Savorth Sim, 36, one of two Cambodian immigrants murdered Saturday, leaves a widow whom he followed across continents.

07/15/2003

BY AMANDA MILKOVITS
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Savorth Sim endured refugee camps in two countries and traveled thousands of miles across the United States so he could be with Heang Chhem.

They were the love of each other's lives from the moment they met as schoolchildren in a crowded Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand. Only geography separated them from each other, and then only briefly.

But early Saturday morning, a stranger's bullet on a downtown street separated them for good.

Sim, 36, the father of five boys, was on a rare night out drinking beers with his friends. His group included Onn Peov, 22, another Cambodian immigrant, who had also endured much.

Journal photo / Kris Craig Heang Chhem says she knew that she and Savorth Sim were going to have a family together from the moment they met as teenagers in 1982, in Thailand.

Two years ago, Peov buried his older brother, Rom Peov, who was shot down on a West End street near the family's home. Rom was an innocent bystander; the man who killed him was shooting randomly at people with him.

Sim and Onn Peov knew each other through the close-knit Cambodian community. On Saturday, both were felled by the same killer, the police said.

Simeon Briggs, 20, of 23 Goddard St., has a history of trouble, including drug possession and larceny. He's been shot at twice this year, according to police records, dodging bullets on Candace Street in March and getting hit in the buttocks while on Inkerman Street in January.

Then he surfaced again this weekend, allegedly shooting Sim and Peov as they left a nightclub.

Why they were shot is unknown. The police dismissed street rumors of gang-related violence. Although Peov was affiliated with the Oriental Rascals, neither Sim nor Briggs were in a gang, the police said.

"We have absolutely no reason to believe that the Providence Street Boyz have anything to do with these murders," Lt. Terrence Crawley said yesterday. "These are not gang-related killings."

The police have refused to disclose Briggs's motive. And Briggs offered nothing when he was arraigned on murder charges late yesterday morning in District Court. He was held without bail.

None of the families witnessed his arraignment. They had no explanation for the sudden deaths of their loved ones.

The shootings ended the life of a young man with a large family in the West End. Peov has several brothers. (The family declined to comment yesterday.)

Savorth Sim was killed Saturday in Providence.

The murders also ended a transcontinental love story.

The story of Heang Chhem and Savorth Sim began in 1982, three years after Chhem and her family escaped Cambodia. They'd been living in the Khao Idang refugee camp in Thailand, when one day at school she met Sim, who'd just arrived with his family.

She was 14. He was 15. From the first day, she said, "we were so happy together. We felt we were going to have a family. I knew this is my love."

But in 1984, she and her family left Thailand for a refugee camp in the Philippines. Sim followed her. "He wanted to get married to me," Chhem said. "But I said, wait until I get to United States."

A year later, Chhem and her family left for Los Angeles. She and Sim wrote each other constantly, she said, so he'd know how to find her. Six months later, Sim and his family headed for the United States -- ending up in Attleboro, where his relatives live. Three-thousand miles separated them, but they called and corresponded often, she said, until they couldn't stand being apart any longer. Sim left New England for Los Angeles, and by 1987 they were living together as husband and wife.

There'd never been anyone else for them, she said. They built a life for themselves in the United States and raised their five sons together: Millinia, 15; Michael, 13; Timothy, 8; Richard, 6; and Ryan, 3.

"He's a good father and a good husband," Chhem said. "He took good care of me. He took good care of the kids. He was a very hardworking man."

She stayed home with the children and cooked for him. Although he was disabled from a car accident years ago, Sim worked to support the family. After hours, he often spent time with the five boys, taking them fishing in Narragansett or in Riverside -- although they didn't catch many fish.

Occasionally, Sim would go out to Cambodian celebrations. But Friday night, he lingered a while before leaving, she said.

First, he asked her permission to go out for the evening, saying he'd be very late, Chhem said. She said it was OK. Still, he left slowly, saying goodbye to her in the kitchen, then at the kitchen door, then in the stairway landing outside their apartment, she said. He kept saying goodbye, over and over.

"I was thinking, why does he say goodbye to me so many times," Chhem said. "I said, I'll be waiting for you to come back. I'll open the door to you."

THAT NIGHT, Sim, Peov and other friends ended up at NV at The Strand, a nightclub on Washington Street.

They stayed, drinking and having fun, until the club closed at 2 a.m. on Saturday. As they left, the streets were crowded with people, other clubgoers, and four police officers on detail at the nightclub.

The Cambodian men headed down Washington Street, past a bus stop at the corner of Mathewson Street. That's where Briggs was standing and watching, said Lt. Crawley.

Briggs trailed close behind them as they crossed Mathewson Street and continued down Washington Street, Crawley said. As they walked another block, Briggs pulled out a gun and shot them both in their heads at close range, Crawley said.

Peov and Sim collapsed and died on the street, as Briggs ran off into the crowd.

He didn't disappear for long. A short time later, the police spotted him walking alongside 83 Park St. Patrolmen Eugene Craven III and Robert Heaton grabbed Briggs and found the Colt Cobra .38 revolver in his pants pocket. It was the alleged murder weapon. Soon after, Briggs gave statements to the police that led them to charge him with the double murders, Crawley said.

CHHEM WAITED
late that night for her husband to come home. At 3:30 a.m., a friend of his came to the door and told her that Sim had been shot.

She later wept and screamed at the detective who gave her the news that her husband was dead. Yesterday morning, she spoke of Sim both in the past tense and in the present.

She sat on a woven mat on her kitchen floor, as her children, her neighbors and their children stayed close to her. A portrait of Chhem and Sim hung on the wall above her. It was taken after they'd both moved to Los Angeles. They look very young, like a couple on their way to the prom. His smile didn't change in the photos taken of them over the years with their five sons.

Later, when he began making frames for a shop in Wareham, Mass., Sim framed their portrait and hung it on their kitchen wall in their Providence apartment.

After years in California, they moved to Attleboro so he could be closer to his family, Chhem said. They'd just moved into the tenement apartment in Manton three months ago.

They have little furniture. The family sleeps on the floor. They sit on a mat in the kitchen. She wants beds for the children, a kitchen table and chairs, but furniture costs money. And now, she is raising the five boys on her own.

Her neighbors and friends, some from the same refugee camp in Thailand, visit her continuously, making sure she's cared for. They help watch her children. They try encouraging her to eat.

She said she's just drinking water and soda. She hasn't been able to eat since he died. For the first time in 21 years, she's facing a life without him.

"All I think about is my husband's going to come back and see me and the kids," Chhem said. "Because I love him so much, from the bottom of my heart."