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The grandmother of missing Georgia toddler Quinton Simon’s has admitted she and her suspect daughter Leilani Simon made a ‘bad decision’ to enjoy a night out drinking in a beach resort town as police searched for the little boy’s body.
But Billie Jo Howell blamed it on hometown protesters who’ve made her feel like a prisoner, the DailyMail.com can reveal.
Her concession came as the little boy’s babysitter joined in the chorus of criticism over the night out.
‘If my grandchild or my child was missing, I wouldn’t sleep, I wouldn’t eat,’ McCarta said. ‘I wouldn’t do nothing. I’d be out looking for my child,’ Diana McCarta told DailyMail.com in an interview.
Howell, 45, told Quinton’s biological father in an 11-minute phone call obtained by DailyMail.com that she and Leilani went to Tybee Island because of protests outside her house.
‘It got so bad,’ she told Henry ‘Bubba’ Moss.
Quinton’s grandmother, 45-year-old Billie Jo Howell, was filmed screaming at McCarta that he is ‘still alive’ after the babysitter raised concerns online
‘Quinton was so precious, smart, very loving,’ McCarta gushed to DailyMail.com. ‘When he’d run in my house, he’d fall every time and he’d get back up laughing. He was a very sweet boy’
Diana McCarta, 47, has been Quinton’s babysitter for nine months and is speaking out to DailyMail.com to slam his mother and grandmother
Leilani and her mother, Billie Jo Howell, were at StingRay’s, a beach bar in the vacation town of Tybee Island, drowning their sorrows while authorities were searching for Quinton
‘My friends from out of town that come down here to support me, they stayed close to me for two days and then decided to get a room at the beach for two days.’
As demonstrators gathered outside her house, honking horns and yelling ‘baby killers’ into the night, Billie Jo, 22-year-old Leilani and their friends checked into the $72-a-night Sandcastle motel on Tybee Island, a vacation getaway 50 minutes from their home in Savannah.
‘And we went down there,’ she said. ‘And I told them I don’t think it’s a good idea that we go out in public with y’all. I think it’s better we stay here at the (motel) room.
‘And they’re like, what, you can’t go have dinner?’ she continued.
They went across the street to StingRay’s, a bar on the evening of October 18. The mother-daughter-duo sat outside with the friends, downing Patron shots and pestering their server to drink with them.
That same day, FBI agents combed through a landfill searching for little Quinton’s body near the family’s home. Police have named the boy’s mother as the primary suspect in the disappearance, and stated that Quinton is presumed dead.
Quinton’s grandmother, Billie Jo, had legal custody of him at the time of his disappearance
‘Now I rationalized in my head, ‘yeah, why can’t we go have dinner?’ You know what I mean?’ Billie Jo continued on the phone call with Bubba.
‘And the next thing you know, we were partying and screaming and hollering.
‘And that’s not the case,’ she insisted. ‘Leilani didn’t even drink. Now I drank both drinks that was ordered for Leilani. I drank (a friend’s drink). And I drank mine.
‘So I was messed up.
‘And then, of course, I went and laid on the beach and just cried,’ she said. ‘But they didn’t play that part, you know.’
Billie Jo said she was mortified when the media outed them. After eating breakfast the next morning at a nearby diner, she was videotaped pulling away from the hotel on a white Harley Davidson.
‘People hate me,’ she said in despair on Saturday’s phone call with Bubba.
Quinton has been missing since October 5 and police believe he is dead. They have named Leilani as the prime suspect in his disappearance although they have not arrested her.
Quinton’s babysitter joined the chorus slamming mother and daughter.
McCarta, 47, spoke out to DailyMail.com for the first time since she was seen in video being scolded by the boy’s grandmother for speaking publicly about the family.
‘For me, I’m a different person,’ McCarta, 47, said in an exclusive interview at her Savannah, Georgia, home, just down the block from where the toddler vanished on October 5.
Quenton’s mother, Leilani called police on October 5 claiming she’d woken up and couldn’t find her son
Leilani Simon, 22, is the main suspect in the disappearance of her 18-month-old son, who vanished on October 5. She’s pictured in mugshots from 2020 and 2021
‘If you love your child and your grandkids, you’re going to look nonstop until you have answers.’
Billie Jo had legal custody of Quinton at the time of his disappearance
McCarta had been the child’s babysitter for the past nine months.
‘Quinton was so precious, smart, very loving,’ she gushed to DailyMail.com. ‘When he’d run in my house, he’d fall every time and he’d get back up laughing. He was a very sweet boy.’
After the child vanished, McCarta revealed that she’d received a text message from Leilani’s boyfriend, Danny Youngkin early that morning telling her she didn’t need to look after him that day.
That was 30 minutes before Quinton was ‘last seen’ by Youngkin, and a few hours before Leilani reporting him missing.
The babysitter pointed out that child services had been involved with the family. She also spoke about creating a memorial for the boy.
McCarta also said she got into a blazing argument with Billie Jo on October 11 after the grandmother had barged through her backdoor to confront her.
‘My baby’s not dead!’ Howell shouts on the video, which McCarta’s daughter recorded.
‘Hit me, hit me,’ McCarta dared at one point, prompting the grandmother to reply, ‘Do you think I would do that?’
A protestor is seen carrying a sign outside the Howell home where Leilani is allegedly holdup in Savannah, Georgia
The protests got so bad, Billie Jo says, that she and her daughter were forced out of their home
The Chatham County Police Department shared photos of the team sorting through tons of garbage as they search for little Quinton
During DailyMail.com’s interview, the babysitter provided some additional details about what precipitated the blowup.
She said Billie Jo wanted to know whether McCarta blamed her for what had happened.
‘Everybody was blaming her, faulting her for not being home,’ McCarta said.
‘Billie Jo asked me did I blame her, and I told her my honest opinion. I just said, ”If you would have been here, things probably would have ended up differently.” And she got mad at me.
‘I guess she wanted me to say, I’m sorry for you. But I’m not sorry for anybody but Quinton. He’s the one I’m sorry for.
‘She just barged into my house and that was it,’ she said.
In the days since, McCarta has kept a lower profile.
‘Since I went on the news speaking about Quinton, we’ve received a lot of threats,’ said McCarta, who has three children of her own. ‘Our pictures are now out there. People know where we’re at. I’ve been told that it’s not our business, not to talk.’
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