A woman from Georgia, who was found guilty of murdering her 20-month-old son and discarding his body in a refuse container, received a life imprisonment sentence on Thursday.
Leilani Simon was not given the maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. The ruling occurred in Chatham County Superior Court, a month following a jury conviction that labeled Simon guilty of malice murder and 18 additional charges linked to her son Quinton’s death.
On the morning of October 5, 2022, Simon alerted authorities via a 911 call, reporting that her son had vanished from his playpen within their home, located near Savannah. After days of search efforts by law enforcement, Chatham County Police Chief Jeff Hadley indicated that investigators developed a belief that the child had died and subsequently identified Simon as the primary suspect.
The investigation later shifted focus to a landfill after two weeks of searching for the missing boy. For over a month, police and FBI agents combed through refuse until they discovered human bones, which DNA testing definitively matched to Quinton.
Under Georgia law, a conviction for murder results in an automatic life sentence. Since prosecutors opted against pursuing the death penalty, Judge Tammy Stokes was left to decide on the matter of Simon receiving the possibility of parole. In addition to life imprisonment, the judge added another ten years for concealing the death of her child.
Simon chose not to take the stand during her sentencing. However, she did express a desire for the judge to release her son’s remains to family members. Those remains had been kept by authorities pending any additional forensic examinations that might be warranted.
“My son’s been through enough,” stated Simon. “I want my baby home.”
