ABC 20/20: Who Was Elisa McNabney aka Laren Sims & What Did She Do?

Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of murder and abuse. Reader discretion is advised.

ABC 20/20‘s “Hell in Heels” looks into the crimes of Elisa McNabney, born Laren Sims, who murdered her husband Larry McNabney using a horse tranquilizer. According to ABC News, Sims and her friend Sarah Dutra were behind McNabney’s death. He died by a lethal dose of horse tranquilizer on September 12, 2001. The upcoming episode will air on the network this Friday, March 29, 2024, at 9 p.m. ET.

The outlet stated that Sims, who was from Florida, had multiple aliases, and Elisa McNabney became one of them. In 1993, Sims, who had a daughter named Haylei Jordan, was arrested in Texas for attempted shoplifting. She then moved to Las Vegas and started to work at attorney Larry McNabney’s law office two years later. Sims eventually married McNabney and moved into his home in Reno.

McNabney was last seen alive on September 11, 2001, and reportedly disappeared after that. An investigation into his disappearance failed to produce results, and authorities started looking into Sims when she also disappeared after four months with her daughter, Jordan. Police found McNabney’s body buried in a vineyard on February 5, 2002, and over a month later, arrested Sims.

Laren Sims admitted to her role in the crime but died by suicide in her jail cell on March 31, 2002, while awaiting extradition. Her accomplice in the crime, Sarah Dutra, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and being an accessory to the killing of McNabney, per abc10. Dutra received a maximum 11-year prison term. She served 85% of the sentence before her release on a three-year parole in 2011.

Why did Elisa McNabney, or Laren Sims, murder Larry McNabney?

According to abc10, Laren Sims died by hanging herself in her jail cell on March 31, 2002, but left behind a suicide note for her attorney. In the note, she admitted to her role in killing her husband, Larry McNabney. Additionally, Sims claimed she did so because of frequent physical abuse. Sims’ daughter, Haylei Jordan, later spoke to ABC 20/20 and described the alleged abuse.

Per ABC News, when Sims met McNabney, he suffered from alcohol and drug addiction. Jordan claimed his drinking problem made her feel unsafe and that she witnessed him abuse her mother. At the time, they were still living in Reno, Nevada. Meanwhile, McNabney’s daughter from a previous marriage, Cristin Olson, had denied the claims of her father being abusive.

Jordan stated that at one point Sims wanted to separate from McNabney. However, the latter often threatened her mother over her outstanding arrest warrants from Florida. Jordan said, “She did try to leave a couple of times actually.” However, McNabney would tack them “down and said if she didn’t agree to come home with him he would kill both of us and then kill himself.”

According to Jordan’s statement, McNabney’s drinking only got worse over the years, alleging that he “was going off the rails. He was losing control of himself. I knew it got really bad when my mom looked at me and said, ‘Oh, I got you a job training horses in Maine. And I packed up and left,” she said.

Then, about $74,543 went missing from a trust account of a client of Larry McNabney’s law firm. A subsequent investigation revealed that McNabney’s Chief Operating Officer, his wife Elisa, aka Laren Sims, misappropriated money from the account. This resulted in McNabney being publicly reprimanded by the Nevada Bar Association. Following this, the couple moved to Sacramento, California, where he opened a new practice and hired Sarah Dutra as a secretary. Dutra soon became friends with Sims.

On September 11, 2001, Larry McNabney mysteriously vanished. Authorities searched for him for about four months before they started investigating Elisa McNabney [Laren Sims]. However, she also disappeared with her daughter.

Then, on February 5, 2002, police found the missing attorney’s body buried in a vineyard. Jordan claimed she and Sims were in Arizona at the time of the discovery, and after being on the run, they finally settled in Destin, Florida, a month later. The mother-daughter duo had also changed their names.

Jordan revealed that they then moved to Charleston, South Carolina, but after that, she refused to go. She claimed that at that time, her mother finally told her about McNabney’s murder. “She said, ‘I need to tell you this, but I need you to not freak out… We [referring to herself and Dutra] killed him,” said Jordan.

The two returned to Destin, but Jordan, who claimed she was concerned about Sims, called the police, believing her mother might hurt herself. Authorities tracked Sims to a nearby beach using a vehicle description Jordan provided. She reportedly turned herself in and also confessed to her role in Larry McNabney’s death on March 20, 2002. A few days later, on March 31, Laren Sims died by suicide in her jail cell, per abc10.

Years later, Haylei Jordan believes her mother was a victim of domestic violence. She told ABC 20/20, “You never have to stay in a situation that you don’t feel safe, a situation that you question. You have a right to feel safe and you have a right to whatever future you’re willing to make.”

ABC 20/20‘s upcoming episode on Laren Sims will air on March 29, 2023.

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