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A 22-year-old Detroiter who left the city last spring goes on trial Monday in Dalton, Ga. Skyy Mims, formerly an aspiring hip-hop singer and fashion model, is accused of first-degree murder in a store clerk's fatal stabbing.
She was in county court Friday for a hearing on motions by each side. A judge agreed to let the prosecutor introduce videotaped questioning of the defendant before she requested a lawyer, according to an article by Jeff Harrison of The Daily Citizen in Dalton. Jury selection began Monday morning.
Skyy Raven Marie Mims models in a Detroit fashion show in October 2013.
The 37-year-old victim was killed March 9, 2014 at a gas station about four miles from an I-75 exit. Mims was arrested nearby two days later and accused of fleeing with 80 lottery tickets and cash after knifing the employee in a back room.
The case hasn't received Detroit media attention since her arrest, beyond short Associated Press updates occasionally. The crime in a northern Georgia countynext to Tennessee occurred five months after Mims participated in a fashion show here and three months after she had new portfolio photos shot on Wayne State's campus and elsewhere. She used the name Skyy Raven Marie Mims on a Facebook page that's no longer active.
Also, in an interview with detectives, a woman who was living in the residence where Mims was found said Mims “had recently spent some birthday money on a fish fillet knife and on an airsoft pistol” and was showing them off. The girl said Mims was talking about robbing a convenience store. . . .In Georgia, the judge also ruled Friday that District Attorney Bert Poston could use testimony about several incidents in the days before the murder, including a surveillance camera video from a different gas station that Poston says Mims was "casing," Harrison writes. His coverage adds:
“This particular airsoft gun had the appearance of a .45 Smith and Wesson semi-automatic handgun. It was pink and black in color. Those are the weapons used in the murder,” Poston said
The district attorney will tell jurors that 80 instant lottery tickets "found at the residence where Mims was staying” have serial numbers matching those stolen two days earlier at the murder scene, The Daily Citizen reporter writes.
He also previews the mistaken-identity defense to be presented by a Detroit lawyer:
Defense attorney Carla Marable . . . contends that the woman appearing on video at the Bartow convenience store is not Mims at all, but another woman who was staying in the area, who is also from Detroit and is a friend of the man Mims was staying with.
"They look very, very similar. They are almost a dead ringer for each other,” Marable said.
This newscast segment aired Friday in nearby Cattanooga, Tenn.:
