Murderer mother Susan Smith drowned her children in a lake. Thirty years later, she is up for parole

TThirty years ago, the story of a young white mother from South Carolina captured the nation’s attention when she claimed she was carjacked by a black man who forced her out of the car and drove away with her two young sons in the car.

For nine days in October 1994, the community rallied behind Susan Smith, then 23, and her then-husband David, as they stood before the TV cameras and tearfully pleaded for the safe return of their boys – Michael, 3, and Alexander. 14 months.

But all the while, the bodies of the two little boys lay at the bottom of a lake in South Carolina, still strapped into their car seats in their mother’s car.

The boys’ mother knew exactly where they were the entire time.

On November 3, 1994, Smith confessed to strapping her toddlers into their car seats, driving to a boat ramp, putting her car in neutral and letting it roll into the lake. She saw the car sink below the surface, with her children trapped inside.

And then she leaned on racist tropes and made up a story about an imaginary black man and a fictional carjacking.

The case became a national sensation, made international headlines and led to numerous books, documentaries and films.

Smith, now 53, is serving a life sentence after a jury decided not to sentence her to death in 1995. Under the law at the time, she was eligible for parole after serving 30 years.

That time has come. In just a few days, the woman named “Killer Mom” could be released.

The Case of the ‘Killer Mom’

In 1994, the small town of Union, South Carolina was flooded with reporters, all chasing a terrifying story about a mother who claimed she was carjacked late on the night of October 25 by a black man with a gun who ran off with her two children still inside. .

But investigators soon discovered that several details in Smith’s story were incorrect. Carjackers usually just want a car, so they wondered why this person would release Smith but not her children.

Smith initially told police that the carjacking occurred at the Monarch Mills intersection while she was at the traffic light, but investigators said it would only be red if there was another car waiting to cross — but Smith had said that at there were no other cars in the area at the time. .

In a revised statement, Smith made only one change: that the carjacking occurred at the Carlisle intersection, not Monarch Hills.

Union County Sheriff Howard Wells confronted Smith with the conflicting details, telling her that undercover officers were conducting a drug investigation at that same intersection that night and yet had not seen the alleged car thief, according to Sheriff Wells, who told her he would have. to tell the media about the lie because her accusation had caused tension in Union’s black community.

Smith eventually confessed to the murders, revealing that she put her boys in their car seats and drove to John D. Long Lake, where she rolled her car down a boat ramp into the water.

She told investigators she planned to commit suicide with her sons because she believed the boys would be better off with her and God, rather than left without a mother — but then got out of the car.

An investigation by investigators found that it took six minutes for the Mazda to dive below the surface of the water, while cameras inside the vehicle showed water pouring in through the vents and steadily rising.

The boys’ bodies were found dangling upside down in their car seats, with one small hand pressed against a window.

‘I’m not the monster society thinks I am’

Smith’s trial in July 1995 became a national sensation and a true crime touchstone, despite not being televised, because Judge William Howard had become concerned about the media circus surrounding the OJ Simpson murder trial, which was underway at the same time.

Prosecutors said Smith’s motive for the killings stemmed from an affair she had with a man named Tom Findlay, the son of a local wealthy business owner.

A week before the murders, Findlay wrote a letter to Smith that would be central to her case. He told Smith that although he was interested in her romantically, he did not want children, according to A Birmingham News interview with Findlay in 2005.

Authorities said at the time that greed, ambition and Smith’s desire for a relationship with Findlay drove her to get rid of her children by killing them.

However, Smith’s lawyers claimed that she had a nervous breakdown and planned to die with her children, but was able to save herself at the last minute, Smith said. The New York Times.

The trial lasted less than a week and after less than two and a half hours of deliberation, the jury found Smith guilty of two counts of first-degree murder.

Judge Howard then sentenced her to 30 years to life in prison.

“We all felt like Susan was a very disturbed person,” juror Deborah Benvenuti told reporters after the verdict. WashingtonPost. “And we all felt that it would not be justice if we gave her the death penalty.”

The boys’ father, David Smith, thought differently. He told reporters outside the courthouse at the time that he felt justice had not been served.

The two were legally separated at the time of the murders, but David joined forces with Smith to find their sons. Everything changed when she confessed to killing their children.

“I will never forget what Susan did and I will never forget Michael and Alex,” he said. “I and my family are obviously disappointed that the death penalty was not the verdict.”

Meanwhile, Smith has said over the years that she has been misunderstood by society.

“I am not the monster that society thinks I am,” she wrote in a letter to The state newspaper from 2015. “I’m far from it.”

“Something went very wrong that night,” she added. “I wasn’t myself. I was a good mother and I loved my boys. There was no motive as it wasn’t even a planned event. I wasn’t in my right mind.”

Drugs, sex and prison guards

From having sex with prison guards to breaking policies and hooking up with some obsessed suitors on the outside, Smith’s time behind bars has been mired in controversy.

Smith began her sentence at the Camille Griffin Graham Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina, where she received two misdemeanors in 2000 for having sex with prison guards.

The incidents were discovered by an investigator looking into tabloid claims that Smith had been beaten.

Instead, it was revealed that Smith, who was 28 at the time, had sex with 50-year-old prison guard Houston Cagle at least four times. UPI. Smith was disciplined and Cagle was fired.

Because of the power imbalance, “there is essentially no such thing as consensual sex between staff and inmates,” said Department of Corrections Director Doug Catoe. talking about Cagle and Smith.

Then in September 2000, prison Captain Alfred Rowe was arrested for having sex with Smith, according to ABC News. Rowe pleaded guilty and was given five years’ probation.

Smith was then transferred to Leath Correctional Institution in Greenwood, South Carolina.

Smith was punished at least five times between 2010 and 2017 for issues such as self-harm and drug use. PEOPLE reported.

Can Susan Smith go free?

Smith’s parole hearing is scheduled for Nov. 20 and will take place virtually, according to the state Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services.

Paroles are granted only about 8 percent of the time in South Carolina, and that is less likely when an inmate is making his first court appearance, in notorious cases, or when prosecutors and victims’ families resist. Associated press reported. Smith falls into all of these categories.

Tommy Pope, the lead prosecutor in Smith’s trial and now the Republican Speaker Pro Tem of the South Carolina House, said he plans to tell the parole board that when jurors rejected the death penalty, they thought a life sentence would cover the rest of her life meant. and that they thought she could not be released after thirty years.

“Now she has sugar daddies who want to take care of her when she is released. She stayed focused on Susan,” Pope said.

Earlier this month, the South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services confirmed to several news outlets that more than 127 letters have been filed with their agency regarding Smith’s parole.

The letters are not publicly available, but a source from the Smith family explains The New York Post that many of them are against Smith’s possible release and are littered with negative comments, including one stating that Smith “belongs in that lake with her boys.”

“I’m afraid she might get out.”

Smith filed for divorce from David in September 1994, weeks before she murdered their children. A judge granted their divorce in May 1995, a few months before her trial began.

David has since remarried and had two more children.

He recently said he was “terrified that she might get out,” but said he would do “everything in my power” to keep Smith behind bars. Hof TV what he would say if he came face to face with her.

“I would just tell her you have no idea how much damage you have caused to so many people,” he said.

“I would like to tell her that, within my means, I will do everything in my power to ensure that you remain behind bars.”