A Tarrant County jury found Timothy George Simpkins guilty of attempted capital murder on Thursday.
Simpkins had been accused of wounding three people in a shooting at Mansfield ISD's Timberview High School in 2021 after a fight in a classroom.
Video recorded by a student showed Simpkins being beaten up by then-15-year-old Zac Selby. After the fight, Simpkins pulled a gun from his waistband and started shooting, critically injuring Selby, a teacher and a student.
The jury deliberated for nearly nine hours before delivering a unanimous guilty verdict. After the verdict was read, the jury was polled and Simpkins sat down and lowered his head.
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Sentencing in the trial will begin at 8:30 a.m. Friday morning. The same jury will consider the punishment in the case.
CLOSING ARGUMENTS
Closing arguments began at about 8:37 a.m. Thursday with the prosecution telling the jury Simpkins intended to kill Zacchaeus 'Zac' Selby and with no regard for anyone else in the room.
"Do we think he was trying to kill Zac? Absolutely, absolutely. It wasn't enough to shoot him one time in the classroom. He was hunting him down, like a wounded animal who was crawling and that wasn't enough for him," said prosecutor Rose Anna Salinas. "You saw the video, that is as cold-blooded as it can get. He knew that there were other people in the classroom. It didn't matter. He knew that people were running for their lives. It didn't matter, because he continued to use that weapon."
Defense attorneys Lesa Pamplin and MarQ Clayton questioned the prosecution's claims that Simpkins was a cold-blooded killer and recast him as a victim who put down a threat.
"What terroristic threat did he commit? The terror was outside the classroom. The terror was not inside the classroom. The terror was Zac, pacing up and down the hall, trying to find someone to film him brutally beat Tim. That was the threat. The threat was outside. If the threat wasn't let in, we wouldn't be here," said Pamplin. "What is a 17-year-old boy supposed to do when somebody comes in and brutally beats him? Brutally puts him into a fetal position?"
Arguing against an attempted capital murder charge, Pamplin said the case had been overcharged and that Simpkins didn't try to kill Selby and that he could have shot him in the head when he was on the ground but he didn't.
Attorney Lloyd Whelchel said Simpkins went to school prepared to kill and had a full magazine in his gun and a second full magazine with him. Discussing the difference between the attempted capital murder charge and a capital murder charge, Whelchel said Simpkins was lucky and it came down to the width of a dime.
"You recall what [injured English teacher] Calvin Pettitt said? That bullet, he was told, is the width of a dime away from his heart and he prays every day that it doesn't move," Whelchel said. "They want you to reward him for not shooting more, for not harming more people and for being lucky."
After Whelchel finished his remarks at about 9:13 a.m., the jury was handed the case and began deliberations.
The jury was provided charging instructions Wednesday by Judge Ryan Hill who told the jury what they could and couldn't consider when deciding Simpkins' verdict. Hill said Wednesday afternoon that the jury would not be allowed to consider self-defense as a justification for the shooting. Simpkins' attorneys said that the decision would cause "egregious harm" to their client.
Simpkins, who was 18 at the time, is facing multiple charges of attempted capital murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and unlawful carrying of a weapon in a prohibited place.
TIMBERVIEW HIGH SCHOOL SHOOTING TRIAL
On Monday, the prosecution called first responders and Timberview teachers to the stand. They also showed police body camera video of the emergency response. On Tuesday, victim testimony, security-camera footage of the shooting and ballistics-expert analysis were the focus of the second day of the trial.
Prosecutors rested their case late Tuesday afternoon and the defense, who said Simpkins fired in self-defense, rested Wednesday morning after only calling one witness to the stand the day before. Simpkins did not take the stand in his own defense.
The court was in recess most of the afternoon on Wednesday while the judge worked on instructions for the jury. The 'Charge of the Court' according to the state, includes a series of questions the jury must answer considering evidence from the trial.
