Alleged killer says victim fell 3 feet

By Matt Pordum (contact)

Monday, Feb. 21, 2005 | 8:45 a.m.

A 25-year-old man accused of bludgeoning a tourist to death with a rock told detectives the woman died after falling out a window only three feet from the ground.

Shod Walker's story about how 39-year-old Simone Hirst, a former model from Utah, died was the last of five different accounts he gave detectives regarding the goings-on in the early-morning hours of April 28, 2003.

Walker's taped statements were played in court on Friday morning.

After first denying he ever saw Hirst the day she was found dead, he slowly changed his story as detectives prodded him, saying "I don't believe you, what's a jury going to do?"

Walker went on to admit to meeting and having sex with Hirst and then going to the laundry room of an apartment complex at 11th Street and Stewart Avenue so he could sit her down and allow her to "chill out."

He said Hirst got them in the room by climbing through the window, but instead of calming down, Walker said, Hirst kept asking him where she could find crack.

"She got angry, upset at the fact I didn't have any dope," Walker told detectives.

Walker said he then left the laundry room to go home. Although he exited using the door, he turned around to see Hirst exit via the window. As she was climbing out "she fell, hit her head on the ground and she didn't move."

He said he then went home and two hours later rented a room at the Downtowner motel with his girlfriend, who had come to town from California.

Police would later find Hirst lying face down in blood outside the laundry room of the apartment complex at 11th Street and Stewart Avenue.

In the tapes played in court, detectives press Walker to "be a man and stand up" and to take responsibility by telling them the truth. Walker, however, stuck to his final story of Hirst falling three feet from the window to her death

Prosecutors contend Walker used a 44-pound rock from the parking lot and crushed Hirst's skull, then changed clothes and checked into a motel for seven days to avoid police.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Robert Daskas in opening arguments said Walker's story was "pure fiction."

Daskas said testimony would show it would have been medically impossible for Hirst to die as Walker said because she "couldn't have died from a fall of three feet high."

Police said after fighting with her boyfriend earlier in the night at the Bellagio, Hirst took a taxi to downtown Las Vegas, where she allegedly used crack.

On Tuesday admitted heroin addict David Smith said he saw Walker and Hirst walking to the apartment complex, but only saw Walker return. Smith said Walker, who had changed clothes, came up to him and said "You haven't seen me with no chick or anything" and that "she's dead and that's that."

The prosecution is expected to conclude its case today.