Justice for Alice – An Innocent Woman Wrongfully Accused

Jim Summers was murdered outside the garage where he stored parts for the six vintage cars he was restoring. The victim lived in rural Jefferson County, Missouri (south of St. Louis) with his partner, Alice Weiss. They had met at work in the Information Technology Department at MU-St. Louis. Thousands of dollars of car parts and personal objects were stolen, but police did not investigate the theft, look into a recent threat to Jim, inspect the grounds for other clues, or check phone and e-mail records, and the case remained unsolved. In 2021, seventeen years after the murder, Alice Weiss was charged.

Eric Simms is Alice Weiss’ first cousin, son of her paternal aunt. Addicted to alcohol and drugs and diagnosed many years earlier with a delusional mental disorder, Eric has a 20-year police record of violations and charges ranging from rape and assault to multiple DUIs. In 2014, when he was 56 years old, unemployed, and living with his 90-year-old mother Irene, he attempted to kill her in order to inherit her house. During this attempt, witnessed by Irene’s grandson, Eric knocked her unconscious. Alice Weiss filed a protection order at Irene’s request and had him removed from her house. Irene was hospitalized, permanently incapacitated, and eventually died from her injuries in October 2014.

Twelve days later, Eric went to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s office and made a statement that Alice had confessed to him that she had murdered her boyfriend, Jim Summers. It was obvious to the police that Eric’s motive was revenge, and the police took no action on his accusation at the time.  Alice was never informed that this statement had been made.

In 2021, at the time of her arrest, Alice Weiss was a disabled senior who from her wheelchair dedicated her retirement years to community volunteerism, fostering sick animals, registering new voters and helping handicapped seniors access their social security and veteran’s benefits. The police said she was arrested because of “new evidence” – the new evidence being Eric Simms’ false statement made seven years earlier in 2014. While incarcerated without chance of bail, she was refused food and medications prescribed by her physicians.  She was arrested on the basis of a Probable Cause statement issued by a Jefferson County detective that contained false, misleading, incomplete and inadmissable “evidence” with a secret warrant issued by a judge in a secret hearing.