A young woman who posed as a stranded motorist to rob a college student and his girlfriend in Alabama pleaded guilty on Wednesday to murder after she killed the student during a gunfight.
Yasmine Marie Hider, 21, was pretending to be a driver whose car needed a jumpstart when Adam Simjee, 22, and his girlfriend Mikayla Paulus stopped to help, NBC News reported. The two University of Central Florida students were driving and hiking through the Talladega National Forest on August 14 when the attack occurred.
As they offered assistance, Hider pulled out a gun and ordered the couple into the woods. She told them to empty their pockets and hand over their banking and credit card information, along with their PIN codes.
Hider looked away momentarily, and Simjee pulled out his own gun in self-defense, demanding Hider drop her firearm. Hider fired a shot, as did Simjee, according to a plea agreement. Simjee was struck and killed during the shootout, and Hider was shot four times – three bullets in the abdomen and one in the leg. FBI agents found her lying against a tree.
“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.’”
Hider asked agents if she would have to serve time for the crime when they arrived on the scene.
“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?’” the plea agreement said. “This was recorded by the agent’s body cam.”
Hider, according to Simjee’s girlfriend Paulus, blamed the victim for the shooting. When Simjee pulled out his gun, Hider asked, “Are you serious?”
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“She cocked her gun and started firing, and Victim # 1 returned fire simultaneously while falling to the ground,” police said, according to court documents reviewed by Law & Crime. “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 and another woman, 37-year-old Krystal Diane Pinkins, were behind the fake breakdown ruse. While at the hospital, Hider waived her Miranda rights and said Pinkins was with her when she was shot. She then asked if Simjee had died.
“I took his whole life away; now he can’t tell his story.”
Pinkins was found guilty on September 29 of robbery, unlawful use of a firearm during a violent crime, and murder. Pinkins faces up to life in prison when she is sentenced on the same day as Hider, January 4, 2014.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge R. David Proctor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama accepted Hider’s guilty plea, Law & Crime reported, and remanded her into the custody of U.S. Marshals until her sentencing hearing in January. In September, Hider agreed to a 35-year sentence as part of her plea deal. That deal was formally accepted on Wednesday.
