For killing her 20-month-old baby, disposing of his body in a garbage, and repeatedly lying to authorities about her whereabouts when her son vanished, a 24-year-old Georgia mother will serve at least 30 years in jail.
Judge Tammy Stokes of Chatham County Superior Court sentenced Leilani Simon to life in a state prison with the possibility of parole on Thursday for the 2022 murder of toddler Quinton Simon. Before being eligible for release, Simon must serve a minimum of 30 years in accordance with Georgia law.
Simon was unanimously found guilty on one count of malice murder, two counts of felony murder, one count of concealing the death of another, and more than a dozen counts of false reporting by a jury that debated for about seven hours last month.
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The mother of three, according to the prosecution, purposefully killed her son on October 5, 2022, by employing an unidentified object that, when used offensively against a person, caused Quinton’s death and serious bodily harm.
Simon was charged with first-degree cruelty to a child, aggravated assault, and criminal murder for intentionally causing Quinton extreme and brutal physical suffering.
The sentencing hearing is on Thursday.
Stokes permitted the defense and prosecution to provide evidence of aggravating and mitigating circumstances that would affect the sentencing at the hearing on Thursday.
One of Simon’s case investigators was called by the prosecution, and she stated that Simon had not expressed regret since her son’s original disappearance. Simon claimed innocence in a letter she wrote to a local news station weeks prior to her trial, which the investigators read during her testimony.
The investigator read from the letter, “They (the state) are trying to railroad me instead of admitting they have accused the wrong person for the past almost two years.”
In a brief but moving court evidence, a family friend who regularly watched Quinton said, “Quinton was like a little brother to me.”
“He was very loved by my family,” she stated. I miss watching him say, “Bubbles,” while strolling around the house with cheese in hand. He used to light up the room, and I miss that. His little bow legs running across the kitchen is something I miss.
Simon s 12-year-old stepfather also spoke in court, claiming that drugs had destroyed her once-promising life and pleading with the court for mercy and the chance to one day come back into the world.
Before passing the sentence, Stokes stated that Quinton s life had an immediate impact on many individuals. Simon was later given a life sentence with the prospect of release.
The trial
Authorities found Quinton’s remains in a Savannah, Georgia, dump about six weeks after he vanished. During the eight-day trial, an officer from the Chatham County Police Department took the stand and gave emotional testimony about discovering a piece of Quinton s skull in a landfill, calling it heartbreaking.
Throughout the trial, prosecutors emphasized Simon s bizarre stories to police investigating Quinton s disappearance. They also showed a number of clips of her interactions with police.
In one such video, Simon explained that she stopped at a secluded dumpster in the middle of the night shortly after her son s disappearance to dispose of spoiled shrimp pasta.
Prosecutors concentrated on Simon s justification for being at the remote Azalea Mobile Home Plaza dumpster just after 1 a.m. on the day her son went missing.
The evidence will show that she did not want to admit that [what she threw away] was Quinton s body, so she describes this trash that she threw away as stinky shrimp pasta, Savannah Special Assistant District Attorney Tim Dean explained.
He then played a recording of the police interview from October 12, 2022.
Yeah, I did throw away trash, Simon admits to the detective. My car smelled like spoiled food, so when I pulled around and saw the trash can, I stopped and threw it away. It was spoiled. spoiled like shrimp pasta.
The entire car smelled like shrimp. I was like, What is that smell? I looked, then threw it away. I didn t think much of it, to be honest; it s just old food.
She explained that she simply saw the opportunity and threw away the trash.
Prosecutors asserted that Simon was discarding her son s body, which they eventually discovered in pieces.
She throws Quinton s body away like a piece of trash about 1:17 in the morning, Dean told the courtroom witnesses. The defendant violated a parent s most basic and sacred trust in the most heinous way.
In the middle of the night, she killed her own son, put him in her car, drove to a dumpster, and threw him away like trash.
Authorities claimed that after killing her son, Simon lied repeatedly to local and federal investigators looking for Quinton.
The girl admitted that she had left her home in the late night hours of October 4, 2022, to meet her drug dealer, falsely stating that the purpose of this meeting was to pay for an existing drug debt, according to the arrest report.
Prosecutors claim that Simon falsely claimed to have left her home on October 5, 2022, to meet her friend Misty to obtain Orajel, when in reality, she had traveled to dispose of her son s body.
According to the indictment, Simon made false claims about her whereabouts and actions on the morning of October 5, 2022, during several subsequent interviews with investigators.
Then, on October 31, 2022, she allegedly claimed that her boyfriend, Daniel Youngkin, had left the house on the morning of October 5, 2022, rather than her.
However, on Nov. 21, 2022, the same day she was arrested, Simon allegedly admitted to leaving her house on the morning of Oct. 5, 2022, and traveling to the Azalea Mobile Home Plaza, but falsely told investigators that she did not remember what she had done there, according to the indictment.
On November 18, 2022, the landfill yielded human remains. On November 28, the FBI confirmed that the remains were Quinton s.
In closing arguments for the state, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Parker stated that Simon showed no signs of being a mother whose child had gone missing.
Leilani Simon is not a mother. She is a monster, the prosecutor stated. What this woman did was horrific. She s a monster.
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