Yasmine Hider, Krystal Pinkins (Clay County Sheriff’s Office), Adam Simjee and Mikayla Paulus (GoFundMe)
Two women who faked car trouble in the summer of 2022 to ambush and rob couple hiking in Alabama’s Talladega National Forest were sentenced to serve several decades in federal prison for the murder of a 22-year-old Florida college student.
While it was no mystery that 21-year-old Yasmine Marie Adel Hider of Oklahoma would receive 35 years in prison for robbery, second-degree murder in the death of Adam Simjee, and kidnapping the victim’s girlfriend Mikayla Paulus, since that was the punishment outlined in her plea agreement, it was less clear how her co-defendant, 37-year-old Krystal Diane Pinkins, would be punished. On Thursday, however, Pinkins, of Tennessee, received the maximum punishment of life in prison for robbery, murder, and unlawful use of a firearm during a crime of violence, several months after Hider testified against her at trial, leading to guilty verdicts on those counts.
Pinkins was only found not guilty of kidnapping, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
On Aug. 14, 2022, Hider admittedly faked trouble to attract the attention of hiking University of Central Florida students Simjee and Paulus and rob the couple using a gun Pinkins provided. Prosecutors said that Pinkins not only supplied the murder weapon, but also planned the robbery and watched the shooting unfold from the woods before she ran away and hid for several hours at a “base camp” of tents. Pinkins had asked Hider “What do you want me to do?” before she ran off into the woods.
Court documents detailed that Mikayla Paulus and Adam Simjee were “traveling and sleeping in Victim #1’s 2010 white Chevrolet Uplander van” and “looking for waterfalls in Cheaha State Park, when HIDER flagged the couple down and said she needed help with her broken down vehicle, a blue XB Scion, which was located about an eighth of a mile away.”
Paulus and Simjee agreed to help and “were simply being Good Samaritans,” not knowing that Hider and Pinkins were planning to do them harm. As Simjee tried to jump start Hider’s vehicle, Hider pulled out a gun and ordered the victims to “empty their pockets and to walk further into the woods.” Simjee was also armed with a gun, however, and he pulled the firearm in self-defense.
After Hider reacted by saying “Are you serious?” in apparent surprise that Simjee was defending himself and Paulus, Hider and Simjee shot at each other at the same time.
“She cocked her gun and started firing, and Victim # 1 returned fire simultaneously while falling to the ground,” court documents said. “While on the ground, Victim #1 said, ‘You shot me,’ and fired one last time at HIDER. After the shooting stopped, HIDER said, ‘Why did you shoot? It wasn’t supposed to be like this.””
Hider was shot four times and survived, but Adam Simjee lost his life.
Paulus quickly identified Hider as the shooter after authorities received a 911 call about the shooting in the woods.
“Upon arrival, agents observed a white male victim, Victim #1, lying dead from one gunshot wound to the abdomen. The killer, Yasmine Marie Adel HIDER, a black female, was seated several feet away against a fallen pine tree with four gun-shot wounds, three to the abdomen and one to the upper right leg,” the plea agreement said. “Victim #1’s girlfriend, a white female, Victim #2, had witnessed the crime and was being comforted by responding officers. Victim #2 pointed at HIDER and told the responding officers, ‘she shot him.’”
From there, Yasmine Hider told responding law enforcement that she already knew she was going to prison.
“HIDER stated to the responding officers that she and her family lived in the woods, and she was asking for a ride to get food. HIDER asked the officers, ‘I’m going to do time, right? I just want to know how much time?’” documents said. “This was recorded by the agent’s body cam.”
Hider’s statements only got more damning in the ensuing days.
At the hospital five days after the shooting, Hider said of Adam Simjee, “I took his whole life away”:
On August 19, 2022, at UAB Hospital, agents interviewed HIDER, who was advised of her Miranda rights. After HIDER waived her rights, she stated she was waiting on the side of the road to get someone to stop so they could take a car to go get food. HIDER also stated PINKINS was with her when she got shot. HIDER asked agents, “Did he die?” and stated, “I didn’t want to hurt anybody.” Additionally, HIDER stated, “I took his whole life away; now he can’t tell his story.”
Six hours after the shooting, Pinkins was found at a remote campsite in the woods and arrested. Her 5-year-old son reportedly ran out wielding a loaded shotgun.
After the shooting, Mikayla Paulus posted that “No words can begin to describe the shock and pain I’m in.”
She said that Adam Simjee was her “hero.”
“Thank you all so much for the support and love, it’s the main thing keeping me going right now,” Paulus wrote. “I’m so happy Adam is getting recognized as the hero he was. He was so selfless & would do anything for someone he loved. If it wasn’t for him, I don’t know if I’d be here right now.”
Adam Simjee’s family said that the “kind and gentle soul” was murdered while hiking — “one of Adam’s favorite pastimes” — before he could complete his senior year at the University of Central Florida.
“The events that unfolded were a story from a dystopian nightmare scenario,” a cousin posted on GoFundMe.
Alberto Luperon contributed to this report.
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