from a snapped neck and multiple stab wounds, and was also missing an eye.
The naked man, later identified by police as Simms, drove to a school bus parking lot and approached a bus driver, according to court records. The driver saw blood on Simms’ left hand. She told him to go away.
But Simms yelled: “You don’t understand. Someone just killed my girlfriend!”
Simms was arrested after taking a minivan and driving it off the road near Missouri 152 and Interstate 435, according to prosecutors.
In a car parked in the area, police found Simms’ DNA as well as a human eyeball, prosecutors said.
After a three-day trial in October, jurors found Simms guilty of first-degree murder, armed criminal action and tampering with a vehicle.
While awaiting trial for the 2014 incident, Simms was charged in a separate 2017 homicide. Prosecutors alleged Simms strangled 26-year-old Brian Parisi, who was being held in the Clay County jail on a drug charge. That case is scheduled to go to trial next June.
