Affidavits show suspects admitted role in killing of Cheney man

A 19-year-old woman accused of helping kill a Cheney man told a friend she was with the victim the day of the murder and watched as her brother and another man beat him for hours.

Breeanna C. Sims said her brother, Justice E. Sims, 18, believed Nicholas J. Thoreson, 22, had held her against her will, which led to an hours-long assault with a machete that ended with Thoreson dying of a gunshot to the head. His body was found in the trunk of his burning 1987 Ford Thunderbird at Forker and Bigelow Gulch roads about 12:30 a.m. on April 13. A burned gasoline can was nearby.

The Simses also told a friend that Thoreson was a “snitch” who had told on Breeanna Sims and that Justice Sims stabbed him several times before shooting him in the head at an apartment occupied by Taylor J. Wolf, 20.

The details were included in probable cause affidavits unsealed Thursday.

Wolf, who friends say knew Thoreson through a Job Corps program, and the Simses are in Spokane County Jail on $1 million bond. They face murder, kidnapping and arson charges.

Police found motorcycles and Hells Angels paraphernalia in a shop next to the apartment at 13615 E. Trent Ave. Wolf is an associate of Ricky Jenks, the sergeant at arms for the Spokane-based chapter of the Hells Angels who is in jail on a federal firearm charge.

Detectives also found blood spattered in the shop, as well as blood stains on a door. A large machete with blood stains was in another room.

One man told police Wolf approached him while he was working in a garage at the apartment complex and said he needed to leave town and that “he had snapped and killed someone,” according to the affidavit. Wolf also said he was involved “in the burned car that was on the news” and threatened the man and his girlfriend if they told anyone.

Justice Sims told a friend “that he had messed up and was going to take the blame and not let his sister go down,” according to the affidavit.

The Simses were in a taxicab with Wolf when he was arrested on April 13, but detectives didn’t have probable cause to arrest them.

Then on April 15, a witness told detectives Justice Sims “told him that he killed somebody,” according to the affidavit.

Sims reportedly said “that he had a list of people that he wanted to kill and now that he had started, he didn’t want to stop.” He wanted to a rob a bank that day but couldn’t because he didn’t have a gun. He wanted to retrieve two firearms from a field near where the body had been found, and the witness told Sims he would get a vehicle and return to help.

Instead, the man contacted police and arranged for detectives to follow him after he picked up Breeanna Sims and took her to the site, leading to her arrest. Detectives recovered a loaded, sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun and a .38-caliber revolver, which they believe was used to kill Thoreson.

Another witness told police Breeanna Sims admitted to helping move Thoreson’s Thunderbird to the garage and to helping her brother and Wolf load his body into the trunk. She accompanied them to Bigelow Gulch and Forker and fled with them after the Thunderbird was set on fire, and helped clean blood from the crime scene, the witness told police.

Justice Sims was arrested about an hour after his sister as he left his apartment at 1417 N. Washington St.

He immediately invoked his right to an attorney, police say, as did Wolf and Breeanna Sims.

Wolf has several misdemeanor assault convictions and is on probation for felony residential burglary.

Breeanna Sims is on felony probation for second-degree robbery, unlawful imprisonment and first-degree theft for a home-invasion robbery with her mother in November 2009. Her brother was convicted of indecent liberties as a juvenile in 2005.