A Georgia mother accused of killing her toddler allegedly often left her children in alarming conditions, with one neighbor recalling the 20-month-old boy "would have poop" all over on his onesie.
Leilani Simon is currently on trial in Savannah, facing charges of murdering her toddler son, Quinton Simon, and allegedly discarding his body in a dumpster.
Neighbor Michelle McCarta claimed that Simon did not treat Quinton as well as she did his siblings.
"There was a difference in the love she showed," she said, according to WJCL. "Quinton stayed a lot (at our house). ...Quinton loved us. He was close to us and I just felt he would be better off at our house."
"The children, when they came to your home, were they sent with clothes, food, diapers, things that they would've needed?" asked Assistant District Attorney Jenny Parker.
"No ma'am," answered McCarta.
"How was that handled?" asked Parker.
"Zayne (one of Simon's surviving children) always came dressed. Several times we got Quinton and he'd be in a long onesie, and he would have poop from all over," said McCarta.
McCarta stated that she eventually began purchasing and keeping clothes for Quinton at her own home.
Simon pleaded not guilty to the charges after Quinton's body was found in a landfill, two weeks after she reported him missing in October 2022.
During opening statements Monday, prosecutors alleged Simon lied to investigators about dumping Quinton's remains, instead claiming she was getting rid of spoiled pasta.
"The evidence will show that she did not want to admit that [what she threw away] was Quinton's body, so she describes this trash that she threw away as stinky shrimp pasta," Special Assistant District Attorney Tim Dean told the court, according to The Mirror.
"Yeah, I did throw away trash," Simon could be heard telling a detective in a recorded police interview played for the jury, per the outlet. "There was spoiled food smelling in my car so when I pulled around and seen that (dumpster), yeah, I stopped and threw the trash away. It was spoiled. Spoiled like shrimp pasta. The whole car smelled like shrimp. I was like, 'What is that smell?' I looked, and I threw it away. I didn't think anything of it to be honest, it's just old food."
In the time leading up to Quinton's death, the prosecution claimed Simon was getting high off of cocaine and Percocet while involved in a rocky relationship with her then-boyfriend. She also showed animosity toward the toddler, compared to her two other children.
Originally published in Lawyer Herald
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