By J. Brett Smith
Criminal District Attorney in Grayson County
It is often said that we learn more from our losses than our victories. I believe that to be true. In our office, we encourage prosecutors not to fear losing, not to fear the “not guilty” verdict in a tough or thin case. We repeat the mantra that a prosecutor’s job is not to obtain convictions, but to see that justice is done.
This was exemplified recently on a tough Continuous Sexual Abuse of a Child case where the odds were stacked against the State—those odds included the case’s age and the only evidence being an outcry. But we did not fear the loss; we forged ahead, caught a few breaks, and saw that justice was done for our victim.
A stale case
Without making any excuses, I can safely say that every prosecutor’s office has old cases. Furthermore, offices may also have cases that have “fallen off the radar.” When I became the elected district attorney in mid-2018, we made several policy and personnel changes, which is common for a newly elected DA. Those changes came with a reckoning: We had to make a calculated decision on whether to proceed with State of Texas v. Sim Bittick, a case that had fallen through the cracks.
The investigation into the Sim Bittick case was stale and thin. As every prosecutor who handles child sexual assault cases knows, we all have cases with just a lonely outcry. There is no confession, no physical evidence, no DNA, and perhaps no witnesses other than a young victim. The only wrinkle on the Sim Bittick case was the allegation that the defendant’s wife not only witnessed the heinous acts committed against our young victim, but also participated in the abuse. Tammy Bittick did not cooperate with law enforcement and would not corroborate her daughter’s outcry of sexual abuse.
The allegation spanned a nearly five-year period from 2003 until 2008, and the case was sent to our office in early 2014. I assigned the case to Assistant District Attorney Nathan Young in 2019, which was a long time later. Nathan immediately set up a meeting to introduce himself to our victim, establish a rapport, and explain, very directly, why the case was just now being addressed by a prosecutor. The victim, T.M.R., was now in her mid 20s. At first SHE was bewildered that we were even talking to her about this case—why, after years and years, had nothing ever happened? We could tell she was hurt and confused.
Ultimately, all we could was to be honest and direct with her. We told her the case had been passed from one prosecutor to another and had only recently been assigned to Mr. Young. We told her that was not an excuse; it should never have happened that way, and we promised we would do everything in our power to get justice for her. After a long pause, T.M.R. gave a very considered answer that expressed that she was on-board and would do whatever she could to cooperate: She wanted to prevent Sim and Tammy Bittick from having access to any other children ever again and to pay for what they did.
Indictment and investigation
Ultimately, convinced of the victim’s truthfulness concerning years of sexual abuse at her stepfather’s hands, Nathan sought indictments against Sim Bittick, the victim’s stepfather, for Continuous Sexual Abuse, and against his wife, Tammy Bittick, the victim’s mother, for several counts of Aggravated Sexual Assault of Child. A Grayson County grand jury returned those indictments in March 2020, and both husband and wife were jailed.
Nathan set to work on his trial preparation, which involved a deep dive for detailed knowledge of Sim Bittick’s background. With help from DA Investigator Mike Ditto and the Denison Police Department, Nathan located a tractor trailer rig Bittick used to drive; it was in the possession of Bittick’s employer following his arrest. The 18-wheeler still contained Bittick’s personal possessions, including several sex toys and some lingerie that the child victim indicated Bittick had worn during some of her abuse.
Perhaps most importantly in pre-trial preparation, Mike, our investigator, tracked down Sim Bittick’s biological daughter, Michelle (not her real name). She was a very important witness as Bittick had sexually abused her in the 1990s. A Denison police detective, in his original investigation, noted that Sim had been indicted in the ’90s for a sexual assault against Michelle and that she would be an important witness. Though Bittick had been indicted for these crimes, the case was ultimately dismissed “due to the State’s inability to find the victim.” The girl’s grandparents (Sim Bittick’s parents) had secreted her and removed her from the state to protect her.
Fast-forward seven years to when Investigator Ditto located her and then assisted us in interviewing her on a number of occasions. Interviews with Michelle proved extremely difficult. It is never easy to ask a victim to re-open wounds after decades of dormancy. Although it took several meetings and substantial time, Michelle finally detailed her father’s abuse from decades before. The abuse she suffered was very similar to our more recent victim: It occurred around the same age range and in places under his secluded control; the defendant made the victims promise the interactions were secret; and it also involved anal play.
Despite a rocky trial prep where Michelle expressed doubts and was (understandably) emotional having had a 20-year-old wound ripped open regarding her abuse, she did end up testifying.
As trial prep pressed ahead, we knew that Tammy Bittick’s testimony could be extremely helpful in corroborating the victim’s story that her mother participated in the years of abuse. To that end, Nathan reached out to Tammy’s lawyer to see if she was willing to tell the truth about the abuse and cooperate. A proffer agreement was provided and an interview conducted. After two hours, Tammy was finally willing to admit that on one occasion, she led her daughter to the co-defendant and “showed her what to do.” Tammy claimed that she did this only “to stay in a marriage with Sim because he provided for everyone,” and she was worried he would leave because of his sexual dissatisfaction with her.
A phone call
Several months into trial preparation, our office received a phone call from a local attorney who indicated his client, who was incarcerated in the local jail, would like to talk to us about Sim Bittick. We set up a meeting with the attorney and his client at our office and interviewed the inmate under a proffer agreement with no promises or offers for his information.
What we received was a bombshell: According to the inmate, Mr. Bittick had offered him property and a residence upon his release from jail in exchange for the inmate killing the victim of our sexual assault case, her husband (whom Mr. Bittick identified as the “outcry witness”), and Tammy Bittick. Our office promptly brought in investigators from the Grayson County Sheriff’s Office; one of them created a ruse in the jail to place a recording device in the cell Bittick and his cellmate shared. Sure enough, we caught the two of them discussing the execution of our victim in exchange for the property. Jail calls Bittick made also placed the covert recording into context, and a clear plot emerged to prevent our victim from testifying against her stepfather. A subsequent grand jury indicted Sim Bittick for multiple counts of Solicitation of Capital Murder and Retaliation.
Another phone call
Just months before trial, we got another call from Tammy Bittick’s attorney. This time Tammy was ready to talk and tell the whole truth. We believe Tammy saw the train coming down the tracks and decided it was time to jump off the bridge. We set up another proffer meeting with her and her attorney, and this time she gave a more accurate picture of what had happened when her daughter was 6 to about 12 years old. Tammy confirmed the dates, times, and locations of our victim’s outcry statements. Not only had Tammy witnessed some of the sexual abuse, but she had also been a participant by luring or otherwise procuring the victim into the spider’s web. T.M.R. had suffered consistent sexual abuse at the hands of Sim Bittick from the age of 6 until nearly her 12th birthday. By the time of trial, Tammy admitted that she had facilitated well over 30 sexual interactions between her own child and her husband, though she would never admit to actively participating in them.
The trial
Sim Bittick proceeded to trial in late August 2022. The jury heard from our victim, who was by now a young adult. The jury also heard Tammy Bittick’s testimony, which clearly corroborated T.M.R.’s outcry statements. The jury also heard the jail snitch and his recordings of Sim Bittick soliciting the murder of our victim to prevent her from testifying. These recordings were particularly chilling as the defendant pontificated about creative ways to kill each potential victim to make it look like an accident; he laughed about each witness dying. Under Code of Criminal Procedure Art. 38.37, after ample notice and a hearing outside the presence of the jury, the extraneous victim, Michelle, the defendant’s biological daughter, testified about the abuse she suffered at the defendant’s hands. Her testimony was extremely profound and made several jurors emotional.
After about four days of testimony, the jury found Sim Bittick guilty of Continuous Sexual Abuse of a Child and Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child. Judge Jim Fallon of the 15th Judicial District Court of Grayson County subsequently sentenced him to 98 years in prison without any possibility of parole.
The next domino to fall
In September 2022, Tammy Bittick pleaded guilty to several counts of Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child. She went open to the court without the benefit of plea agreement. It also deserves note that when she testified at Sim Bittick’s trial, she did so without any grant of testimonial immunity. Following a pre-sentence investigation (PSI), she was sentenced in December 2022. Despite her cooperation and comparatively smaller role in the sexual abuse, she was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 30 years. At the conclusion of the pronouncement of sentence, Judge Fallon rejected the defendant’s claim (which only came up at trial) that she was afraid her husband would kill her or her children. As the judge put it, “Any parent would gladly risk taking a bullet—or actually take a bullet—to protect their child from this type of horrible protracted abuse.”
The takeaway
The assignment of this case to a determined and dedicated prosecutor, along with a run of good breaks, led to the best outcome we could have expected, and it all started out on the wrong foot. As trial attorneys, we are all fighters, or at least we should be. Do not fear stepping into the ring or getting struck in the face. Instead, fighters should fear only their own lack of preparation or lack of determination. So, work hard, prepare, be thorough, and pray for a few big breaks.