U.S. District Judge Henry E. Autrey on Wednesday sentenced a St. Louis man to 25 years in prison for his role in a fatal 2019 carjacking that was caught on tape.
Jalen Exavier Simms, 27, pleaded guilty on August 1 to one count of attempted carjacking resulting in death. He admitted that on June 3, 2019, just after 6 a.m., he and another armed man saw Jabari Clark sleeping in the driver’s seat of Clark’s 2012 Dodge Ram truck in front of his home in the 3000 block of Rauschenbach Avenue in St. Louis.
Simms approached Clark on the driver’s side of the truck while the other man approached the passenger side of the vehicle. Simms tried to remove Clark from the truck at gunpoint. After a struggle, Simms’ companion fired, hitting Clark multiple times. Both men then fled.
The incident was caught by Clark’s surveillance camera. Simms also dropped a phone charging cord that had his DNA on it
Judge Autrey ordered the 25-year sentence to run consecutive to any sentence Simms receives for a pending St. Louis County homicide charge, an arson charge in Ste. Genevieve County and an aggravated assault charge in Madison County.
Investigators are still seeking the identity of the shooter. Anyone with information is asked to call St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Division at 314-444-5371 or report information anonymously via St. Louis Regional Crimestoppers at 866-371-TIPS.
The case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.
