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Friday, November 13, 2026Nov 13

Audio of Bianca Horton identifying Cortez Sims as murderer played during hearing

Cortez Sims, the 17-year-old suspect in a 2015 deadly apartment shooting at College Hill Courts, appears before Hamilton County Juvenile Court Judge Robert D. Philyaw for a detention hearing on Jan. 12, 2015.
Cortez Sims, the 17-year-old suspect in a 2015 deadly apartment shooting at College Hill Courts, appears before Hamilton County Juvenile Court Judge Robert D. Philyaw for a detention hearing on Jan. 12, 2015. Cortez Sims, the 17-year-old suspect in a 2015 deadly apartment shooting at College Hill Courts, appears before Hamilton County Juvenile Court Judge Robert D. Philyaw for a detention hearing on Jan. 12, 2015.
photo Cortez Sims

Three hours after a man in a hoodie killed her friend and paralyzed her daughter, Bianca Horton was handed six photographs by a police officer.

She looked at the first one – a young black man – and flipped past it.

On the second photo, she stopped. This was the shooter, she told police. She signed her initials behind the photo at 4:06 a.m. on Jan. 7, 2015.

Prosecutors and police replayed that tape-recorded interaction with Horton, one of four victims in a fatal College Hill Courts shooting, during an evidentiary hearing for her accused killer Wednesday in Hamilton County Criminal Court.

As prosecutor Lance Pope slid a photo onto the courtroom projector, he turned to the officer on the witness stand. “Who is that?” he asked.