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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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072489
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07248900.029
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1990-09-17
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NATION, Page 25American NotesILLINOISTwo Times, Too Much
In 1986 Paula Sims said her 13-day-old daughter Loralei had
been abducted from her Brighton, Ill., home by a man wearing
gloves, a ski mask and a dark T-shirt and carrying a gray revolver.
Police who later found Loralei's body in a wood near the house were
suspicious, but could find no evidence to disprove the story. But
when Paula, now living in Alton, Ill., told police there last April
29 that her second daughter, six-week-old Heather, had also been
kidnaped by a man wearing gloves, a ski mask and a dark T-shirt and
carrying a gray revolver, she stretched credibility too far. Alton
police contacted Jersey County Sheriff Frank Yocom, who had
investigated Loralei's death, and he pronounced himself
"flabbergasted -- I couldn't believe it had happened again."
But this time there were clues. Heather's body turned up in a
plastic garbage bag that apparently came from a roll found in the
Simses' Alton home. An autopsy showed that the baby had been
smothered and her body frozen; a hair sample was discovered in a
deep freezer in the house of Paula's parents, where she and husband
Robert had been staying. Paula was indicted on charges of
concealing a homicide and obstructing justice in both cases. Last
week a grand jury added charges of murdering Heather. No action was
taken against Robert, but police consider him a suspect.
Seventeen-month-old Randy Sims did not share the terrible fate of
his sisters; he was perfectly healthy when taken into protective
custody in May.