NARRATOR: For Montie Smith,
no woman will ever come close to his first love.
MONTIE: Tabatha, she was beautiful.
Always had her makeup done, her hair was always perfect,
and we just had this bond right away.
JERMAINE: Definitely two beautiful people that
were attracted to each other.
A lot of chemistry.
NARRATOR: But one Halloween night,
he's bewitched by sexy Shaynna Sims.
Someone just kind of grabbed me by my shirt,
dark hair, pretty face.
JERMAINE: Shaynna did have a bad side.
You just never knew when it was gonna come out
or what was gonna happen.
NARRATOR: And his life becomes a horror show.
STEVE: It's macabre, it's disturbing.
It's reprehensible.
MONTIE: I could not believe what I was hearing.
I can't believe that this is the woman
that I'm married to.
LORI: It is the most bizarre set of
circumstances I've ever covered in 31 years.
[theme music playing]
I grew up an only child, just me and my mom.
She had me at an early age, 19.
NARRATOR: In the 1980s,
Montie Smith is an only child growing up in
Okmulgee, Oklahoma.
His dad is not present in his life,
so his mom is everything to Montie.
She was about 5'1", little woman.
You know, but she was -- she was spicy.
Straight to the point with me.
She's like, "I'm not gonna let you grow up to be a bad kid.
I'm gonna be telling you what's right and wrong."
She was good at that.
JERMAINE: He was very close to his mom.
You know, that was his rock.
I have childhood memories of Montie and I, uh, you know,
playing in the backyard while our -- our mothers were inside,
you know, doing their thing.
NARRATOR: Montie's mother is in ill health for
most of his childhood with kidney disease.
MONTIE: Um, my mom was on dialysis for my whole life.
Three days a week, you know,
we had to go to the hospital and for eight hours at a time
for her to do dialysis.
She was a very strong woman though, she still, you know,
was able to hold the job down, too.
JERMAINE: He was going to school, he was at home, you know,
making sure his mom had what she needed or they needed.
He definitely had to grow up a lot faster than the rest of us.
NARRATOR: Whenever Montie gets the chance,
he heads to the basketball court
with his best friend, Jermaine.
MONTIE: Basketball was a big thing.
So we played basketball nonstop.
Everybody wanted to be the star player,
the most popular.
JERMAINE: We always had a ball in our hand -- for Montie,
it was strictly basketball.
He was -- he was a very good basketball player.
NARRATOR: After graduating from high school,
Montie attends college, but he and Jermaine still have time
to play ball.
This is how they meet Montie's first love,
Tabatha Lynch, in 1993.
JERMAINE: Tabatha and Montie grew close very quickly.
The way that they looked at each other,
I could tell that that was his first love.
We were a magnet towards each other.
I did kind of feel like I, you know, was a lucky guy,
because we just always had
a good time together no matter what we did.
There was never any arguing, just had fun all the time.
NARRATOR: After dating for three years,
Montie and Tabatha eventually drift apart.
She was in college playing basketball, and so was I.
She was at a different school,
so we didn't get to see each other a lot.
JERMAINE: I know life happens, but I would have definitely
liked to have seen them stay together back in those days.
That was definitely the one that got away from Montie.
NARRATOR: After college, Montie becomes a mechanic and gets married.
But 10 years later, as his mother's health deteriorates,
so too does his marriage.
JERMAINE: Montie, of course, wanted to be
around his mother more.
Definitely played a role in his relationship with his wife.
MONTIE: After me and my wife had split up,
you know, my mother had a stroke,
[monitor beeping]
and then there was, you know,
just her health just went quickly.
JERMAINE: It took a rough toll, and it took a toll on him mentally.
But the day that I found out that she passed,
I was on a motorcycle ride out of town.
That was a hard moment, and I was crying inside my helmet.
Yeah, I felt empty after my mom was gone, you know.
I was just
trying to get through one day at a time, and...
hide my emotions from everybody, you know.
I worked as much as I could.
I developed this new passion for motorcycles.
So I'd just, you know, get on my bike and ride when I could.
That was my escape.
NARRATOR: On Halloween night in 2010,
Montie's life begins looking up
when he attends a party at a local club.
So we walk in, there was a lot of good costumes there.
I was standing there, and someone just kinda grabbed me
by my shirt, and I -- before I can
get a chance to see what was happening,
I was being pulled onto the dance floor,
and then never even faced me.
She was just looking the other way and dancing with me.
I didn't know what to think about her.
At first I was like, that's --
that's kind of an aggressive approach right there.
So then that song was over, and I walked over to
stand by the bar area, and then she came with me.
I said, "My name is Montie,"
and she said, "Oh, my name's Shaynna."
NARRATOR: Shaynna Sims is a 22-year-old hairstylist.
MONTIE: She was about the same height as me, and, you know,
that's kind of tall for a woman -- she had dark hair,
you know, pretty face.
Then we just kept talking.
She stayed by my side for the rest of the night.
That was a nice feeling, to have
a pretty girl like that interested in me.
You know, because I was
kind of feeling down on myself a little bit, you know,
right before that happened.
We went back to her house.
I spent the night there with her the first night, you know,
just talking and hanging out till the sun came up.
NARRATOR: The relationship moves quickly,
and a few months later, in January 2011,
they move in together.
It was never a dull moment,
I'll say that -- we had fun,
um, we did a lot of things together.
JERMAINE: I remember him being excited when he told me
that he had met Shaynna and how he lit up
when he talked about Shaynna originally.
MONTIE: Next thing I know, we started
talking about maybe we should get married.
NARRATOR: Just a few weeks later,
Montie surprises Shaynna with a ring.
MONTIE: So we're at dinner.
I waited for the right moment, and then I got down on one knee.
I asked her, you know, to marry me, and she said yes.
I put the ring on her finger.
She just was very excited and happy.
JERMAINE: He was all in on the --
on this relationship, and this is what he wanted.
She seemed to be feeling the same way,
so I was very supportive.
MONTIE: We had decided to get married at the Tulsa
Historical Society.
She did all the prepwork herself,
which I was kind of amazed by that.
I was really nervous, but from the moment that I seen her come
out and I seen that smile on her face,
it felt right.
Everybody was encouraging to us.
It was a great day.
JERMAINE: He wanted to be the husband
and the father and the family man that he never had.
So he very much looked forward to that.
I had came home from work one day, and she had this smile
on her face, and I'm like, "What are you smiling about?"
So I think I remember her saying,
"Come here, I wanna show you something."
So she showed me the pregnancy test.
It showed positive, and I felt happy,
excited, to be a dad.
NARRATOR: As an expectant father, Montie is fully
invested in Shaynna having a healthy pregnancy.
So he is surprised and concerned
one day when he becomes aware of a potential problem.
MONTIE: We had a doctor's appointment,
just normal routine.
The doctors came into the room and told us they did not
support a mother taking pain medication during pregnancy.
NARRATOR: Shaynna, who had been complaining
of leg pain, has been self-medicating
for months with Percocet and Lortabs, both
highly addictive opioids.
She went to a pain specialist doctor,
and I was unaware of this, so...
I was at work at this time.
So I'm pretty sure that she did not tell him
that she was pregnant, and they proceeded to
help her with her pain level.
NARRATOR: Her obstetrician has become aware of
Shaynna's drug use through routine lab tests.
MONTIE: They could not help her anymore, that she needed to --
to look for another doctor to help deliver her baby.
I was furious.
I can't believe that you can endanger your child like that.
I found the medication in her purse, confronted her.
I said, "You're gonna -- you're not taking anymore of
"these right now, because I'm taking them from you
so you can't have these anymore."
NARRATOR: Montie's daughter is born six months later.
[baby cooing]
She came out, she heard my voice and stopped
crying and opened her eyes and looked for me.
At that moment, our bond was created.
She's healthy, no problems whatsoever.
I was very happy about that and that the things
that her mom had done early on did not affect her.
Shaynna seemed happy to be a new mom again
to this pretty little girl.
At that point, we had a good relationship pretty much.
After my daughter was just a few months old,
I switched to night shift on my job,
so three in the evenings till midnight,
working hard to provide as much as I can for my family
since I'm the only one working right now.
NARRATOR: While Montie works,
he believes his baby daughter is tucked
safely in bed during his shift, but he is wrong.
MONTIE: I would come home at midnight.
I would notice, 'cause she's just
getting home right when I am
and bringing my daughter in the house,
you know, out of the car seat.
She hadn't been home all evening long.
She just said, "I'm -- I'm out running errands.
It's okay," she said, "I don't see anything wrong with that."
I told her that she shouldn't be
out with my daughter all evening long,
that she needed to be home in -- in the bed.
I started to become more aggravated.
We had a lot of arguments.
NARRATOR: One night, Montie arrives home to find Shaynna in bed...
although she's not quite alone.
She's passed out.
Her phone is laying face up on the bed and was
on Facetime with some other young man that I do not know.
I couldn't believe it.
And I started seeing the signs from Shaynna that
maybe she wasn't the person that she's seeming to be.
She became very evil, very quickly.
NARRATOR: Montie Smith has just found his wife Shaynna
in bed and on Facetime with another man.
MONTIE: I look at the phone, she's passed out, unaware
that I'm even right there looking at her phone.
No clue -- a lot of things went through my mind.
But number one was...
how could you?
My daughter's right there in the other room.
The next day, I brought it up
and talked to her about it, and she said, "Well,
I don't remember that."
Denial, denial, denial.
Montie did mention a lot that --
that Shaynna would just lie about nothing, lie to be lying.
I was pretty upset, pretty angry -- at this point,
you know, the trust is gone.
When I hear these things myself, I'm thinking, Montie,
this is...
you gotta do something about this before it gets worse.
NARRATOR: And indeed, things do get worse.
MONTIE: One day, we have an argument.
She's, you know, not letting me go out the door.
I said, "I have to go to work, excuse me, move out of my way,"
and then she says, "No, you're not gonna touch me.
If you do, you're gonna go to jail."
And I said, "What do you mean by that?"
NARRATOR: This is when Shaynna reveals just how low
she will sink to get her own way.
She's like, "Well, because... you're black,
and they're gonna take you to jail before they would me."
After her saying that to me, I was really,
really done, and I just -- I wanted just to leave.
JERMAINE: They do have a daughter together.
That was the main reason for Montie wanting to stay.
He wanted to not have a broken home.
So he made his decisions to stay.
NARRATOR: Soon, Shaynna's erratic behavior
escalates outside the home.
JERMAINE: Montie had taken Shaynna to go tan.
He stayed outside in the car with the baby.
NARRATOR: Unbeknownst to Montie,
while inside, Shaynna overreacts to something trivial and flies
off the handle.
JERMAINE: While he was sitting in the car with the baby,
two police cars pulled up outside the tanning salon.
He said, "Hey, man, I think something's happening,"
and yeah, she was having a scene inside the tanning salon,
ended up, you know, cursing out some ladies that
worked there and they call the cops and, you know,
they eventually, you know, kicked her out.
It was at that point I told him, I said, "Hey, man,
"yeah, I love you brother, but you need to,
uh, figure this out."
MONTIE: I had friends that I had
confided in about my problems at home.
They just kinda let me know how messed
up the situation was that I was in,
and what am I gonna do next?
NARRATOR: Around November 2014, an ex-girlfriend
reaches out to Montie on social media.
Her name is Christina Perez.
MONTIE: We had said hello to each other on Facebook.
I think she may have asked, you know, what my situation was,
and probably told her, you know, I was unhappy.
NARRATOR: Montie and Christina do not meet in person but
continue to chat occasionally online, until Shaynna finds out.
MONTIE So I came home from work one day,
and Shaynna asked me who this Christina girl was,
and I was like, oh gosh, here we go.
JERMAINE: Shaynna thought that Christina was the enemy
and was trying to take her man.
MONTIE: She was mad about this situation
that she thought was going on.
So I am accused of having an affair with Christina.
NARRATOR: The situation escalates when Shaynna
tracks down Christina's home and her place of work.
MONTIE: She's showing up at Christina's job,
sitting outside, and they're -- they're --
it's getting more and more aggressive,
their tone every day.
And then it blew up from there.
MONTIE: One day, when I got home from work,
they were talking to each other, and I could hear
Christina on speaker phone
saying, "I know what you did to my car,
and I'm calling the police."
Shaynna had slashed Christina's tires.
I mean, I'm blown away,
thinking to myself, who is this person?
She was slashing this woman's tires,
she was following this woman,
she was doing all these crazy things to this woman
who had dated her husband five years ago.
JERMAINE: I couldn't believe it.
It first started out, you know, with Shaynna acting out
in public and then escalating to --
to slashing someone's tires, you know, what's next?
At that point, I knew that Shaynna was crazy.
MONTIE: After the tire slashing,
it's just getting worse and worse each day.
They're making threats towards each other
at this point.
NARRATOR: Christina doesn't retaliate,
and Montie stops contacting her.
But things come to a head when Shaynna
decides to file a protective order against Christina.
MONTIE: We go to the courthouse.
I'm with her -- me, and my daughter.
Sitting in the lobby just waiting,
looked down the hallway, and saw Christina.
NARRATOR: By chance, Christina is at the courthouse, as well,
to file a protective order against Shaynna.
And of course, they gave each other mean looks,
and the next thing I know, they're walking towards
each other, and my wife is holding my daughter,
and they wanted to exchange words with each other,
and they -- then they swung at each other.
As soon as they throw punches at each other,
I'm grabbing my daughter out of harm's way.
My daughter's crying.
It was quite intense.
The deputies came out and separated everybody
and took them back in the --
in the holding areas until they figure out what happened.
And thank goodness, there was tape.
So the deputies pull it, and of course, they see
Christina is innocent, that Shaynna has
purposefully knocked into this woman and then starts
screaming about Christina attacking her.
They realized that the child
had been endangered in this encounter,
so my wife was charged with child endangerment.
NARRATOR: Shaynna is put on probation for a year,
and Christina is granted a protective order against her.
MONTIE: I did feel trapped in this...
I'm not gonna call it a marriage anymore.
I just felt trapped in this situation.
But because my daughter's involved in this,
I can't just take off.
NARRATOR: Montie doesn't hear from Christina again.
Meantime, out of the blue, a few months later,
Montie gets a message from another girlfriend
from his past, Tabatha Lynch, his first love.
MONTIE: She had contacted me through Facebook and said, "Hey,
how's it going?"
We chatted a little bit and then exchanged a number
to talk.
Her contacting me was kinda like a breath of fresh air.
It was nice to, um, hear from her and, you know,
see how she was doing in her life.
NARRATOR: It's been over 20 years since
Montie and Tabatha dated each other.
Tabatha is divorced with two children of her own.
NARRATOR: I didn't know all the details going on in her life
at this time, but she just, you know,
told me that she had kids, and they were doing good, and once
she found out that I was having
problems with my wife, she's like, I'd like to reach
out to her and -- and talk to her.
I just didn't think it was a good idea.
I didn't know what to expect from Shaynna.
I was like, no, it's okay.
I got this under control.
I'm gonna handle it my way.
But one day, after returning home from work,
I walked through the door, and Shaynna was upset,
she's like, "Tabatha has reached out to me and said that
"you and her have been talking and that I'm --
I'm a terrible mom and a terrible wife."
And so she asked me, "Who's this bitch?"
Shaynna was very angry, because she felt
that Tabatha was a threat.
She can't stop victimizing people.
I would say she is one of the most bizarre
people I've ever covered in 31 years of covering crime.
Shaynna was very jealous,
very vindictive,
uh, very evil.
NARRATOR: Shaynna Smith is enraged when she receives
a warning message from her husband
Montie's former girlfriend, Tabatha Lynch.
Tabatha did send a message to Shaynna, um,
basically telling her that, you know,
she's losing the best thing that she could ever have,
and she needs to change her ways before she screws it up.
MONTIE: And Shaynna took that as disrespect and did not
like what she heard because it's coming from another woman,
and she's askin' me, "Are y'all messing around?"
And I said no.
NARRATOR: Shaynna is determined to have it out with Tabatha
face-to-face,
but she can't seem to locate her.
MONTIE: She's constantly asking me where to find her at.
I said I don't know -- I was kind of worried
about these two women having the interaction with each
other, because...
don't know what Shaynna is capable of.
NARRATOR: But Shaynna never gets the chance to confront Tabatha,
because one day, Tabatha suddenly becomes
critically ill.
JERMAINE: Tabatha had started having some health issues,
and eventually, um, she went into
the hospital and didn't make it out.
[sirens wailing]
NARRATOR: Two months after reconnecting with Montie,
Tabatha dies unexpectedly from natural causes.
Tabatha was like a sister to me,
so it -- it hurt me deeply.
I was like, I can't believe it.
I just -- seemed like I just talked to
her just the other day, and everything was fine.
NARRATOR: Montie consoles himself that at least
she's out of harm's way from Shaynna.
MONTIE: I told Shaynna that Tabatha passed away.
She acted cold and heartless.
She didn't care.
The next words out of her mouth were,
"Oh, good. That's what that bitch gets."
I -- my jaw hit the floor. I couldn't believe that
I just heard her say that about Tabatha's death.
I was already emotionally removed.
I was ready to be physically removed.
I didn't want to know her anymore.
NARRATOR: The viewing for Tabatha Lynch is held in April
of 2015 at a funeral chapel in East Tulsa.
JERMAINE: I was there
Thursday afternoon probably between one and two o'clock,
but it hurt my heart.
It's like a member of my family, uh, had passed away.
NARRATOR: As the viewing ends,
the family is taking a break outside when a stranger
slips inside,
presumably to pay her last respects.
STEVE: Tabatha's mother just happens to see
this woman who looks like
she's going and -- and actually reaching
into the casket -- something seems odd.
It's reported to other family members.
That woman is now gone.
But, uh, the family goes to inspect Tabatha's body
and clearly her body has been touched.
She's got a straight, you know, cut right from the --
right from the top of her head,
right close to the bridge of her nose.
LORI: Her hair's been cut, and then, um,
her pants have been pulled down.
Her outfit has been pulled down, her shoes that were
specially made just for her that were in her casket,
they're now gone.
Everybody, they're just in shock.
You realize that some crazy woman has
come in here and desecrated this body.
Here you've got just absolute pandemonium unfolding.
It's just, you can't put into words how...
devastating that was for this victim's family
to just see.
There is one thing that we always hold sacred
in this country, and that is
how you treat a person who's passed away.
And this just violated every tenet of that for sure.
NARRATOR: Tabatha's family place a call to the police.
This is never a call you ever get, ever.
I mean, it just gets crazier from there.
[distant siren wailing]
MARK: And so the officers at that time, when they got there,
they see Tabatha,
they see a disheveled body lying in a casket.
They see that the makeup is messed up.
They see the incision on her face,
and those are all really unusual things.
Those are things that should not have happened
and that the officers were shocked to see.
It feels like the crime was a personal attack on this --
on this person.
They start taking photographs, they start collecting
evidence, looking around,
looking at the body, making observations.
STEVE: And down next to the casket, there's hair.
Tabatha's hair has been cut and is --
and there's some of the hair laying on the ground.
NARRATOR: While police are processing
the crime scene at the funeral home,
another call is placed to dispatch from
Tabatha's family, who are now at her apartment.
They learned that the suspect
may possibly be at the apartment.
They're reporting, we think this person
who was just down at the funeral home is
over at our house, and we need to get somebody
over here right now.
[siren wailing]
NARRATOR: Hours earlier, Montie Smith receives
a disturbing message from Shaynna.
MONTIE: I opened it up and looked at it, and it was
a picture of Tabatha in her casket.
I was very shocked to see her with this picture.
I didn't understand why.
Why do you have this picture?
You know, where did you get this from?
And then she also said, "That bitch looks ugly in her casket.
I can't believe you're messing with her."
I was confused.
I didn't know what she meant by that.
NARRATOR: Once Montie finds out what Shaynna has done,
his life will never be the same.
It's beyond me
why she would do what she did.
I've seen a lot of strange cases in my 31 years,
and this one takes the cake.
So many twists and turns along the way, and then it
became frightening and more bizarre.
It just became...crazy.
NARRATOR: After receiving the pictures from Shaynna,
Montie Smith returns home to find her in a frenzied state.
Shaynna says, "Take your daughter out of
the car and grab her car seat, too."
After I took my daughter out,
she drove off and left me and my daughter sitting there.
This was probably about 5:30 in the evening.
Had no clue where she was going.
NARRATOR: It's 7:30 p.m. when police arrive
at Tabatha's apartment.
MARK: They meet a bunch of Tabatha's family
outside in the parking lot.
And at that point, Tabatha's family tells them, um,
there's someone inside our apartment,
and we didn't invite her in.
It's a heightened level of tension for
the family members, it's like, she's inside.
MARK: They learned that this woman had showed
up at the door of Tabatha Lynch's apartment.
She says, "My name is Stephanie, and I'm here because
"something happened to your mother's makeup
at the funeral home."
NARRATOR: The woman claims she wanted a photo
of Tabatha in order to fix her makeup.
And so she makes up this ruse to get inside the apartment.
And at some point, the family kind of gets suspicious.
So the police go inside the apartment,
and what they find is
this disheveled, jittery-looking woman
who appears out of place.
She doesn't seem like she belongs there.
NARRATOR: Police search the suspect and discover
incriminating evidence.
They find a knife and a box cutter in her pockets.
They find some hair in her pocket.
And so it was apparent to them at that point that
this person was related to what had happened at
the funeral home.
A few of the family members recognized this girl,
who'd identified herself as Stephanie, as actually
Shaynna Sims.
And when they start talking to police officers,
they tell them that Shaynna is actually the wife of
Montie Smith.
And Montie is a longtime friend of Tabatha Lynch.
NARRATOR: Montie is putting his daughter to bed when his phone rings.
[phone buzzing]
It was Shaynna, her voice was shaky.
She's telling me, come save her.
Then the next thing...
I heard voices in the background, and she was
telling them to stop and let her go, and they said, "No,
you're not going anywhere."
And I was like, "Who's that in the background?
What are you talking about?"
And she said, "I'm at your dead bitch's house."
You -- you can't be.
What do you -- what do you mean?
So I got my daughter up, and I drove to Tabatha's home.
As I'm driving over there,
I'm still trying to wrap my head around
what all just happened,
and then once I arrived there, it was already chaos
at that point.
They have Shaynna in the police car.
As soon as they open the car door, she's trying to tell me
that she's being accused of
messing with Tabatha's body, and that they're saying
that she's, you know, stole some stuff from them.
She did not.
That's when I told them to close the door.
I didn't want to hear anymore.
NARRATOR: Police believe Shaynna wanted to break into Tabatha's
apartment to steal a personal item she could keep as a trophy.
The next day, the Tulsa media seizes on the story.
We immediately went to the scene to try to figure out
what on earth was happening, and just what we learned
that day,
nobody in their right mind would go into a funeral home
and do these terrible things
to someone who's already passed away, because
what threat are they at that point?
NARRATOR: Shaynna's act of desecration
is so unusual that police are hard-pressed
to find the correct laws with which to charge her.
MARK: They initially charged her with burglary, because
she had entered the apartment under false pretenses.
Um, they charged her with illegal dissection, because that
was essentially the closest thing they could find to, uh,
to coming up with that cut on her -- on Tabatha's face.
MONTIE: They told me what she was being charged with,
and I'm blown away, 100 percent total shock.
That is a whole new level of crazy.
I don't...
it's way beyond
anything that I could ever imagine someone doing.
NARRATOR: It seems impossible, but things actually get crazier.
MARK: My sergeant came in and said, "Hey, I got a message from
"the funeral home that we need to go out and --
and take a look at the body again."
I grabbed one of my detective partners
and my sergeant, and we went out there.
So when we examined the body,
we found that Tabatha's breasts had been crudely cut out of
her body.
Um, we also noticed that one of her toes was missing.
I had, at that point, worked hundreds of homicides as
a crime scene detective, and I had not ever seen anything
like this.
NARRATOR: The investigators talk with Montie, who shows them
the photographs that Shaynna had texted him
the previous day.
They are the equivalent of a smoking gun.
So I see a hand holding a knife next to a toe.
I recognize that as probably Tabatha's foot.
And I see, um,
there's photographs of a hand next
to what I assume to be Tabatha's genitalia.
And I realize that I'm -- I'm looking at photographs of
Shaynna in the act,
committing these heinous acts at the funeral home.
I was disturbed,
um, kind of, you know, heartbroken,
couldn't believe that she did this to someone that I --
that I knew and that had passed away.
A total disrespect.
How are you gonna explain those photos?
I mean, that just kind of seals her fate.
Pictures of what she's actually doing.
NARRATOR: When the case goes to trial in April 2016,
Shaynna is charged with three misdemeanors and two felonies.
Woman accused of slashing the body of her husband's former
girlfriend is expected in court today.
STEVE: This is a case that is revenge.
You know, this is the ex getting involved with
her husband,
and so she's going to do something about that.
I don't remember any emotion from Shaynna.
The defense had tried very early on in the process to say
she wasn't competent to stand trial, because she's got,
you know, mental issues.
But she was given a thorough exam -- that was part of
her pretrial process, and she was found competent to
stand trial.
The defense were like, look, she's just a woman pushed
over the edge like any woman would be -- she's --
her husband is having an affair.
The victim is texting her and rubbing her face in it.
What else would a woman do?
NARRATOR: The prosecution call a number of witnesses, including Montie.
MONTIE: Seeing Shaynna in the courtroom, and...
ans-- you know, ask -- being asked questions,
and she's staring at me, trying to intimidate me.
I'd answer the questions and try to get through it.
LORI: And then the jury goes out.
It's right before lunchtime.
It's like 11:45 in the morning,
and I didn't think it would take too long.
So three hours later, almost to the minute,
they called us back in the courtroom,
and that's when the verdict was read.
STEVE: They found her guilty of all the counts.
All those counts were ordered to run consecutive.
It all totaled up to 16 total years.
I guess you could say I felt a kind of...peace.
NARRATOR: Montie divorces Shaynna a year later
and gets full custody of their daughter.
JERMAINE: I can't imagine,
you know, what he had to go through,
what he had to tell his daughter,
uh, all the ramifications of that.
Hm. It's tough.
NARRATOR: Less than four years into Shaynna's sentence,
a new law is struck in Oklahoma
that gives her a loophole to appeal.
Shaynna Sims has been released from prison
after serving four years of her sentence.
I was like, she can't be -- there's no way.
I couldn't believe it.
I was in shock.
It was just a gut punch to everybody.
It was devastating to me when I found out.
I felt rage at that point.
I couldn't believe it.
NARRATOR: In November 2021, Montie Smith's ex-wife,
Shaynna Sims, is set free less than four years into
a 16-year sentence for desecrating
Tabatha Lynch's body.
MONTIE: I was like, she can't be.
There's no way.
But sure enough, I did get confirmation message
later that day that she was released.
I actually saw a video of her
being released.
She just gets to walk?
She spends a few years in prison for all
the damage she's caused, and she gets to walk?
You couldn't ask for a more
devastating blow to the victim's family.
MARK: It was a shock.
It was really a kick in the gut that we learned
that she was gonna be walking free
after we put this case together, and to have someone
walking free was, um, was tough to swallow.
NARRATOR: Shaynna has been released on appeal as a result
of a Supreme Court ruling known as the McGirt Decision.
STEVE: The McGirt Decision, in essence, basically told
Oklahoma if somebody was a Native American,
either as a defendant or as a victim, that the state of
Oklahoma had no jurisdiction to handle those prosecutions.
LORI: The United States Supreme Court said that
the state of Oklahoma can't arrest Native Americans.
Our prosecutors can't prosecute
crimes involving Native Americans.
And so that brought into question thousands
and thousands of cases over the years
where a Native American was either a victim or a suspect.
NARRATOR: This new law is supposed to protect Native Americans.
STEVE: But what did Shaynna Sims do?
She figured out that Tabatha
had Native American blood in her.
"You can't prosecute me for this crime,"
and literally, literally,
she got her case dismissed because of that
McGirt Decision.
Shaynna Sims, somebody has zero Native American blood in her,
gets the benefit of victimizing somebody who
was a Native American, and walks around as though she's
got no consequences -- it's just so upsetting.
NARRATOR: Once Shaynna is out of jail,
she can't seem to stay out of trouble.
LORI: Montie was worried about what she might do.
Of course, the victim's family,
Tabatha's family, was really worried and stressed about what
she might do or who she might target.
She gets arrested for stealing a car
and gets in trouble for assaulting her mother.
Um, it's just one thing after another.
Montie's big concern was protecting his daughter,
because now that she's free,
what would stop her from trying to get custody?
MONTIE: I got a phone call from
Shaynna wanting to speak with her daughter.
I did not know. I couldn't believe it.
I was in shock.
I ignored it for the first few days.
She kept calling.
He didn't know what
her plans were or what she was capable of doing
now that she's out of jail.
NARRATOR: Montie talks with their daughter, who tells
him she wants to meet her mother.
He drops her off for a weekend
at her grandmother's house where Shaynna is staying.
MONTIE: I thought to myself, give it a try
just one time and see how it goes.
Shaynna and her mom, they were yelling
at each other and having confrontation
in front of my daughter when she's not used to seeing that.
And she told me herself that she didn't want to
be around that, and she didn't want to see them.
So I do not force her at that point to go back anymore.
And that's where we are to this current day.
JERMAINE: Montie still has full custody of his daughter.
Um, so yes, he, you know,
is doing his best to keep his daughter safe,
to, uh...
keep Shaynna away.
NARRATOR: Despite being warned about not going anywhere near
Tabatha's relatives,
Shaynna defies the order.
LORI: And then sure enough, Shaynna then goes
to the victim's family's apartment and she's like, "Oh,
I wasn't there to see them," which is a lie.
You're only there to harass that poor family,
who's already been through so much.
All you have to do to stay out of jail is stay over in
your county, but she can't help herself again.
She comes over here, and, of course,
that puts the family in terror.
They are afraid of why she keeps
showing up there and what she might do.
And so, of course, yes, she's arrested and put back in.
NARRATOR: Recognizing that Shaynna is still a threat,
Oklahoma State prosecutors file an appeal.
STEVE: We had another case. It was called Castro Juerta,
which was somebody who was clearly not a Native American
who had victimized children who were Native American.
And we took that fact pattern back up to the United States
Supreme Court and asked them to revisit, in essence,
the McGirt Decision.
So then we immediately took that decision, petitioned
the court, got her dismissal set
aside, and remanded Shaynna Sims back to prison,
which is where she's at today.
NARRATOR: In February 2023, Shaynna's sentence
and conviction are reinstated, and she
is sent back to prison to serve the remaining 12 years.
So it's definitely a relief,
uh, you know, for all of us that she's back in jail, um...
Me personally, I don't think 16 years is long enough.
I'm at peace in my life.
My daughter's at peace.
She's happy -- I've never let this be a problem for her.
JERMAINE: Montie has this smile
that -- that, you know, whenever he's in good spirits,
and it shows, it -- he just glows,
and, uh, I love to see my brother when he's happy
and when everything is going good.
MONTIE: I feel like after all this is said and done,
it's like looking at the damage after
a tornado or after a disaster.
And how are you gonna put your life back together after this?
I don't know of any person that could have withstanded
what he had to go through, especially these past
six or seven years, but he did it.
I'll always love him for that.
MONTIE: I'm still in the stages of putting my life back together
and moving forward.
But I just -- it's built me to
be a stronger person and better dad.