Tampa Rapper Convicted of First-Degree Murder and Killing of Unborn Child Days After Double-Murder Acquittal

BELIEVE IT OR NOT, PROSECUTORS SAY TAMPA RAPPER BILLY BENNETT ADAMS III LURED A PREGNANT WOMAN TO A SECLUDED AREA AND SHOT HER THREE DAYS AFTER HE WAS ACQUITTED IN A DOUBLE-MURDER TRIAL… AND A JURY HAS NOW RECOMMENDED THE DEATH PENALTY FOLLOWING HIS CONVICTION.

On January 30, 2023, police officers responded to the Easton Park subdivision in Tampa, Florida.

The response came after a woman was discovered lying in the street near an SUV.

Upon arriving at the scene, officers found the woman suffering from a gunshot wound to the back of her head.

She was pronounced dead at the scene.

The victim was identified by authorities as 22-year-old Alana Sims.

Sims was approximately five months pregnant at the time of her death.

Her 18-month-old son was found near her body inside an SUV.

The child was discovered unharmed and asleep.

Investigators said Sims had been involved in a relationship with 25-year-old Billy Bennett Adams III.

Adams is a Tampa rapper who performs under the stage name Ace NH.

Just three days before Sims was killed, Adams had been acquitted in an unrelated double-murder case.

That prior case involved two men who were killed at a recording studio.

Adams testified during that earlier double-murder trial that he had acted in self-defense.

Investigators said Adams was also involved in a relationship with another woman, Lakenya Brantley.

The day before Sims was killed, prosecutors said Brantley sent messages to Adams.

In those messages, Brantley expressed frustration over the fact that Sims was pregnant.

Prosecutors said Brantley also expressed frustration that Sims was still involved with Adams.

Prosecutors said Adams subsequently reached out to Sims through the messaging platform Telegram.

During that exchange, Adams told Sims that he loved her.

Adams also told Sims that he had been searching for an apartment where the two of them could live together.

Investigators said those messages were used to lure Sims to a secluded section of the Easton Park subdivision.

Sims drove separately to the location in her own vehicle with her young son inside.

At approximately 7:50 p.m., Sims sent a message stating that Adams had not provided her with proper directions.

Prosecutors said she was killed within approximately 25 minutes of sending that message.

Investigators said Sims was shot in the back of the head from a distance of approximately three feet.

Surveillance cameras and license-plate readers later captured a Chevrolet Malibu in the area around the time of the shooting.

The Chevrolet Malibu was registered to the parents of Adams.

Investigators said Adams initially denied that he had seen Sims that night.

Adams claimed to detectives during initial questioning that he had never left his home that evening.

But his account changed after detectives confronted him with evidence placing the vehicle in the area.

Adams then claimed that he had been spending time with friends on the night of the killing.

He presented investigators with a cellphone video that he claimed supported his alibi.

Investigators later determined that the cellphone video had been recorded two days after Sims was killed.

Prosecutors said Adams also deleted the Telegram application shortly after the killing took place.

And investigators said Adams operated a second cellphone that evening while leaving his primary phone at home.

Authorities also said Adams reached out to a former girlfriend and asked her to provide him with an alibi.

During the course of the investigation, Adams eventually admitted that he shot Sims.

Adams claimed to investigators that he had acted in self-defense when he shot her.

Yet prosecutors rejected that claim of self-defense.

While Adams was held in custody in jail, investigators obtained letters that they said were part of an effort to create a false alibi.

A former inmate testified at trial regarding those letters.

The former inmate testified that Adams wrote letters instructing several women on what they should tell investigators.

The former inmate testified that he recopied the letters in his own handwriting.

The former inmate said the recopying was done in an attempt to conceal that the letters had originated from Adams.

Prosecutors also stated that Adams believed at the time of the shooting that he was the father of the unborn child Sims was carrying.

Subsequent testing determined that Adams was not the biological father of the unborn child.

In February 2023, Adams was arrested and charged in connection with the death of Sims and the death of her unborn child.

During the 2026 trial, jurors heard testimony from a former girlfriend of Adams.

Jurors also heard testimony from the former jail inmate who recopied the letters.

Investigators testified regarding the text messages, the cellphone evidence, the surveillance footage and the alleged false alibi.

On September 1, 2026, 28-year-old Billy Bennett Adams III was found guilty of first-degree murder.

Adams was also found guilty of killing an unborn child by injury to the mother.

On September 2, 2026, the trial jury recommended a sentence of life in prison without parole for the murder of Sims.

In a separate recommendation, the jury voted 8-4 in favor of the death penalty for the killing of her unborn child.

The recommendations issued by the jury are not the final sentence.

A sentencing hearing is scheduled for December 1, 2026.

A judge is expected to determine the sentence for Adams at that hearing.