Monday, May 5, 2003 | 11:05 a.m.
For her 39th birthday, Simone Hirst had planned to get a manicure, pedicure and massage with her mother, Gailey Vollmer.
"We were going to just have a whole day together," Vollmer, a Henderson resident, said Sunday while sitting on the 19th floor balcony of a suite at the MGM Grand.
Instead, Vollmer found herself identifying the body of Hirst. Hirst was found dead in a pool of blood the morning of her birthday, Monday, April 28, near 11th Street and Stewart Avenue, Metro Police said.
No arrests have been made, but Lt. Tom Monahan said this morning that police are making progress. He declined to elaborate.
Hirst's family and friends gathered at the suite after her funeral to celebrate Hirst, nicknamed "Sims" and described by her loved ones as beautiful, outgoing and cultured.
"She had a magnetic personality," said her half-brother Bradley Hughes of Sydney, Australia. "She was quite impulsive and effervescent. She was fearless, which possibly was her downfall."
Hirst was born in Sydney in 1964. She was the second child born to Vollmer and Terry Hirst, who lives in Virginia and works as an insurance investigator in Washington. When Hirst was 4 years old, the family moved to California.
Jordan Potash, her stepfather from 1976 to 1984, said as a child, Hirst was "intelligent, rebellious, precocious, adventurous, good-hearted, a champion of the underdog, and she was searching for direction."
"She was loved by a lot of people," Potash continued. "I'm angry over what happened. It was senseless."
Nancy Cheever of Huntington Beach, Calif., who knew Hirst in high school, said she was "a gypsy, sort of ... She was one of those people who lived life for the day, for the moment. She (would) just go wherever the wind blew. There were so many people who came in out of her life, and she came in and out of their lives."
Hirst was unmarried and had no children, but she had many admirers.
"She was just one of these people who would walk into a room and people would stop and look," Vollmer said.
Another friend, Ben Bassham, said Hirst nicknamed him "Happy Ben." He pulled the waistband of his pants down to reveal a homemade tattoo Hirst had given him on his abdomen that said "HAPPY."
Hirst attended finishing school in Switzerland, then studied art history and French at the Sorbonne in Paris. When Hirst was 18, the tall blond was approached on the streets of Paris by a photographer, which led to a contract with the Elite modeling agency, friends and relatives said.
Her brother, Joshua Hirst, 37, of San Diego recalled a time when his big sister helped him when he was stranded in Geneva, Switzerland, and she was in Paris.
"I was sleeping in a park because I ran out of money and she drove all the way from Paris to save me," he said. "She was a very empathetic person. She'd put other people first."
Hirst worked as a runway model, appeared on magazine covers and in Reebok ads. But she grew tired of traveling andwanted to settle down and have a family,said Vollmer, who is also a former model.
Last summer, Hirst met Michael Signorelli through a friend in Southern California. They fell in love, Signorelli said. He proposed marriage many times and gave her a diamond ring, but she didn't accept it.
In December, Hirst's former boyfriend, William Rothstein, was injured in a skiing accident in Park City, Utah, and she moved there from California to help him recover.
"Florence Nightingale, he called her," Vollmer said.
To show his appreciation for taking care of him and to celebrate her birthday, Rothstein and Hirst flew to Las Vegas on April 25. They stayed Friday and Saturday at the MGM Grand, then checked into the Bellagio on April 27. That night, Rothstein took her out for dinner and drinks and to see Cirque du Soleil's "O."
After the show, Hirst wanted to hit some more nightspots, but Rothstein wanted to go to sleep. A hotel surveillance video shows the pair arguing in the valet area, and Hirst broke Rothstein's glasses, Vollmer said, adding that she can be "uncontrollable when drinking alcohol."
Rothstein called Vollmer on his cell phone and said he was putting Hirst in a cab and sending her to Vollmer's house.
Rothstein gave his cell phone to the cab driver, and Vollmer began giving him directions to her house. But then the cab driver said she had jumped out of the cab.
"She started talking to a man in a black Porsche, then she got into another cab," Vollmer said. "She still wanted to party and she doesn't like being told what to do."
The second cab driver told police he dropped Hirst off at Binion's Horseshoe at 128 Fremont St. A Binion's surveillance video confirms Hirst was there, Sgt. Kevin Manning said, but he declined to say what she did there or if she was seen talking to anyone.
Vollmer stayed up for several hours waiting for her daughter, then fell asleep. When she woke up about 8 a.m. and saw Hirst hadn't shown up, she began calling hospitals.
About 3 p.m., she got a call from Metro.
"There was a homicide and they felt the person could be my daughter," Vollmer said, and she went to identify her daughter's body. Police said she had been beaten to death. When she was found, she had a key card to a Bellagio room in her pocket. Her Cartier watch was missing, but police don't think robbery was the motive.
"I think someone tried to pick her up and she became belligerent. She had been drinking, and I truly believe that a blow to the head just -- " Vollmer snapped her fingers, then shook her head.
Vollmer never got a chance to give Hirst the black bikini, a blouse, a skirt and makeup she had bought for her birthday.
Signorelli, who was hoping for a future with Hirst, said her death has left him devastated.
"This whole thing has been a dream and I'm waiting to wake up," he said. "My heart is broken. I know I'll never be the same."
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