Paula Sims, 62, who served more than 30 years in prison for killing her two little daughters is released on parole after her lawyer argued she was suffering from postpartum psychosis
Paula Sims, the southern Illinois mother who served more than three decades behind bars for killing her two infant daughters three years apart, was released from prison on Friday after being granted parole.
The Illinois Prisoner Review Board voted on Thursday 12-1 to grant release to Sims, now aged 62, after more than three hours of testimony and discussion, during which her attorney argued that she committed the offenses while in the throes of postpartum psychosis, and that she no longer poses a threat to the community.
'This was a great victory for women, a great relief for me and a great gift to Paula,' her attorney, Jed Stone, told the Belleville News-Democrat. 'It is a recognition that postpartum psychosis is real and the women who suffer from that mental illness need to be treated and understood and not brushed aside with having the "baby blues."'
Sims on Friday walked out of the Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln, where she had been incarcerated for nearly 32 years for killing her two-week-old daughter, Loralei, in 1986, and her six-week-old daughter, Heather, in 1989.
Sims walked out of the Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln, Illinois, on Friday, a day after the Illinois Prisoner Review Board voted 12-1 to grant her release
Loralei Sims (left) was 13 days old when her mother told police she had been kidnapped. She was found dead in Brighton, Illinois, June 17, 1986. Three years later, Heather Sims, six weeks old, was discovered dead in a trash bin after having been reported abducted by her mother
She was greeted outside the prison gates by her friend Deb Helregel, who said she was present when Sims learned that she would be released on parole.
'She was very grateful,' Helregel told Fox 2 Now. 'She said that several times. She is just so grateful and God is good.'
Her attorney said Sims will be living in Decatur, Illinois, where she has a job with Words Matter Publishing, reported St Louis Post-Dispatch. She eventually hopes to relocate to Alabama and start a dog grooming business.
A jury in 1990 convicted Sims of first-degree murder, concealing a homicide and obstructing justice in the suffocation death of her 6-week-old daughter, Heather Sims.
Paula Sims confessed to the 1989 killing of Heather and the 1986 killing of her other daughter, 13-day-old Loralei Sims, the News-Democrat reported.
In 1990, Sims was found guilty of fitdt-degree murder in connection with Heather's death, and pleaded guilty to concealment of a homicidal death in Loralei's death
Stone argued Sims committed the crimes while suffering from postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness that causes some new mothers to experience delusions, hallucinations and paranoia.
Recent changes in Illinois law allow postpartum psychosis and depression to be considered as mitigating factors in sentencing.
About 25 people attended the hearing in support of Sims. No one attended in opposition.
Madison County State’s Attorney Tom Haine sent a five-page letter to the review board 'strenuously' opposing Sims’ release. He argued that Sims lied about her crimes for years to police, doctors and family members to avoid punishment, and confessed only after she was found guilty of murder and wanted to avoid the death penalty.
In 2015, Sim's ex-husband, Robert Sims, 63, and their only surviving child, 27-year-old Randall Sims, were killed in a suspected DUI crash in Mississippi.
Robert divorced Paula shortly after the conclusion of her high-profile 1990 trial. He was never charged in connection with his daughters’ slayings and argued against his ex-wife's release in 2006.
Sims initially claimed that both her girls had been abducted by the same masked kidnapper nearly three years apart.
Loralei Sims was 13 days old when her mother told police a gunmen snatched her from their home in Brighton, Illinois, June 17, 1986. She was later found dead in the woods behind the house, reported the Belleville News Democrat.
Heather Lee Sims was reported missing by her parents April 29, 1989, when she was only six weeks old. Her body was discovered in a trash bin in West Alton, Missouri, just days later.
Randall, Paula and Robert's son, was born in 1988, two years before his mother was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of her daughter Heather.
Three months after the conviction, Paula pleaded guilty to concealment of a homicidal death. In return, prosecutors agreed not to pursue murder charges against her in relation to Loralei's killing.
Years later, Sims confessed to an author that she had drowned both her daughters.
Paula was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, but in March of this year, Illinois Gov J B Pritzker, a Democrat, granted her parole eligibility.
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