Paula Sims seeks clemency, release from prison

Paula Sims, serving a life sentence in the deaths of her two baby daughters in the 1980s, is asking Gov. Bruce Rauner for clemency.

Sims’ attorney argues in a 60-page petition that the former Alton woman suffered from postpartum psychosis at the time the babies died, one in 1986 and the other in 1989. Attorney Jed Stone said Sims, now 56, was psychotic and delusional and that keeping her in jail “would only be vengeful.” Sims last used the psychosis argument during a failed bid for a new trial in 1999.

“It is awful to think of these innocent lives that will not be lived,” Stone wrote. “It is also awful to overlook the underlying and very treatable cause — postpartum psychosis.”

Sims was convicted in 1990 of first-degree murder and later pleaded guilty to charges in the death of the other daughter. A fisherman found her 6-week-old daughter Heather in a trash can in 1989. Her daughter Loralei was less than two weeks old when she died in 1986. Sims told investigators in both cases that a masked man stole the babies.

The case made national headlines and was followed by a book and television movie.

Sims’ petition, mailed to the Illinois Prisoner Review Board in late October, says Sims has friends who will take her in if she is released from the Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln and she will pursue work as a pet groomer.

Madison County State’s Attorney Tom Gibbons says he will oppose the petition and called her arguments “baseless.”

Sims signed the request Oct. 16. There will be a public hearing at the Illinois Prisoner Review Board’s next meeting Jan. 12 in Springfield. The board will make a recommendation to Rauner, who can set inmates free, reduce sentences or reject clemency requests. Rauner has no time frame to make his decision.

This is the second time that Sims has asked for clemency. Then-Gov. Pat Quinn denied her request in 2006.

Sims’ ex-husband, Robert Sims, 63, and their son, Randall Sims, 27, were killed June 21 when their Jeep was forced off an interstate overpass near Jackson, Miss. The Simses’ Jeep was clipped by another vehicle, causing the Jeep to careen off a bridge.

This story was originally published December 15, 2015 at 12:56 PM with the headline "Paula Sims seeks clemency, release from prison."