Man killed girlfriend and staged her death as suicide, Florida cops say. He’s charged
A man is accused of staging his girlfriend’s death as a suicide after a medical examiner said her injuries weren’t consistent with how she was found dead.
Gregory Shinn, 48, was booked in Pinellas County jail April 30 and charged with first-degree premeditated murder, according to case records.
His attorney declined to comment to McClatchy News.
On Feb. 20, investigators found 59-year-old Katrin Mari Simpson dead in her garage from an apparent hanging, St. Petersburg police said in an arrest affidavit.
Shinn told police he was the one who found her and went to the neighbors to call for help.
Medical examiners took her body, and in a preliminary review found injuries inconsistent with suicide, according to police. She had broken ribs, abrasions on her face and broken ligatures deep in her neck that made her death appear suspicious, officials said.
Shinn told police the two had been working on home improvement projects together and a rotten door frame hit her face, causing bruises, according to the affidavit.
In his first interview with investigators, Shinn said he had nothing to do with her death, police said.
The day after the woman’s death, detectives said they received a call from her neighbor. She told them that about a month prior, Simpson came to her home and said Shinn had assaulted her, according to police.
She told the neighbor “that if she ended up dead, Shinn did it,” police said in the affidavit.
Shinn had previously been arrested twice on accusations of domestic battery against her, police said.
When police brought up the woman’s unexplained injuries in a later interview with Shinn, he told them that the day she died, the two got in a fight and he dragged her down the hallway, according to police. He also said that Simpson had been taking his pills and he had to use Narcan on her, authorities said.
After collecting DNA and searching the home, police spoke with the medical examiner again on April 30 regarding the autopsy.
That’s when the medical examiner said Simpson’s cause of death was “strangulation, with contributing factors of blunt force trauma and multi-drug toxicity.” The manner of death was homicide, the examiner said.
Shinn was taken into custody that day, more than two months after Simpson’s death.
St. Petersburg is on the west coast of Florida, about a 25-mile drive southwest from Tampa.
If you are experiencing domestic violence and need someone to talk to, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline for support at 1-800-799-7233 or text “START” to 88788.
If you or someone you know need help, you can contact the NAMI HelpLine. The National Alliance on Mental Illness offers a free, nationwide peer-support service providing information, resource referrals and support to people living with a mental health condition, their family members and caregivers, mental health providers and the public. You can call 1-800-950-6264 or text "HelpLine" to 62640 each Monday-Friday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. ET.
If you need immediate help in a crisis, call 1-800-273-8255 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
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