A 24-year-old mother in Georgia will spend at least three decades in prison for murdering her 20-month-old son, throwing his body in a dumpster, and repeatedly lying to police about her whereabouts during her son’s disappearance.
On Thursday, Chatham County Superior Court Judge Tammy Stokes sentenced Leilani Simon to life in a state correctional facility with the possibility of parole for the murder of young Quinton Simon in 2022. According to Georgia law, Simon must serve at least 30 years before being eligible for parole.
Last month, a jury deliberated for approximately seven hours before unanimously convicting Simon 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.
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Prosecutors said that the mother of three intentionally killed her son on Oct. 5, 2022, using an unknown object that, when used offensively against a person, resulted in serious bodily injury and caused Quinton’s death.
For “maliciously” causing Quinton “cruel and excessive physical pain,” Simon faced charges of felony murder, aggravated assault, and first-degree cruelty to a child.
Thursday’s sentence hearing
During Thursday’s hearing, Stokes allowed the prosecution and defense to present evidence of aggravating and mitigating factors that could influence the final sentence.
Prosecutors called one of Simon’s case investigators, who testified that Simon had shown no remorse since her son’s initial disappearance. During the testimony, the investigators read a letter Simon wrote to a local news station just weeks before her trial, in which she claimed innocence.
“They (the state) are attempting to railroad me instead of admitting they have accused the wrong person for the past almost two years,” the investigator read from the letter.
A family friend who frequently watched Quinton gave brief but emotional testimony in court, saying, “Quinton was like a little brother to me.”
“My family loved him a lot,” she said. “I miss seeing him walk around the house, cheese in hand, saying, ‘Bubbles.’Â I miss how he would light up the room.” I miss seeing his little bow legs run across the kitchen.”
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.” She later sentenced Simon to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
The trial
Approximately six weeks after Quinton’s disappearance, authorities discovered his remains in a landfill in Savannah, Georgia. 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.”
