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It was the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and Nick Sardina was out of a job.
The Whitesboro native was a sports journalist for years, working at the Observer-Dispatch until 2009 before going freelance.
But now, in the spring of 2020, high school and professional sports have been put on hold and other things have begun to occupy Sardina’s mind, including a 35-year-old unsolved case.
In 1985, Whitesboro teenager Kim Simon disappeared and was found dead the next day. Her death sparked a decades-long investigation into a still-unsolved rape and murder case.
A high school classmate of Simon’s, Sardina, now 52, has never forgotten the impact her death had on his classmates. New fears take years to overcome, and decades of unanswered only prolong their grief.
“It’s a dark secret in the history of our community,” Sardina said.
The mystery surrounding Kim Simon’s death has been covered by news outlets and documentary crews over the years, but an episode of America’s Most Wanted that Sardina watched gave him pause.
“The range is too wide to cut,” he said. “It was just highlighting the essentials.”
With Sardina’s personal knowledge of the case and his journalistic background, he believed he might be in a position to do better.
He had the idea and the motivation. When the pandemic hit, Sardina suddenly had that opportunity.
He decided to find out everything he could about the case and create his own documentary about the community that lost Simon. Sardina’s eight-part series will be released in late 2023.
“I remember hearing screams”
Kim Simon left her home on River Road on the evening of September 18, 1985. It was a Wednesday, a school night.
Her friend Linda Fiorini would later tell authorities that she had received a call from Simon asking her to join her for a walk. Fiorini waited on the steps of Whitesboro High School, but Simon never showed up. Her body would not be found for another 36 hours.
Two days after her disappearance, 15-year-old Sardina hears the rumors already circulating at Whitesboro High about Kim Simon’s disappearance, and he notices that Fiorini, who is his former neighbor and childhood friend, is not at school.
The announcement came over the loudspeaker. Kim Simon is dead, the students were told. Her body was found in a wooded area in Marcy.
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“I remember hearing screams in the school,” Sardina said.
Sardina wasn’t close to Simon, but he watched the impact he had on those who were. Teenage girls went out more cautiously. Rumors spread about a possible culprit, but nothing stuck.
It wasn’t until Sardina was a freshman in college in 1989 that 22-year-old Stephen Barnes of Marcy was convicted of sodomy, rape and murder in Simon’s death.
Almost two decades later, it all unraveled. Barnes was exonerated in 2008 based on DNA testing led by the Innocence Project. At the time, Sardina was working at the Observer-Dispatch while his colleagues covered the development.
Making a movie for pennies on the dollar
Sardina researched the case for most of the summer of 2020 before hiring Media Partners Group’s Walt Morrissey as videographer and Netcasting Media’s Alan Williams as editor.
They agreed to do it for “pennies on the dollar,” he said, solely because they believed in the project. Their first day of filming was on September 18, the 35th anniversary of Simon’s death. A group of advocates, including Fiorini, had gathered on a bridge in Marcy that day, near where Simon was found.
The project has become a full-time job for Sardina, with about 10 percent of the funding coming from a GoFundMe fundraiser and the rest from close friends as he films interviews and reenactments, tracks down sources and receives hundreds of tips about Simon’s death.
“I talk to everybody,” he said. “Half the time, I know right away that they don’t have new information.”
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“It always comes back to these guys”
Sardina interviewed Fiorini, Steven Barnes, Simon’s boyfriend Rick Gause, as well as current and former investigators, including Jim Helmer, Richard Ferrucci and Oneida County District Attorney Scott McNamara. It was filmed at New York Mills’ former party venue Three Bears and filed a Freedom of Information Act request with McNamara’s office.
He has huge white boards where he has written names related to the case, drawn tables and diagrams.
“Part of it is that it never leaves your mind,” Sardina said. “It’s always there.”
But one line is a handful of names repeatedly mentioned in tips or interviews. One of those people agreed to interview him.
“It always comes back to these guys,” he said.
The case of Kim Simon remains unsolved
Nothing concrete has been revealed, Sardina said, and he doesn’t believe the case will be solved until someone confesses or law enforcement uncovers new evidence. Oneida County District Attorney Scott McNamara would agree.
“We do not have enough credible evidence to determine who is responsible for Kim’s death,” he said.
McNamara said he declined to respond to Sardina’s FOIL request on the advice of an attorney following a 2021 lawsuit alleging McNamara shared video evidence in a separate criminal case with the media. But he hopes Sardina’s documentary will shed new light.
McNamara, who is not running for re-election in 2023, is certain he will not be prosecuting Kim Simon’s killer in the final year of his career. Like Sardina, his office has heard multiple accounts from people that are often conflicting or blaming different people, he said.
None of them are eyewitnesses.
The remaining DNA evidence in his office – sperm collected from Simon’s body – is sealed in a glass slide. So far, no one has found a way to open the slide without destroying the evidence, he said.
“We’re down to the last one,” he said. “So if we destroy this one, we have no DNA evidence left.”
The only thing Sardina’s research has led him to believe, however, is that someone out there knows who killed Kim Simon.
“A Different Era”
Simon would have been 53 today. A lot has changed in her hometown since she disappeared. Attitudes have changed, Sardina noted.
“It was just a different era,” he said. “Not many people would let their teenage daughter walk several miles to a friend’s house.” [now].”
But it’s a case that’s stuck in the city, he said.
“Ask almost anyone that age, they’ll remember it,” he said. “Whitesboro, New Hartford, New York Mills, Proctor … most people this age remember those days.”
Sardina expects to release his documentary as an eight-part series in 2023, though he hasn’t determined on what platform.
He hopes to release it around the 38th anniversary of Simon’s death. But the murder is still unsolved, so he leaves it open in case there’s someone who still wants to talk to him.
“It’s always open,” he said. “We’re never done with it. Even after it comes out, I’ll still take phone calls.”
H. Rose Schneider covers public safety, breaking and breaking news for the Observer-Dispatch in Utica. Email Rose at hschneider@gannett.com.
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