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Inmate Confesses To Murder That Was Ruled Suicide

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Aug 4, 2009 7:08 pm US/Mountain

Inmate Confesses To Murder That Was Ruled Suicide

GOLDEN, Colo. (CBS4) ― Shawn Shields attacked a fellow inmate once before. Now he claims he killed an inmate whose death had been ruled a suicide. The case involves an inmate who was found dead in his Jefferson County Jail cell in November of 2005.

The Jefferson County Sheriff's Department is holding firm. It found and still maintains that inmate Anthony Sims killed himself. But in a lawsuit, Sims' mother says the FBI investigated and found it was a case of murder.

Sims was charged with sexual assault on a child and was being held in protective custody. His neighbor, Shields, was described as a white supremacist.

"Mom, in our world rats are the lowest piece of (expletive). They're free for all. You beat them up every chance you get," Shields said in a phone conversation after he was caught on tape beating another inmate earlier in 20075 CBS4 obtained the phone conversation after viewing the video taken from the Denver Federal Courthouse lockup.

Now Shields has claimed he murdered Sims, whose mother is suing Jefferson County. The lawsuit claims that Shields tricked the deputies into thinking that a door, which joins the two cells, was locked when it was actually open. But the sheriff's department insists that couldn't have happened. Its investigation found that two locked doors to a common shower would have to have been open, plus another to a cell.

"We stand firm in our original findings that this death was in fact a suicide. No other inmates had access to Sims," a sheriff's spokesperson said.

Attorney David Lane, representing Sims' mother, disagrees.

"My understanding of all this is that the guards would simply shout down to Shawn Shields, 'Hey, is that door locked?' And he would pretend to pull on and say, 'Yeah, it's locked,'" Lane said.

The sheriff's department tried to duplicate what must of what happened in order for it to be a murder. It could not, but Lane says Sims was in good spirits and looking forward to going home to Alabama.

The Jefferson County District Attorney's Office is investigating.

The FBI would not comment on its findings.

(© MMIX CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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