The prosecutor responsible for convicting child killer Paula Sims 31 years ago said she was among the worst people he had ever sent to prison.
In closing arguments before a Madison County jury in February 1990, then assistant state's attorney Don Weber said he remained silent for nearly two minutes - the amount of time it would have taken to suffocate Sims' six-week-old daughter, Heather. He recalls the silence having had a powerful impact on the jury.
"Suffocation...it's not like TV, where they cut to a commercial," he said. "This baby's arms and legs had to be flailing, struggling to stay alive."
While Weber categorizes Sims among the worst offenders he's ever prosecuted, he said his role now is not to second guess what the Prison Review Board might do when it meets in September to consider whether to grant the 61-year-old Sims parole.
"There are different roles for everyone in the criminal justice system," he said. "There's the role for the judge to rule fairly, a jury to find facts...and the governor for clemency and prison review for parole.
"I don't feel like I should second guess them," he said. "I am not a prosecutor anymore."
Gov. J.B. Pritzker's commuted Sims' sentence on March 5, making her eligible for parole.
The prosecutor in charge today, State's Attorney Tom Haine said he will oppose the release of Sims when her case is expected to go before the Prisoner Review Board in September. To be paroled, Sims, who will argue that she had suffered post partum psychosis, will need a majority vote of the 14-member review board.
"We intend to oppose," said Haine, whose father William Haine headed the State's Attorney's office when Sims was prosecuted. "We think life in prison should mean life in prison."
Sims was sentenced to life in prison by Madison County Circuit Judge Andreas Matoesian for the murders of Heather in 1989, and her 13-day-old daughter Loralei in 1986.
A son, Randall, born in 1980 with husband Robert, was spared. Evidence at trial revealed the couple only wanted male children.
Heather's body was discovered in a trash can in West Alton in May 1989. According to various media accounts, Paula claimed she was taking out trash when a masked gunman ordered her inside before knocking her out, and that when she awoke Heather was gone.
In the meantime, Sims had kept Heather's remains in a trash bag in their freezer before dumping the garbage bag in a park trash receptacle.
During the investigation, it was discovered that the garbage bag containing Heather's remains was manufactured within seconds of and by the same machine as the trash bags found in the Sims' home.
Before she was sentenced, Paula admitted to killing Heather and her first newborn daughter Loralei three years earlier while living in Brighton.
At the time she told authorities that a masked gunman entered her home, ordered her to the ground and fled with the 13-day-old.
Weber said that Loralei's skeletal remains were found by cadaver dogs approximately 200-300 feet from their Brighton property, but that cause of death could not be determined.
He said he was surprised that Sims and her attorney are now arguing for release based on post partum depression because while she was being prosecued he asked about it, but that her side looked into it but did not present it as a defense.
"I don't know if clinical inquiries were made, but I am sure he (defense attorney Donald Groshong) looked at it," Weber said.
Haine said that even a legitimate post partum depression argument should not change Sims' life sentence.
"This was a terrible case that left a scar on the community," Haine said.
Sims has previously sought clemency, including in 2006. In her petition, she described how her son's life was spared when he was an infant.
Randall and Robert Sims died together in a car crash in Mississippi in 2015.