Leilani Simon juror speaks out on how murder verdict was reached
SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - One of the jurors in the Leilani Simon murder trial shared how the jury came to a guilty verdict against the former Burke County resident who was on trial for killing her toddler son.
Simon is now convicted of murdering Quinton Simon, discarding his body in a dumpster, and trying to cover it up more than two years ago.
It boiled down to six hours of jury deliberations to determine Simon’s fate.
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Valerie Kite was the foreperson of the jury that convicted Simon.
Despite jurors being at odds early on in deliberations, she says everyone was determined to deliberate for as long as it took to come to a unanimous decision.
“We were an eight to four split in the beginning on some of the charges,” said Kite.
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- At the time of Quinton’s death, Leilani Simon was on probation out of Burke County over the burglary of $50 in coins. She said her child’s father had convinced her to enter a neighbor,’s camper and steal the money from a coin jar. He reportedly needed her to do it because he couldn’t fit through the window.
Kite notes confusion about the three murder charges Simon faced was among the most difficult sticking points.
“We read through the judge’s instructions several times, we looked at the definitions several times,” said Kite. “It did take several rounds of voting and discussion before we were all unanimous.”
Kite says security data from Simon’s house, G.P.S. info from the mobile home park where Simon is convicted of dumping Quinton’s body, and surveillance footage from a nearby gas station helped sway jurors.
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“It wasn’t so much on the witness testimonies as much as it was pulling out the photos pulling out the data,” said Kite. “This verdict was not solely based on the emotional toll that the testimonies took on us. We thought very clearly and thoughtfully about the verdict we were rendering.”
Kite also responded to recent comments from Leilani Simon’s defense lawyer, Martin Hilliard, who said the verdict did not come back as he expected.
“We just didn’t have reasonable doubt to say that she was not guilty. We all agreed that to place a child in a dumpster means you wish for that child to be disposed of and not found and therefore that is malice intent,” said Kite.
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Reporter: “The state was not required to prove motive, but a reasonable person couldn’t help but think why. How could a mother do this to her own child — a toddler. Do you have a better understanding in your mind about why?”
“Most of us in that room did not think of her as a monster. She was in a very delicate state of mind and then adding drugs and alcohol to the mix is volatile. We believe that she acted in the only way she knew how and then could not come to the fact that she actually killed her child,” said Kite.
Kite expects some of the jurors will be at Simon’s sentencing hearing on Thursday.
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