Jurors convicted Zaria Owens of voluntary manslaughter after prosecutors challenged her claim that she shot Tyquirez Sims in self-defense.

SPARTANBURG, S.C. — A South Carolina woman was sentenced to 21 years in prison after a jury found her guilty of voluntary manslaughter in the 2023 shooting death of her boyfriend, a killing prosecutors said unfolded in front of her young son during an argument over her leaving the boyfriend’s apartment.

Zaria Aiyanna Owens, 25, was convicted July 16 after a weeklong trial in Spartanburg County in the death of 21-year-old Tyquirez Rashad Sims. Jurors also found Owens guilty of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. The court imposed a 21-year sentence for voluntary manslaughter and a five-year sentence on the weapons conviction. Local reports citing the Seventh Circuit Solicitor’s Office said the five-year term is to run concurrently with the longer sentence, meaning Owens is serving an effective 21-year term under the sentence as reported.

The verdict brought the criminal case to a major conclusion nearly three years after deputies were called to College Pointe Lane on the night of Aug. 22, 2023. The Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office said deputies arrived at the apartment complex around 9 p.m. and found Sims on a sidewalk with a gunshot wound. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities identified Owens as a suspect after interviewing witnesses, and investigators later found her vehicle at another apartment complex in Spartanburg. Owens surrendered to the sheriff’s office early the following morning.

Prosecutors told jurors that the shooting developed from an argument between Owens and Sims as their living arrangement was ending. A friend told investigators the two had been living together and Sims was making Owens move out, according to reporting from the trial. Prosecutors said Owens had taken Sims’ cellphone and gun, prompting him to follow her toward her car because he wanted the belongings returned. What began as an argument inside or near the apartment then moved outside, where the presence of the gun turned the dispute into a fatal confrontation.

The state’s account placed Sims away from Owens when the fatal shot was fired. Prosecutors said Owens pointed Sims’ gun at him during the argument. Sims then went back into the apartment and brought Owens’ 3-year-old son outside to her car in an effort to get Owens to leave. A witness later told investigators that Owens raised her arm toward Sims before the shot was fired. Prosecutors said Sims was standing on or near a curb several steps away from Owens when he was struck. Owens then took her son and drove away from the complex.

Owens gave investigators a different account of the confrontation. Authorities said she initially tried to claim that she had acted in self-defense. In her interview with investigators, Owens described reaching for her son as Sims brought the child toward her. She said Sims pushed the boy toward her, causing the child to stumble. Owens acknowledged picking up Sims’ gun and shooting him after that happened. Deputies later checked on the child and determined that he had not been injured in the stumble, prosecutors said during the case.

Investigators publicly questioned the self-defense claim from the beginning. The morning Owens was arrested, the sheriff’s office said witness statements, forensic evidence and inconsistencies in her account did not support her version of self-defense. Those competing descriptions became important as the prosecution eventually brought the case before a jury. Owens had originally been charged with murder and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. The jury ultimately convicted her of voluntary manslaughter rather than murder, along with the weapons offense.

The case also changed significantly between the first hours of the investigation and the final verdict. Initial reports in August 2023 focused on the discovery of Sims, the identification of Owens and her surrender the next morning. By the 2026 trial, prosecutors presented a fuller sequence drawn from witness accounts, Owens’ statements and evidence from the scene. That presentation placed the argument over Owens moving out, the taking of Sims’ phone and gun, Sims’ effort to bring Owens’ son outside and the distance between Sims and Owens at the moment of the shooting into a single timeline for jurors to consider.

Sims was 21 when he died and had recently become a father himself. Prosecutors said his child was about 6 months old at the time of the shooting. Deputy Solicitor Spenser Smith, who prosecuted the case, described Sims as part of a loving family and said his death had lasting effects beyond the criminal proceeding. Smith called the case a tragedy involving domestic violence and said it had affected two families and two young children: Sims’ infant child and Owens’ son, who was present during the confrontation.

The presence of Owens’ child was not merely background to the case because witnesses and Owens herself placed the boy at the center of the moments immediately before the shot. According to the prosecution, Sims went back into the apartment for the child after Owens had pointed the gun at him and brought the boy to the car so Owens would leave. Owens, in contrast, connected her decision to fire to what she said happened as Sims transferred the child to her. The jury was therefore asked to weigh not only whether Owens fired the fatal shot, which her own statement acknowledged, but the circumstances surrounding that act and her asserted justification for it.

The passage of almost three years also meant that the jury heard the case with far more evidence than was available publicly when Owens first appeared in court in 2023. At that time, the sheriff’s office said Sims lived at the apartment complex and Owens was a 23-year-old resident of Moore, South Carolina. Authorities said her vehicle was found after the shooting and that she turned herself in rather than being arrested during a search. A bond hearing was held soon after her arrest, but the case remained pending until the July 2026 trial resolved the central homicide charge.

The sentencing reports generated one point requiring careful distinction. One local headline described Owens as receiving 26 years, apparently adding the 21-year and five-year terms. The more detailed accounts, including the report based on the solicitor’s announcement, state that the five-year weapons sentence runs concurrently with the 21-year voluntary manslaughter sentence. On that reported sentencing structure, the five years are served at the same time as the longer term rather than added to it. The effective prison sentence reported by multiple accounts is therefore 21 years.

With the jury’s verdict and sentencing complete, Owens stands convicted of voluntary manslaughter and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime in Sims’ death. The reports reviewed for this story did not identify a later appellate ruling or another scheduled proceeding that would alter the convictions or the concurrent sentences. Nearly three years after deputies found Sims on the sidewalk at College Pointe Lane, the case has moved from an initial murder accusation to a final trial verdict and prison sentence.

Author note: Last updated August 23, 2026.