Mother Found Guilty in Death of ‘Stolen’ Baby

A woman suspected of killing two infant daughters whom she claimed were abducted was found guilty of first-degree murder Tuesday in one of the deaths.

The jury was to reconvene today on the question of whether Paula Marie Sims, 30, should be sentenced to death.

Jurors deliberated for two days before deciding that 6-week-old Heather Lee was suffocated by her mother. Heather was one of two baby girls Sims said were abducted by a masked gunman under nearly identical circumstances three years apart.

Madison County prosecutor Donald Weber called it “the hardest case I ever had to try.” He said he thought the jury was strongly influenced by evidence that Sims and her husband, Robert, wanted only male children.

“She didn’t like little girls and neither did Robert,” Weber said.

The father has not been charged in either case, but Weber said that because of the verdict against Paula Sims, the state’s attorney’s offices in Madison and Jersey counties may seek indictments against the 37-year-old man.

The jury found the mother guilty on two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of obstructing justice and one count of concealing a homicide.

She also has been implicated in the 1986 death of her firstborn, 13-day-old Loralei Marie, in Jersey County, but murder has not been charged in that case.

Paula Sims reported in June, 1986, that a masked man with a gun had entered her home while she was watching television, made her lie on the floor and fled with Loralei. A dead infant girl was found a week later near the Sims’ home in Brighton, in rural Jersey County.

On April 29, 1989, she reported that a masked gunman approached her as she was taking out the garbage at home in Alton, in Madison County, where the family then lived. She said the man ordered her back into the house, where he knocked her unconscious, and that when she awoke Heather was gone.