NATION IN BRIEF : ILLINOIS : Mother Is Eligible for Death Sentence
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Jurors decided that Paula Marie Sims, convicted of suffocating her infant daughter, is eligible for the death penalty, and now must decide whether she should be sentenced to die by lethal injection. Sims maintained that 6-week-old Heather Lee was abducted from her house at gunpoint before she was found dead in a trash can. She earlier was found guilty of first-degree murder in Madison County Circuit Court, Peoria, Ill. . Sims, 30, also reported in 1986 that her first child, Loralei, was abducted in a similar manner at 13 days old. The body of a female infant was found near her home a short time later, and Sims is charged with concealment of a homicide in that case.
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