Madison County State’s Attorney Tom Haine sent a five-page letter to the review board “strenuously” opposing Sims’ release. Recent changes in Illinois law allow postpartum psychosis and depression to be considered as mitigating factors in sentencing.Ībout 25 people attended the hearing in support of Sims. 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. 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. She has been incarcerated there for 30 years.Ī 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.
It wasn’t clear when Sims, 62, would be released from the Logan Correctional Center, located northeast of Springfield. “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.’” “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.
The Illinois Prisoner Review Board board voted 12-1 to grant release to Paula Sims of Alton after more than three hours of testimony and discussion. (AP) - A southern Illinois woman who served three decades in prison for killing her infant daughter was granted parole on Thursday.
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