Leilani Simon, the 24-year-old from Savannah was found guilty of multiple charges in connection with the death of her 20-month-old son Quinton. Leilani was declared a suspect by the police a few days after she reported her son missing. In November 2022, her son's dead body was retrieved from a dumpster and Leilani was arrested for allegedly murdering her son.
On October 25, 2024, two years after her son Quinton's death, a Chatham County jury deliberated for 6 hours before finding Leilani guilty of nineteen charges filed against her. It is speculated that she could be sentenced to life in prison for her alleged crimes.
According to NYPost reports, Leilani Simon's mother, Billie Howell, said she was glad Quinton received the justice he deserved.
Leilani Simon: Arrest and trial
On Oct. 5, 2022, Leilani Simon reported her son missing via a 911 call. According to her, she last saw him playing from his indoor playpen. The Chatham County police's search for Quinton lasted days before Police Chief Jeff Hadley shared that the investigators believed the boy may have passed and named Simon as the sole suspect.
On November 18, 2022, after searching through landfills and trash dumps, the investigating team was able to retrieve human bones, which were attributed to Quinton after the DNA tests came positive. Leilani was arrested two days after the discovery of Quiton's body.
According to reports, the prosecutor started his opening statement with allegations that Leilani treated Quinton differently from her other children 'in a bad way', that there was instability in her relationship with her then-boyfriend, and that she was on drugs like cocaine and Percocet, in order to show that she had killed her son. He said,
She killed him, her own son, got in her car with his body, drove to a dumpster, and threw him away like a piece of trash.
During the trial, jury members were reportedly presented with more than 100 pieces of evidence, like video interviews, body cam footage, and 40 witnesses. One of the primary witnesses for the prosecution, Sgt. Bobby Stewart, who was the first to attend to Quinton's missing, testified that Leilani's demeanor was not consistent with other parents of missing children.
However, the prosecution could not present to the jury how the murder may have happened because the body had decomposed, which was also pointed out by the defense. The defense argued that the case against Leilani Simon was built on speculations. Simon's defense attorney, Robert Persse, said,
The core conclusion is that Leilani Maree Simon murdered her child. The evidence will simply not support that bold conclusion.
Leilani Simon: The Jury's verdict on her case.
The jury deliberated for 6 hours and ruled that she was guilty of the nineteen charges including a count of malice murder, two counts of felony murder, one count of concealing the death of another, one count of false report of a crime, and fourteen counts of making false statement.
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CNN reported that though Simon's attorneys asked the judge to rule that there was not enough evidence for the jury to find her guilty of murder charges and concealing the death of another, their request was denied. Her attorneys expressed their disappointment and said,
According to reports, Leilani's sentencing date is set for November 21, 2024, before Judge Tammy Stokes.
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