When Adam Simjee and his girlfriend Mikayla Paulus stopped their car in the Talladega national forest in Alabama last week, after being flagged down by what the college students thought was a stranded driver, the couple did not think much of it.
But the “stranded driver” – a woman named Yasmine Hider – turned out to be a gun-wielding robber who forced Simjee, 22, and Paulus, 20, to walk into the woods. Simjee pulled out his own handgun and shot Hider in defense of his girlfriend and himself, but he did not survive the confrontation – police allege Hider shot him dead.
In another moment defying logic, the five-year-old child of a woman accompanying Hider held a loaded shotgun as police swarmed the forest to investigate. The child did not fire.
A newly released press statement from the Clay county, Alabama, sheriff’s office released more details surrounding the case that left one University of Central Florida student dead and another in deep mourning.
The statement recounts how Hider waved down Paulus and Simjee as the couple drove on a road winding through the national forest, asked them if they could help her get her car started, and forced them to walk into the woods at gunpoint.
Simjee pulled out his own pistol and exchanged gunfire with Hider, wounding her multiple times, the sheriff’s office’s statement said. But Simjee was also hit and badly injured.
Paulus, Simjee’s girlfriend, realized another woman accompanying Hider was watching the gunfight, according to sheriff’s deputies. Hider allegedly called out for help from that woman, who spoke with Hider briefly before fleeing and giving Paulus the chance to grab her phone and call 911 for help.
When first responders got there, Paulus was performing CPR on Simjee, police said. Hider reportedly lay near the couple.
Paramedics pronounced Simjee dead at the scene. They took Hider to a nearby hospital, where she underwent emergency surgery.
Investigators later determined that Hider was living at a camp in the forest with the other woman, about half a mile from where Simjee and Paulus were held up. Deputies soon went to that camp, found the other woman there, and ordered her to the ground before her five-year-old son emerged from the woods holding a loaded shotgun.
Deputies ordered the child to put the shotgun down, and he rested the weapon on the ground after walking over to his mother, identified as Krystal Pinkins, the sheriff’s office added.
Authorities arrested Hider and charged her with murder, kidnapping and robbery. Pinkins was also arrested on the same counts while also being booked with child endangerment.
State child welfare officials took custody of Pinkins’ son.
Paulus, in a Facebook post, grieving Simjee’s killing, saying: “My reason for being, my soulmate, my life partner, the future father of my children, died in the middle of a state park in Alabama. No words can begin to describe the shock and pain I’m in.
“Adam is the best person I’ve ever met on the face of this entire planet. He was the most pure soul and he made sure I knew I would be safe when I was with him. It comforts me to say he passed in one of his favorite places, the forest in the mountains.”
Paulus’s post added: “Losing Adam was my biggest fear, I always asked him what he expects me to do if he died, his answer was ‘to take care of our children.’
“So that’s what I’ll do. I’ll try to fight every day to not leave our three cats, our fur children, behind, but this is and will be the hardest thing I’ve ever dealt with. No other scenario could match this pain. I wish I could hold your hand one last time.
“I’ll love you forever, Adam Simjee. Thank you for being my hero every day for four years, the best four years of my life.”
