Jury Convicts Woman Accused Of Cutting Body At Tulsa Funeral

Friday, April 21st 2017, 4:39 pm

By: News On 6

A Tulsa County jury deliberated nearly four hours before finding Shaynna Sims guilty of mutilating a dead body in a casket.

Her attorney said Sims snapped after learning her husband had an affair with the victim. Prosecutors said Sims may have been angry and humiliated, but she took it too far.

Prosecutors are happy with the verdict, saying not only was Tabatha Lynch victimized when she was desecrated in her casket, but Sims’ actions forever traumatized all of the victim's family members.

Prosecutors said at a time when the family should've been grieving, they were instead filling out police reports and dealing with investigators, and their last image of their loved one was her slashed face and mutilated body.

9/11/2015 Related Story: Woman Accused Of Cutting Body At Tulsa Funeral To Stand Trial

Tulsa County Assistant District Attorney Tanya Wilson said, "To have this closure for the family two years later, is a blessing."

Sims' attorney argued she was a woman pushed to the edge when she learned her husband had an affair with Lynch and that she was texting Sims to rub it in her face.

He said that coupled with Sims being on pain pills from a previous car wreck caused her to snap, but prosecutors said that doesn’t excuse what Sims did.

"We understand a person being jealous, we understand a person being angry, and she probably had every right to be, but as I said in my closing arguments, she took it a step too far," Wilson said.

Prosecutors said Lynch was loved deeply by her children and mother, and we still treat the bodies of the deceased with reverence, and Sims' actions are unlike anything they have ever seen.

At the sentencing on June 1st, prosecutors will ask for the sentences to run back to back. We anticipate her attorney will ask for them to run all at once.