The mother of 20-month-old Quinton Simon used drugs before killing him and dumping his body in the trash, according to a new indictment.
Prosecutors in Chatham Couty, Georgia, accused 22-year-old Leilani Simon of striking Quinton with an unknown object and causing him “serious bodily injury” before reporting him missing on 5 October, according to an indictment returned by a grand jury on Thursday, WTOC reported.
The night before, prosecutors said, she had met with a drug dealer and used an unspecified drug. Ms Simon then allegedly dumped Quinton’s body in a trash bin outside the Azalea Mobile Home Park, located one and a half miles from her home.
She told investigators that she went there to dispose of “normal household garbage.” FBI crews searched for Quinton at the Savannah Waste Management landfill for a month before locating his remains on 18 November.
Ms Simon was charged with malice murder, false report, concealing the death of another and other crimes in the 19-count indictment. She is being held in custody at the Chatham County Detention Center without bond and is scheduled to be back in court for a hearing on 11 January.
“It’s a matter that calls our very humanity into question,” Chatham County District Attorney Shalena Cook Jones said. “These are the cases that keep us up at night.”
Quinton was last seen alive on the morning of 5 October when he was playing in a playpen in a home in Savannah that he shared with his mother, her boyfriend, his grandparents and siblings.
Ms Simon reported her son missing hours later claiming that she woke up to find him gone and that she believed someone had entered the house and snatched him.
A huge search was launched to try to find the missing child and investigators spent 30 days trawling through trash at a nearby landfill.
While her son’s whereabouts were still unknown, Ms Simon was spotted drinking tequila at a bar with her mother, Billie Jo Howell.
Ms Howell’s friend told WTOC-TV that the little boy’s grandmother had been in contact with the FBI throughout the investigation and had tipped officials off when her daughter checked herself out of a treatment centre in the weeks after Quinton’s disappearance.
The friend claimed that, at the request of law enforcement, Ms Howell helped them buy some time before they took her daughter into custody.
On 18 November – more than a month on from his disappearance – Quinton’s remains were discovered at the landfill.
Three days later, Ms Simon was arrested. Following her arrest, Chatham County Police Chief Jeff Hadley said that she had been “the sole suspect” since the start of the case and that authorities did not believe anyone else was involved.
On Monday, Ms Howell was arrested on a charge of contempt of court, according to online jail records from Chatham County Sheriff’s Department.
The 45-year-old grandmother was booked into Chatham County jail on no bond and was placed in a suicide-prevention smock, reported local outlet WJCL. The details of the arrest are unclear but the charges are not believed to be related to her 20-month-old grandson’s disappearance and death.
Instead, records show that she was taken into custody as a result of a hold placed by Chatham County juvenile court.
The juvenile court records are sealed.
