Woman Multilates Corpse of Woman Having an Affair With Her Husband

Shayna Sims walked into a funeral home claiming she was a makeup artist. When funeral home staff allowed her inside, she mutilated the body of a deceased woman as she lay in a casket at a funeral home prepared for viewing after learning the woman had an affair with her husband. Tabatha Lynch, 38, died of natural causes. Sims cut off Lynch’s breasts and toe, sliced her face, and pulled hair out of her head. Sims was sentenced to 16 years in prison, although the charges were dismissed on appeal, and later reinstated. Sims is currently incarcerated at an Oklahoma prison.

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On April 13, 2015, Tulsa (OK) woman Shayna Sims walked into a funeral home where the body of Tabatha Lynch, 38, lay in a casket prepared for viewing, telling funeral home workers that she was a makeup artist there to provide services to the deceased woman.

Tabitha Lynch had passed away of natural causes.

Sims walked to the casket, retrieved a knife from her pocket, and began slicing and stabbing at Lynch’s body. She sliced her from the forehead to the middle of her nose, smeared her makeup, cut off a toe and a breast, sliced her face, and pulled hair from her head.

She photographed herself removing Lynch’s shoe and cutting off her toe.

Lynch’s missing body parts were never recovered.

Two people at the funeral home notified funeral director Robert Gardner that someone, later identified as Sims, had ‘pulled a glob of hair” from the dead woman’s head and threw it on the floor.

Sims walked out of the funeral home and drove with the shoes and toe to Lynch’s apartment where family and friends had gathered to prepare for the viewing. By this time, funeral staff had alerted them to the incident at the funeral home.

She asked the family for photos of Lynch, but they suspected she was the perpetrator in the incident. They called the police and held her until officers arrived and took her into custody.

Police found the photographs of Lynch’s mutilated corpse.

Sims attacked Lynch’s corpse after learning that her husband was having an affair with her before she died.

Sims’ lawyers argued at her trial that she acted on an emotional impulse and was not “in the right state of mind” after learning about the affair.

Prosecutors argued that Sims was scorned, angry, and wanted to get back at Lynch.

Lynch’s mother testified about the condition of her daughter’s body after the attack:

'She had makeup and lipstick smeared all over her face; her hair was just all over the place,' the victim's mother, Charlotte Wheeler, testified during Sims' trial.

In April 2017, a jury convicted Sims of several charges, including concealing stolen property, burglary, unlawful removal of a body part, unauthorized dissection of a body, and interrupting a funeral. She received a 20-year prison sentence.

Sims appealed the conviction, arguing the State did not have jurisdiction to prosecute her because the crime happened on Creek Nation and the victim was Native American. She won the appeal and was released from prison in 2020.

Sims was re-arrested by the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office on February 27, 2023, after the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals reaffirmed Sims’ previous conviction.

She is now back in prison at the Mabel Bassett Correctional Center serving the remainder of her sentence.

Sources:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3083309/Woman-slashed-corpse-romantic-rival-viewing-Oklahoma-funeral-home-accused-cutting-breasts-toe.html

https://nypost.com/2017/04/22/woman-facing-jail-time-after-being-convicted-of-slashing-boyfriends-dead-ex/

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