When a Mother Does The Unthinkable.. Twice

Late one night, a mother could be heard screaming for help. What happened that day? I actually felt like I was having a conversation with the devil. She told the police that a masked gunman had broken into her home and stole her new born baby daughter straight from her crib. He was going to kill me. I was just in such shock. I didn't always kind of take my baby from me. It was every parent's worst nightmare and then three years later it happened again. Another hysterical call in the middle of the night. It was the same story. A masked gunman broke into this mother's home and stole her new born daughter straight from her crib. It didn't seem possible that anything could be more horrifying until one detail changed everything. This was the same mother. Making the same claim three years later about a different baby. Welcome back to another episode of Haunt in the Case and welcome to the very last episode of 2025. I want to take this quick moment to sincerely thank every single one of you that ever took a chance on my little show. It seems unreal that I've been doing this for an entire year and I'm so grateful that I'm going into 2026 with every single one of you. But we're going to jump straight in to this case. This is the case of the daughters of Paula Sems and my name is Brianna and I'm Haunt on the Case. Paula Sems was born Paula Marie Blue on May 21st, 1959 to her parents Orville and Nylene Blue and she was raised in small town, Missouri. Paula's parents seemed like normal, warm parents Orville was a hardworking family man. Nylene was a friendly homemaker. Paula's eldest brother Dennis tragically contracted a very serious case of measles at only three years old which left him with a very severe seizure disorder that would require he have constant care for the rest of his life. The middle blue child and the second son Randy was a very popular boy in school and three years later the youngest and only daughter Paula was born. Overall Paula had a happy and idealic childhood. She was a good student. She excelled in sports. She did both basketball and softball throughout school. Paula definitely had friends but she was more of like a shy tomboy type girl. She was very protective over her older brother, her eldest brother Dennis. She was seen as like a very tough girl and Paula and her older brother Randy were extremely close growing up. They were like two peas in a pod. Paula entered her teen years in the 1970s and she began to rebel a little bit which is typical for any teenager. She started experimenting with recreational drugs and also alcohol. She was also dating older boys. Her brother Randy was also experimenting with recreational substances and alcohol but he was your stereotypical like older brother protective older brother and he didn't like that his little sister Paula was also doing any of these things. Overall the blue family was your happy typical all-american family until tragedy struck on April 10th 1976. Paula was only 16 years old the night that her older brother Randy borrowed one of his friends cars and took her out for a drive. Randy had been drinking that night. He was also speeding when he took a turn too fast and lost control of his car. Their car crashed head-on with another car, ricocheted and crashed head-on into a tree. Randy was pronounced dead at the scene. He was only 19 years old. Paula, who was only 16 years old, recovered physically but she was never the same after her older brother died. Paula, who was a sweet shy girl growing up, became angry and withdrawn. A month after Randy's funeral the family moved to Illinois for a fresh start. Paula graduated high school. She kept to herself. She entered a program to further her education but shortly later dropped out of the program and began working at a local grocery store. Her co-workers described her as a loner but they also said that she had a temper and they also said that she wasn't very friendly with her fellow co-workers or even the customers and she was pretty quickly fired from that job. One year later in 1979 Paula met Robert Sims at a party and the two instantly connected and began dating. Robert Sims, who went by Rob, was 8 years older than Paula and he had a lot more life experience than Paula at the time that the two met. Rob also came from a nice middle-class family. He was also a bit of a loner in school and was actually described as one of the strangest people that you could ever meet. After school Rob joined the Navy. Rob told people that while in the Navy he was stationed in Vietnam which was a lie the truth was Rob spent three years in Maine and while he was stationed in Maine Rob met a girl from Maine the two actually married and after his tour was over Rob and his new wife moved back to his hometown in Illinois and the two quickly divorced. Rob started working at a manufacturing plant where he usually worked the night shift and at this job his reputation of being one of the strangest people you could ever meet continued. Rob was definitely seen as a weirdo. He was known to have a temper. He was also known to harass his female co-workers so quite the catch. When Rob was 29 years old and Paula was only 21 years old the two married on May 6, 1981. The two bought themselves a small little house in rural Illinois in Jersey County and then four years into their marriage in 1985 they were pregnant with their first child. When Paula had her son a gram done it was not clear what the sex of their baby was but it was certainly no secret that the couple was hoping for a boy. Rob and Paula had gotten quite close with their neighbors a couple in their 50s named Dawn and Minnie in particular the wives became very close friends Paula and Minnie. So much so that Minnie helped out the pregnant Paula put together her child's nursery decorated completely in the color blue on June 5th 1986. Lorelai Marie Sims a beautiful red haired baby girl was born. She would only live to be 12 days old. On June 17th 1986 Paula and Rob's neighbors Donna Minnie were watching the evening news and were about to go off to bed. It was around 10 p.m. that they started hearing allowed banging on their front door outside their home the desperate screams of a mother could be heard help me help me they stole my baby it was their neighbor Paula frantically screaming Dawn called the police and Paula ran home to call her husband who was at work first responding officers and Paula's husband Rob both arrived at the scene around the same time and Paula relayed the story of what happened to their daughter. Paula recounted that she was watching the news downstairs in their basement when a man in a ski mask with a gun broke in. She didn't even know that he was in her home until it was too late. The intruder forced Paula to lie down on her stomach and told her not to get up or he would kill her. Laying face down on the floor Paula listened as the intruder made his way around the room and then around the home and then she heard him leave. The second the intruder left Paula shot up ran to her daughter's bassinet and saw that her new born daughter Lorelai was gone. Paula claims that she ran out of the home and she saw a dark figure running down the driveway running into the darkness and then he was gone. Paula said that she tried it to run after the kidnapper but he was too fast and it was too dark out that she barely got a look at him. Twelve day old new born baby girl Lorelai Sims was just gone in an instant just like that. The Jersey County Police Department officers and their sheriff Frank Yokem who were investigating the disappearance and supposed kidnapping of Lorelai Sims immediately felt like there was just something off. The evidence at the scene didn't align with the story that her mother Paula was telling them. Investigators noticed that there was a cut in the screen door seemingly made by the intruder to get to the lock. However, evidence suggested that the damage was staged rather than a work of an actual intruder and as investigators were coming in and out of the home to look for evidence they noticed that every single time they opened or closed that screen door it made this extremely loud screeching noise. Something that Paula didn't remember hearing, something that would have alerted her that someone was entering her home. Also on that note, the family had a dog that was known to loudly and just like consistently bark anytime anyone visited their house. But it appears the one time a guard dog was needed he did not bark. No neighbors reported hearing any barking, and Paula wasn't alerted that someone was breaking into their home. If someone was really breaking in, that dog would have barked, and Paula would have heard it before the intruder had a chance to attack her. But probably the biggest indicator that something wasn't right was how the parents of Lorelai Simms were acting, immediately following her supposed kidnapping. Paula was acting hysterical and distraught, but she didn't actually shed any tears, and both parents, Rob and Paula, they didn't seem scared, or worried. All of the lead investigators were suspicious that Lorelai's parents had something to do with her disappearance. But there was nothing to go on. Divers scoured the bottom of the nearby pond. Plains armed with infrared cameras took to the sky. Sent tracking dogs were brought in to follow the trail that Paula claimed the masked armed kidnapper went off with her baby. But there were no leads. There was no clues, no trail for them to follow. Absolutely zero signs of the little 12-day-old Lorelai. The families of Rob and Paula came to grieve by their side, but oddly enough, as this large-scale search was going on for a member of their family, neither of the parents, or anyone from the family, ever offered to assist the investigators in the search. Divers interviewed everyone that Paula and her new born daughter came in contact with in the 12 days since she was born, including everyone in the hospital that Lorelai was born in just less than two weeks earlier. Divers' told investigators how beautiful Lorelai was, what good of a baby she was, and not nothing really seemed off with either of her parents. But then the investigators got in contact with the woman that Paula had shared her hospital room with. And she reported that after Paula gave birth to Lorelai, she was on the phone crying to her husband, and she was apologizing over and over and over to her husband Rob, for having a little girl. When Paula got off the phone, she was still unconsolable, and her roommate asked her if she was okay. And Paula told her that her husband was upset with her, that her husband was mad at her, and how they both were really hoping for a boy. Rob and Paula were both asked to take a polygraph test, they both agreed, and they both failed. But still, through all of this suspicion, both of them were adamant that they had no involvement, they did not know where their daughter was. The disappearance of Lorelai Sims was slowing down, and it looked like this beautiful little baby girl's case was going cold. And then on June 24th, after being missing for an entire week, Lorelai was found. While her parents were being questioned once again at the police station, investigators brought more dogs to the Sim's family's property, but this time with a different strategy. Instead of bringing sent tracking dogs, which track someone's scent, they brought in cadaver dogs that are trained to smell dead bodies. And they brought the cadaver dogs to the thick wooden area behind the Sim's home, the exact opposite direction that Paula said the kidnapper ran off with her baby, and only 150 feet from her parents' home, the partial skeletal remains of a little infant girl were found. It was Sheriff Yoko, that made the grizzly discovery. Sadly, it appeared that Lorelai's remains had been disturbed by an animal while she was left out in the woods. She was not buried, she was not protected, she wasn't even wearing clothes. An autopsy was done, but sadly the remains were in such a bad shape that a cause of death and a manner of death could not be officially determined, but everyone knew what happened to little Lorelai. There's not many reasons why a baby's dead body would be left in the woods unless someone put her there. Rob and Paula both immediately loyered up, they also stopped cooperating or talking with the police. There was a ton of media attention after their 12-day old daughter was found that close to their home, and even though they weren't talking to the police, Rob and Paula made plenty of televised appearances, they did not mind the limelight, I suppose. And it was with one of these interviewers that they were asked if they thought they would ever have any more children and they said that they weren't sure. Paula and Rob also stopped sleeping in their own home, in fact they started saying with Paula's parents and they discreetly listed their home for sale, only to return to the home to move out their belongings after it sold. The couple moved to the city of Alton, on the Mississippi River in Madison County, and only 10 months after the death of their daughter Lorelai, Paula and Rob were pregnant once again. On February 1, 1988, they welcomed a son into the world, Randall Troy Sims, named after Paula's brother Randy, and Rob's father Troy. This was the little boy that they had always wished for, and they couldn't have been happier. And then about one year later, they were pregnant once again. Heather Lee Sims was born on March 19, 1989, a beautiful baby girl with bright blonde hair. Only six weeks later, after Heather was born, something would happen that left investigators with a chilling sense of deja vu. On April 29, 1989, around 11.30 pm, Paula Sims called the police claiming that a masked attacker with a gun had broken into her home and stole her little baby girl. Could this really just be a disturbing coincidence? Or was there someone out there with a deadly grudge against the Sims family? This was the exact same story, just three years apart and with different daughters. Once again, Rob was working the night shift, when a masked gunman broke into their home and kidnapped their new born daughter, right out of her bassinet. This time the story was around 10 pm, Paula went to go take the trash out, when a masked man with a gun pointing the gun right at her and forced her inside. And then when they were in the kitchen, and Paula had her back turned to the gunman, he struck her on the back of her head, which knocked her unconscious. About 45 minutes later, Rob returned home from work and found his wife knocked out on their kitchen floor. He rushed to wake her and then he rushed to check on both of their children. Her son, Randi's nursery was upstairs and he was luckily unharmed and still in bed. But six week old Heather, whose bassinet was kept in the dining room, was missing. Paula called the police and Rob immediately began calling family members, including his sister Linda and his wife Paula's parents. Paula's parents were actually away on a trip that week, but the second they got the news, they were adamant that they would be returning home the following day that be by their daughter's side. Again, Paula and Rob just weren't acting the way that you would expect two parents whose newborn daughter was seemingly kidnapped right out of their home, especially if this was the second time this ever happened to you. They didn't immediately bring up Lorelai after Heather was kidnapped, which is what you would expect. If you had two babies that were both kidnapped years apart in the exact same way, you would be saying oh my god they did it again, these were the same people, we need to look for them, they did it again, they just stole a second one of my daughters. But that's not what they were doing. Paula just seemed emotionless, she seemed calculating, she was even reported saying my son is safe and that's all that matters. Once again, the investigators were narrowing their sites on the missing infants parents. While they searched the family's home, they found upstairs a perfectly decorated little boy's room, but it was hard to find any evidence that a little girl even lived there. The family had a third bedroom, but there was no nursery set up for Heather, instead her bassinet was kept in the dining room. The home was covered in photos of their little baby boy, photos from even after he was just born, but there was no photos of Heather, there was no photos of Lorelai either. The investigators wanted to separate Rob and Paula to see once they were separated if their stories would change, and since Paula claimed that she was knocked unconscious by this attacker, the investigators insisted that Paula be taken to a hospital to get checked out. Paula did not want to go, but she reluctantly agreed. The hospital did a thorough medical exam, but there were no injuries to Paula's head. There were no signs at all that she had been hit so hard that it would cause her to black out and lie unconscious on her kitchen floor for nearly an hour. That would be a pretty serious injury, don't you think? In Paula's original story to the investigators, she claimed that when she was hit by the intruder, she actually remembers the injury she remembers getting hit and she said it felt like being karate-chopped to the back of the head, but literally every single expert that has ever looked into this case said that that would be completely impossible. When you're injured to the head so hard that you are are knocked unconscious. You don't remember actually getting that injury and you don't remember like the pain of that injury. You don't even remember what happened right before becoming injured. When Rob was separated from his wife, the investigators asked him if he trusted his wife and they also told him that his wife's story did not make any sense. Rob told the investigators that he trusted his wife, but he was considering the possibility that she might be lying, but he refused to change his story. He kept to his story and so did Paula. Once again, there were no leads, no clues for the investigators to follow, at least for a few days. Four days after Heather Lee Sims disappeared, Charles Saunders, a local fisherman, was fishing on the Missouri side of the Mississippi River. As he was getting ready to leave, he walked up to a barrel trash can, he went in to throw some garbage when he noticed a suspicious black trash bag at the bottom of the barrel. I'm not exactly sure what stood out to this fisherman about this black trash bag enough for him to dig it out and look inside it. What almost feels like fate stepping in, still ended in tragedy. Inside the bag was the little body of a baby girl. These were the remains of six-week-old Heather Sims. She was dumped without clothes or dignity and her body was discovered less than three miles from her home. This time, a cause of death and a manner of death could be determined. Heather Sims was murdered. She was smothered. The medical examiner that did her autopsy made another morbid discovery. Little Heather's body was frozen after she was killed. After her body was discovered, her parents were brought in for questioning and they were questioned separately. Although her mother Paula only lasted a few minutes before storming out. This time, Rob seemed to be singing a different tune. He still denied involvement but he told investigators that he was suspicious of his wife and he was now worried for their son's safety. But there's not a lot of people that think Rob is any saint in this case at all. There's certainly enough information up to this point that makes him look pretty suspicious. Rob actually said to an FBI agent after his newborn daughter Heather was found murdered. That in the time since his six-week-old daughter Heather went missing, him and his wife Paula had been having the longest lasting and best sex they had ever had. Rob told the detectives that he felt like he could get a confession out of his wife and he would bring her in sometime tomorrow. But that never happened. So investigators were forced to act. Their son, 15-month-old Randy Sims was removed from his parents' care and he was placed in the custody of the state. Just like after her older sister, Lorelai, disappeared, investigators began questioning everyone that ever interacted with Heather in the six weeks that she was alive. And once again, investigators got a break interviewing the woman that Paula shared a hospital room with after giving birth to Heather. This woman claimed that Paula told her that her first daughter had been kidnapped by a masked intruder and he broke in to her home, knocked her unconscious and stole her baby. The problem here is that's not what Paula said the night that Lorelai disappeared. She's completely mixing up stories about different daughters and different daughters' disappearances. But this was six weeks before Heather disappeared. Six weeks before Paula claimed that a masked intruder broke into her home, knocked her unconscious and stole her baby. So was she really planning this since the moment that Heather was born? After Heather first vanished, they did a large-scale search of her parents' home, her parents' property, and the surrounding area and they found nothing. But after the discovery of her body, they returned to her family's home again, hoping to find similar trash bags the one that her body was found in. And investigators found a role of the exact same kind of trash bag in Paula and Rob's home. But not only that, they had FBI labs compared the trash bag that Heather was found in with trash bags found at her parents' home. And they determined that not only was this the exact same kind and brand of trash bag, but these trash bags were made in the exact same factory and they were made about 10 seconds apart. So this is what investigators believed happened the day that Heather Lee Sims was killed. After her husband left for work, Paula smothered her daughter. To conceal her body, she brought Heather to her parents' home. She knew that her parents were out of town that week and she had a key to their house. She hid Heather's body inside of her parents' freezer right alongside their food. She then returned home just in time for her husband to come home from work and find her unconscious on the kitchen floor. But then her husband called her parents and they said that they would be cutting their trip short and returning the following day. So Paula returned to her parents' home so she could get Heather's body out of their freezer. And we actually have official record that Paula did go to her parents' home the day after Heather was reported missing. Not only did apparently Rob tell her to go to her parents' house to just get away from everything and to have a little break, but there are witnesses that saw Paula at her parents' home the day after her daughter was reported missing. After Paula got Heather's body out of her parents' freezer, she brought it back to her home and then she hid Heather's body in the freezer that they had in the basement. Police had already concluded their search of their home and if they did search the home again, they wouldn't really have reason to check the freezer for a second time. And after keeping her six-week-old daughter Heather's body in the freezer in their basement for a few days, Paula drove the 2.7 miles over the bridge over the Missouri state line to that trash bag where she dropped her daughter's body thinking that a garbage truck would come and take Heather to the landfill like she was just a piece of trash. And investigators believed that this was the plan since Heather was born, which is why the second Paula found out she was having a little boy. She decorated this beautiful blue nursery for him, but Heather never got a nursery, even though there was a third bedroom being not used. Paula just had to wait for her parents to go out of town. And the motive, they believe that Paula killed both of her daughters, was that her and Rob didn't want daughters. They wanted sons. With this evidence, Paula Sims was finally arrested. She was originally charged with concealment of a homicide and giving false information to the police in the case of her eldest daughter, Lorelai. She was then charged with obstruction of justice and concealment of a homicide in the case of Heather. Both times, her father paid her bail and she was released pending trial. But then a grand jury indicted her on two counts of first degree murder and this time she would be held without bail. So she would be sitting in prison until her trial started. In her trial, Paula took the stand in her own defense. She said that her whole life, she always dreamed of having a son, but she also dreamed of having a daughter. She even kept her dolls from her own childhood, so one day she could give her dolls to her own daughter. She said that she was happy when Lorelai and Heather were born. Paula also claimed that she had an alibi for the day that Heather's body was dumped in that trash can. Which is interesting because Rob also says that he has an alibi for the day that Heather's body was dumped in that trash can. Paula and Rob's alibis are actually each other, which makes Rob look even more suspicious because after a jury found Paula guilty of murder, she was facing the death penalty. And to avoid the death penalty, she agreed to confess. Paula sends confessed to everything she confessed to killing both of her infant daughters. And on what would have been her last surviving child and her only son's second birthday, Paula Sims was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Rob was never charged with anything in correlation to his two daughters' deaths, which is very controversial to a lot of people. There's a lot of people out there that thinks that there's enough circumstantial evidence to suggest that Robert Sims was guilty, had some sort of involvement or knew at least that Paula planned and then did kill both of their daughters. Apparently, after Lorelai was born, Robert was so unhappy that he actually exiled Paula and Lorelai from their bedroom and forced them to sleep together in the basement. And only after Lorelai disappeared and was found dead, was Paula allowed to return to their bedroom. And the same thing happened after Heather was born. Paula and Heather were forced to sleep in the dining room together. But after Heather disappeared, Paula was welcomed back into their bedroom, where they had all of that mind-blowing sex in the four days that she was missing. Five months after Paula was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, Rob filed for divorce. He later remarried a woman named Vicki in 2002. Rob got custody of his son Randy and the two were very very close. When Randy grew up, he stopped visiting his mom and he once said that he hoped that Paula would rot in jail. Paula and Rob had a headstone made while they were still married where both of their daughters were buried and they also planned to both be buried there one day. Paula was removed from this headstone, the word mom was also removed and instead their son took Paula's place. 25 years after she was sentenced to life in prison, on June 22nd, 2015, Rob and their son Randy was driving over a bridge when they got in a car accident with another car. Their car ricocheted off the bridge and crashed on the street below. The father and son died instantly. Rob was 63 years old and just like the uncle that he was named after, Randy died young in a car accident. Randy Sims was only 27 years old. He was a beloved schoolteacher and even in his obituary, his mother is listed as his stepmother, Vicki. There is no mention of Paula. And as for Paula, while apparently being sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, doesn't always mean serving life in prison without the possibility of parole. Because in March of 2021, the governor of Illinois, J.B. Pitsker, used his power of clemency to commute her sentence, changing it from life without the possibility of parole to life with the possibility of parole. In part because of the evolving views on her mental health at the time of the crimes and also changes and how such cases are reviewed. And after that change, the Illinois prisoner review board voted 12-1 that Paula be granted parole. And at 62 years old on October 29, 2021, Paula Sims, who confessed to killing two of her babies, was released from prison. Meaning, right this second, as we speak, Paula Sims is walking among society somewhere out in the world. Let me know all your thoughts on that. I know people have very differing opinions when I comes to people that have murdered someone being granted parole. I know there are some people that think that everyone deserves a second chance. And there's a lot of people that think that there are certain crimes that you just can't come back from. So I'm interested to hear your thoughts, let me know in the comments, but please always be respectful. If you or someone you know is struggling with postpartum depression, you are not alone and help is available. Postpartum depression is common, treatable, and is nothing to be ashamed of. If you're feeling overwhelmed, disconnected, hopeless, or having thoughts of harming yourself or your child, please seek out support right away. And that's all I have for you guys in this case. Please let me know all your thoughts and opinions in the comments. Let me know if you've ever heard of this case before. Have we heard of the daughters of polysims? Let me know what you guys want to see in 2026 and I will see you guys all next year when we are hot in the case once again.