Attorneys For Accused Tot Killer Mom Ask Judge To Dismiss Murder Charges Months After Son’s Body Found In Landfill
The attorneys for a Georgia woman accused of killing her 20-month-old son and throwing his body in a dumpster have asked the judge to dismiss the three murder charges against her, officials said.
According to WSAV, the public defender for Leilani Simon, 23, filed motions to dismiss the murder charges, as well as charges related to lying to investigators.
The attorney claims the charges against Simon are “imperfect in form” and “failed to allege any manner of death, any manner in which any cruel and excessive physical pain was inflicted, or the nature of any object or weapon which results in any serious injury to the victim.”
As Front Page Detectives previously reported, Leilani is accused of beating her child, Quinton Simon, to death on Oct. 4 and then reporting him missing to Chatham County police the next day. This led to a six-week search that ended when Quinton’s remains were found in a landfill by investigators.
A week after Quinton disappeared, police said they believed the boy was dead and his mother was the only suspect. She was arrested on Nov. 21 and indicted in December on 19 counts, including two counts of felony murder and one count of malice murder, as well as four counts of lying to investigators.
Simon allegedly beat Quinton with an “object … unknown to the grand jury,” killed him and then took his body to the Azalea Mobile Home Plaza and threw his body in the dumpster, according to the indictment.
During the investigation, detectives said Quinton told them on several occasions that she left her home in the late night hours of October 4 to pay an existing drug debt.
She kept changing her stories about meeting a friend to pick up Orajel for mouth pain in the early hours of October 5, as she first said they met at a gas station and then they met at the mobile home park, officials said.
Police said Leilani changed her story again on Oct. 31 when she claimed it was someone else who left the house early in the morning on Oct. 4, but then changed it again on Nov. 21 when she was arrested, saying it was her who left the house and go to the mobile home park, but she didn’t meet her friend there and “did not remember what she had done there.”
Simon is due in court today for a bond hearing and arraignment on her charges, officials said.
