A Georgia woman will spend decades behind bars for killing her son and discarding his body in a dumpster.
Chatham County Judge Tammy Stoke handed Leilani Simon a life term in prison with the possibility of parole for the murder of her 20-month-old son Quinton Simon. Simon was found guilty and convicted by a jury of malice murder, felony murder, making a false statement, and 16 other charges.
On Oct. 5, 2022, officers responded to Simon‘s home in Chatham near Savannah after the defendant reported her son missing. Despite several manpower and search parties, the toddler was not found, and a couple of days later, authorities declared Quinton dead while Simon, at the time, was considered a suspect.
Five weeks after Quinton was reported missing, authorities found his remains in a landfill and confirmed the victim’s identity with a DNA test. Soon, Simon was arrested and charged with her son’s murder.
Though the judge had the option of sentencing Simon to life without the possibility of parole, the defendant’s family pleaded with the judge to give her a chance to redeem herself. Simon's mother, Billie Jo Howell, told the court that she failed the defendant due to her own struggle with drug addiction. As a result, Simon and her brother were raised by their aunt before the defendant also got involved with drugs.
“I failed her as a mom. I allowed addiction to take over my life at a young age. I still neglected your emotional needs. My decisions have made an impact on your life,” said Howell, according to WSFA.
Prosecutors, on the other hand, told the court that Simon had never shown remorse for her actions and that the 22-year-old mother of two deserved to spend the rest of her life in prison. Furthermore, they told the court that Simon had asked her brother for some weed during her initial interview and had implicated several innocent people.
“She behaved in a way that shows a total lack of remorse both during the investigation, when on day one, she’s asking Paul, ‘hey do you got some weed to smoke when we get home. She behaved in a way that shows absolutely no remorse and no compunction about what she did during her pretrial investigation, and during the trial itself, as we’ve tried to show here today. She doesn’t really seem sorry about what she did. If she had been sorry about this at any point, there were a million off-ramps. After killing Quinton, she could have just not thrown his body in a dumpster,” said Chatham County Special Assistant District Attorney and Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Dean, according to Savannah Morning News.
Stoke sentenced Simon to an additional ten years, and the defendant will be eligible for parole after serving 40 years in prison.
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