FLORENCE COUNTY, S.C. (WPDE) – Lake City police say they have solved a 20-year-old cold case and made three arrests.
Tonya Burgess, 49, and her relative, 56-year-old Kim Burgess, are each charged with murder, possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime and criminal conspiracy in the death of 19-year-old Lindsey Shawn Simmons in September 2004 at Simmons' Lake City apartment. Mack Hanna, 60, is charged with aiding and abetting a crime including murder and criminal conspiracy.
Kim Burgess is also charged with murder, murder by child abuse and accessory after the fact.
Florence County Magistrate Jerry F. Rivers denied bond for the suspects “due to the seriousness of the allegations against them” during a hearing Thursday morning at the Florence County Detention Center.
Simmons was found stabbed to death in her Kroger Circle apartment on September 5, 2004.
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At that time she had a one-year-old son. Her son, now 21, was present at Thursday's bail hearing but said nothing.
Police said Simmons was brutally murdered. According to an incident report, her body was partially covered by what appeared to be a carpet inside the home.
ABC15 has reported on Simmons' murder many times over the past 20 years.
In 2014, Lake City police reopened the case. Then-Lake City Police Chief Jody Cooper said he believed Simmons' killer may not have acted alone. Cooper told us there may have been two suspects, but said that would have to be supported by other physical evidence and things collected at the scene. He also said Simmons may have known the people who killed her.
Lake City police saved images and evidence and kept them intact for review. More than 60 people have been interviewed about Simmons' death over the past decade, Cooper said, and some of them have been given polygraph tests and tested for DNA.
Cooper said there were several people whose stories now differ from those originally presented, and some people refused to cooperate at all.
Simmons' family hoped and prayed for a resolution to the case. Her mother died as a result of an illness, relatives said.
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Simmons' father, sisters, aunts and other relatives spoke during the suspects' bail hearing.
According to the arrest warrants, Hanna's charge of criminal conspiracy with malice and intent, Hannah paid Kim and Tonya Burgess to kill Simmons in order to gain sole custody of their child.
The warrants state that Tonya and Kim Burgess forced their way into Simmons' home, where she was stabbed multiple times in the neck area.
Her father, David Simmons, said he has shed many tears over the past two decades as he prayed that justice would one day come. Simmons' twin sister became emotional during the hearing and said her sister had been taken away from her.
According to the warrants, Lake City police received an anonymous call in May 1992 that Kim Burgess had given birth to a child who lived for about 12 hours before Burgess placed him in a hospital tray and hid him under a bed.
According to the warrants, Burgess denied to law enforcement all allegations of giving birth to a baby.
As police searched the apartment, Burgess pulled an object from under a bed that appeared to be the deceased child in a plastic box.
Burgess stated that the child died during delivery, but medical examination revealed the baby was still alive after delivery, the warrants state.
It's not yet clear what evidence led to the Burgesses and Hannas' arrests, but we've learned that investigators re-examined the case last summer and received information that led to charges being filed against the trio.
Lake City police are expected to issue a news release Thursday afternoon.
Hanna and the Burgesses remain in the Florence County Detention Center. You may request bond hearings at a later date.
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