ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – The South Carolina woman linked to two murders in St. Louis County, one in the Memphis area, and two more killings in her home state pleaded guilty Thursday for the multi-state killing spree.
Adrienne Simpson and Tyler Terry were each charged with the murder of Eugene O’Brien Simpson, Adrienne’s husband. Eugene, 33, was reported missing on May 2, 2021. His body was found in a ditch in Chester County on May 20, 2021.
Terry was also charged with the murder of Terry Hardin, a trans woman, in York, South Carolina. Hardin was killed on May 2, 2021. It was previously reported that Hardin and Terry had been romantically involved.
After the murders in South Carolina, Terry and Simpson fled west and wound up in St. Louis County, where Terry shot and killed Barbara Goodkin and Dr. Sergei Zacharev.
Goodkin, 71, was shot in the head just after 10:50 p.m. on May 15, 2021, while riding in a car with her husband in University City on Delmar. Zacherev, 58, was shot and killed less than an hour later in a Brentwood parking lot near a restaurant and hotel. Goodkin died at a hospital the following day.
Simpson was arrested after a shootout with Chester County police on May 17, 2021. Terry got away. Terry was the subject of a major manhunt in South Carolina for nearly a week. He was arrested on May 24, 2021, in Chester County.
Terry and Simpson were also linked to the murder of Danterrio Coats in Memphis, Tennessee.
Simpson appeared in St. Louis County Circuit Court on Oct. 17, 2024, and pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of first-degree assault, one count of first-degree robbery, two counts of unlawful use of a weapon, and seven counts of armed criminal action in connection with the murders of Goodkin and Zacharev.
Simpson agreed to a guilty plea if the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office pulled the death penalty option off the table. She will be sentenced at the end of the month.
This past July, Terry pleaded guilty to killing Hardin, Eugene Simpson, and Coats and was immediately sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
St. Louis County prosecutors reached a plea agreement with Terry following a lengthy negotiation process involving county prosecutors in South Carolina and Tennessee. Prosecutors in all three jurisdictions agreed to waive the death penalty in exchange for Terry’s guilty pleas and to avoid years of death penalty appeals.
According to prosecutors at the time, the unified plea agreement “nullified any future legal challenges in any state.”
