Columbia, S.C. – Susan Smith, the South Carolina mother convicted of killing her two sons by crashing their car into a lake in 1994, will appeal to the parole board on Wednesday for her release.
Smith, 53, has been jailed for life after a jury found him guilty of murder, but decided not to give him the death penalty. Under state law at the time, he is now eligible for a parole hearing every two years after he has spent 30 years behind bars.
South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP
Smith will present her case for release to the seven-member parole board via video link from prison. She would then go offline and her ex-husband and father of her children, as well as the prosecutor in her murder trial, would argue that she should remain imprisoned.
Smith killed 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alex because a man with whom she was having an affair suggested the boys were the reason they were doomed, prosecutors said.
According to the state Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services, a decision to grant parole requires a two-thirds vote of the board members present at the hearing. Parole in South Carolina is granted in only 8% of cases and is less likely to be granted in notorious cases or when the prosecutor and victims' families oppose it, at the prisoner's first appearance before the board.
How did the case open?
Smith made international headlines in October 1994 when she said she was carjacked near Union City late at night and a man drove away with her sons inside. Smith, who is white, said the carjacker was black.
For nine days, Smith made repeated, sometimes tearful, pleas for Michael and Alex to be brought back safely. The entire time, the boys were in Smith's car at the bottom of nearby John D. Long Lake, authorities said.
Mary Ann Chastain/AP
Smith's story did not go further, investigators said. Car snatchers usually just want a vehicle, so investigators asked why they would spare Smith but not her children. The traffic light where Smith said she stopped when she moved her car would only be red if there was another car waiting to cross, and Smith said there were no other cars nearby. Other parts of the story made no sense.
Smith eventually confessed to driving his car down a boat ramp and into the lake. Reconstruction by investigators showed that it took six minutes for the Mazda to dip below the surface, while cameras inside the vehicle showed water flowing through vents and continuing to rise. The boys' bodies were found upside down in their car seats, a small hand pinned to the window,
Prosecutors said Smith was having an affair with the wealthy son of the owner of the business she worked at. He broke it off because he had two young sons.
Lou Craskey/AP
Smith's lawyers said she was remorseful, suffering a mental breakdown and intended to die with her children but abandoned the car at the last minute.
In July 2015, 20 years after his conviction, Smith told state newspaper in colombia he never planned to kill them And instead he intended to end his life.
The young mother's trial became a national sensation and a true crime touchstone in 1995, even though it was not televised by a judge who was concerned about what cameras would do to the OJ Simpson murder trial going on at the same time. Was doing. Her lawyers worked to save her life, noting that Smith's father had killed himself and that her stepfather was having a sexual relationship with the owner of the business where she worked.
unusual activities in jail
From jail, Smith can make phone calls and respond to text messages, many of which come from journalists and interested persons. Those messages and phone calls were released under South Carolina's Open Records Act, something Smith didn't initially realize was possible. She said the invasion of her privacy left her distressed, along with the public revelation that she had been in talks about a future with multiple men.
Few men know why she is famous. Others are more hesitant. One told her he was going to use her and her deceased sons' birthday dates when playing the Powerball lottery. Others talked about his life and sports. Many people promised her a home and a happy life outside.
Smith says in some messages that she is still grieving for her children.
“I'm really sad today and just want to lay in bed. Today is my youngest son's birthday, he would have turned 30 today. Hard to believe,” Smith wrote in August 2023.
Smith also had sex with guards. And according to former prosecutor Tommy Pope, she violated prison policies by giving contact information of friends, family members and her ex-husband to a documentary maker, who discussed paying for her help.
“The jury believes he has been sentenced to life in prison and that is the sentence he should serve,” Pope said shortly after the parole hearing was announced last month.
Pope, now a representative in the South Carolina legislature, told CBS Columbia affiliate WLTX-TV. He doesn't expect Smith to get parole – or want him to.
“She's constantly focused on Susan, not Michael and Alex. I think Susan is remorseful, but remorseful that she's in her circumstances – not remorseful for the pain she caused Michael and Alex. , or equally importantly David Smith (the boy's father) and his family,” he said.