Dyteon Simpson, the man convicted of killing LSU basketball star Wayde Sims in 2018, was found dead in prison, according to multiple reports.
Simpson was recently convicted of Sims’ murder and sentenced to life in prison. Simpson was found unresponsive in a prison cell on Sunday and a medical team rendered aid to no avail. Preliminary toxicology reports show Simpson had fentanyl in his system.
The East Baton Rouge coroner will conduct a full autopsy of Simpson’s body, and police are looking into how fentanyl got inside the jail.
Simpson shot Sims, 20, in the face with a 9mm pistol after Sims intervened during a fight to defend a friend just off the Southern University campus on Sept. 28, 2018.
Police were called to a Subway restaurant about a block away from the Southern campus. Sims was found with a gunshot wound to the head and died later at an area hospital.
Simpson was arrested the next day when he was found in the front passenger seat of his girlfriend’s car. Police found a 9mm pistol under the seat that was determined to be a match for the one that fired the bullet recovered from Sims’ body.
Simpson would ultimately confess to punching Sims’ friend and then intentionally shooting Sims.
Sims was the son of former LSU player Wayne Sims, who played basketball at the university under legendary coach Dale Brown in the late 1980s and guided the team to the Final Four in 1981 and 1986. The younger Sims was a standout at University High, then played basketball at LSU for two years.
A 6-foot-6 forward, he averaged six points and three rebounds per game in his final season with LSU, starting 10 of a possible 32 games.
This is a very sad situation all around. Two young men that never got the opportunity to become what they could be are dead.
“This is sad any time someone loses their life, you know with young Wayde and now another person is now dead. I mean anytime someone loses their life regardless of who they are, where they are it’s sad,” said District Attorney Hillar Moore. “It is really unexpected and I am not sure how the families are taking it. I am sure in different ways. Everyone is still kind of grieving for the initial loss, now we have another loss.”
If you’re the Sims family, what does Simpson’s death mean for you? Does it aid or hinder the grieving process?
If you’re the Simpson family, Dyteon was already sentenced to life in prison. He could’ve continued the appeals process, but what was the chance of him getting a reduced sentenced or an opportunity for parole after time served?
This all stemmed from a fistfight that Sims stepped in to intervene on a friend’s behalf and because Simpson had access to a gun, a sequence of events unfolded that leave two families grieving.
It’s hard to imagine things would be where they are now if we had common sense gun laws in this country.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 23,382 gun-related deaths so far this year.
