Law enforcement · Tallahassee Police Department

David Sims

Retired TPD sergeant and first law enforcement officer on scene at the Markel shooting; prosecution witness in all three trials.

Appeared Magbanua Retrial Charlie Adelson Donna Adelson

84 lines · 6 appearances · 1 mention · 3 trials

About

Sims provides the only contemporaneous law enforcement account of the crime scene at the moment of first contact, establishing victim condition, vehicle state, and the physical disturbance baseline against which all subsequent forensic testimony across three trials is measured.

Across Trials

Sims's testimony was substantively consistent across all three trials: the prosecution opened with him as its first law enforcement witness in each, delivering first-on-scene observations, victim condition, and proactive disturbance accounting in the same sequence. The pen-unlock technique, engine shutdown, keys-on-floor recovery, and no-forced-entry finding recurred without material change. One detail that became more explicit by the third trial was that Sims self-responded rather than being formally dispatched, a framing that more precisely anchored his presence in the evidentiary record. The authentication of State's Exhibits 8–10 was made explicit in trials 1 and 3; the trial 2 rollup placed greater emphasis on the pen technique as a deliberate evidence-preservation choice, suggesting the prosecution sharpened that framing for the second proceeding. The defense waived cross-examination in all three trials, leaving his account unchallenged throughout the litigation and cementing his testimony as the uncontested physical baseline of the case.

Trial Record (7)

KM Magbanua Retrial May 18, 2022 – May 27, 2022

Trial Summary

Called as the prosecution's first law enforcement witness, Sims — a retired TPD officer with 28 years of service — testified to conditions at 2116 Prescott Drive at the moment of first law enforcement contact on July 18, 2014, establishing the baseline record of the victim's state and the crime scene.

Appearances (2)

Direct

David Sims - Direct

Day 1 Cross

David Sims - Cross (Waived)

Day 1

CA Charlie Adelson Oct 26, 2023 – Nov 6, 2023

Trial Summary

Retired TPD Sergeant David Sims testified on direct as the prosecution's first-officer witness, describing his arrival at the Markel crime scene and his on-scene evidence preservation; the defense declined to cross-examine.

Appearances (2)

Direct

David Sims - Direct

Day 1 Cross

David Sims - Cross (Waived)

Day 1

Mentioned (1)

Direct

Bill Brannon - Direct

Day 2

DA Donna Adelson Aug 22, 2025 – Sep 4, 2025

Trial Summary

Retired TPD Sergeant David Sims testified as the first law enforcement officer on scene at Dan Markel's Trescott Drive residence on July 18, 2014, providing foundational crime scene observations and authenticating three prosecution photographs; the defense waived cross-examination.

Appearances (2)

Direct

David Sims - Direct

Day 1 Cross

David Sims - Cross (Waived)

Day 1