VSU student faces 63 years for robbery and killing of Petersburg drug dealer

Ryan Christopher Simms

ETTRICK, Virginia  -- A Virginia State University student could spend 63 years behind bars for conspiring with a fellow student to rip off a Petersburg drug dealer and fatally shooting him several yards from campus in a crime that stunned the VSU community and the village of Ettrick.

After a four-day trial that featured testimony from several former VSU students who were unwittingly caught up in the April 17, 2012, shooting, a Chesterfield County jury deliberated 4½ hours Friday before finding Ryan Christopher Simms, 20, guilty of second-degree murder — reduced from first-degree — in the slaying of Tyrail Hughes, 20. 
    
The jury also convicted Simms, who is from Upper Marlboro, Maryland, and was a freshman last year at VSU, of conspiring with fellow student Khaliq Oliver, a co-defendant, to rob Hughes of an ounce of high-grade marijuana valued at $425.

Jurors considered a total of 10 felony crimes against Simms and found him guilty of eight, including grand larceny for the theft of the drugs; malicious wounding for inadvertently shooting VSU freshman William Penn in the foot; attempted murder for shooting at Hughes’ friend Damon Wright; and three related felony firearm counts.

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