American Notes ILLINOIS

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.