SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Paula Sims, a southern Illinois woman who served three decades in prison for killing her two infant daughters has been granted parole.

In 1986, Sims claimed someone had abducted her 13-day-old daughter, Loralei Sims.

Ten days later, the baby’s remains were found behind Sims’ home.

A cause of death couldn’t be determined and no one was charged.

Then, three years later it had happened again.

Sims claimed a gunman took her six-week-old daughter and that baby’s body was later found in a trash can.

That’s when Sims was charged with the death of her first daughter and two months later, she was indicted in the second child’s murder.

In 1990, she confessed to killing both babies and a jury convicted her of first-degree murder and other offenses in the suffocation death of her 6-week-old daughter, Heather Sims in 1989.

Sims was sentenced to life in prison without a chance of parole.

A judge denied her request for a new trial with postpartum psychosis as her defense, but that changed in March when Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker granted Sims’ request for a parole hearing.

The Illinois Prisoner Review Board board voted 12-1 Thursday to grant release to 62-year-old Sims. It is unclear when Sims will be released from prison.

Her attorney, Jed Stone, tells the Belleville News-Democrat the parole “is a recognition that postpartum psychosis is real and the women who suffer from that mental illness need to be treated and understood.” Sims has been incarcerated for 30 years.

The Associated Press and CNN contributed to this report.

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