‘I’m truly, truly sorry.’ Timberview High shooter sentenced to 12 years after apology

The jury in the attempted capital murder trial of Timothy Simpkins, who shot two students and a teacher inside his Tarrant County high school, on Monday evening sentenced him to 12 years in prison.

After the jury last week found Simpkins guilty in the 2021 shooting at Mansfield Timberview High School in Arlington, he faced a prison term of between five to 99 years or life in the trial’s punishment phase.

Simpkins, who decided not to testify in the guilt-innocence phase, took the witness stand Monday and began with an apology. He referred by name to Pariesa Altman, who was teaching in the classroom in which Simpkins opened fire; Shaniya McNeely, a student who was grazed; and Calvin Pettitt, a teacher who was shot. Pettitt watched from the front row of the courtroom gallery as the defendant testified.

“I’m truly, truly sorry,” Simpkins said. “There’s nothing I can say to justify my actions. I’m sorry.”

Simpkins, who is 19, did not refer to Zaccheaus Selby, whom Simpkins fired upon six times. Prosecutors ended their punishment case on Friday by showing the jury in 371st District Court in Tarrant County surveillance camera video of Selby lying on a landing at the top of a stairwell just after he was shot. He writhed on the tile floor on which his blood was smeared.

Simpkins’ defense attorneys had suggested during witness questioning throughout the guilt-innocence trial phase that a fight in which Selby and Simpkins were involved in the seconds before the gunfire stirred within Simpkins an ongoing fear of serious injury or death at Selby’s hands that justified the shooting.

Simpkins testified that about two weeks before the Timberview shooting, he smoked marijuana inside a car at a RaceTrac gas station with three others: Isiah Selby, and Ant and Josh, whose full names he did not use. Either Selby, Ant or both hit Simpkins in the back of the head with a gun and robbed him of marijuana and cash, he said. Selby or Ant pointed at gun at Josh’s head and told him to get out. Simpkins fired a handgun at Selby and Ant as they left in a car.

In the hours after the RaceTrac robbery on Sept. 26, 2021, Simpkins sent to friends text messages that prosecutors displayed for the jury. A recipient told Simpkins they should discuss the robbery.

“Nah [expletive] dat talkin [expletive] imma kill em both,” Simpkins wrote.

“Get em b4 they get us,” the defendant wrote in another message.

Simpkins testified he sent the messages during a period of anger and did not intend to do the acts he wrote of.

“I was just mad at the time,” he said.

On cross examination, Tarrant County Assistant Criminal District Attorney Lloyd Whelchel won an admission from Simpkins that for about five days before the shooting the defendant went to classes with a .45-caliber Glock in a holster in the waistband of his pants.

“Just so the jury understands, you carried a loaded gun to school every day for a week?” Whelchel asked.

“Yes, sir,” Simpkins testified.

With Whelchel, Assistant Criminal District Attorney Rose Anna Salinas, the chief of the criminal division at her office, is prosecuting the case.

Simpkins said he was good person, a regular teenager and far from the ruthless perpetrator of extreme violence described by prosecutors.

Defense attorney MarOuetta Clayton asked her client what he wanted to request of the jury.

“I just ask for another chance,” he said.

Clayton represents Simpkins, as does Lesa Pamplin and Sheena Winkfield.

Altman’s English lesson was underway just past 9 a.m. when Zaccheaus Selby knocked at her second-floor classroom door.

Altman opened the entrance, which had been locked under school district policy, and ushered in the 15-year-old, who was late to class.

Selby charged to the back of the room.

“He went straight toward Timothy,” Altman testified last week referring to Simpkins.

The boys fought, and throughout Selby held control over Simpkins, who was 18 on Oct. 6, 2021, when the encounter occurred.

Simpkins took a beating, according to the testimony of four eyewitnesses. After they were separated by coaches who had entered the classroom, Simpkins fired six times at Selby, who was struck by three rounds.

The jury was continuing at 5 p.m. to deliberate on the sentence. It began about 12:45 p.m. Judge Ryan Hill is presiding at the trial.