A parole board decided unanimously Wednesday that Susan Smith should remain in prison, despite her plea that God has forgiven her for killing her two young sons 30 years ago by rolling her car into a South Carolina lake while they were strapped in their car seats.
It was the first parole hearing for Smith, 53, who is serving a life sentence after a jury convicted her of murder but decided not to sentence her to death. Under state law at the time, she is eligible for a parole hearing every two years now that she has spent 30 years behind bars.
Smith made her case to the parole board by video link from prison. When she began to speak, she started to say she was “very sorry,” then broke down in tears and bowed her head.
“I know what I did was horrible,” Smith said, pausing and then continuing with a wavering voice. “And I would give anything so I could change it.”
The parole board asked Smith about the law enforcement resources used to try to locate her children. In reply, she told the board she was “just scared” and “didn’t know how to tell them.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know, I know that’s not enough; I know it’s not,” Smith said.
In her final statements, Smith said, “God is a big part of my life.” God had forgiven her, Smith said. “I ask that you show that kind of mercy, as well,” she said.
Prosecutors have long said that Smith killed 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alex because a man she was having an affair with suggested the boys were the reason they didn’t have a future together.
A group of about 15 people urged against parole. They included her ex-husband and the father of the boys, David Smith; his family members; prosecutors; and law enforcement officials.
Along with a few others, David Smith had a photo of Michael and Alex pinned to his suit jacket.
The boys’ father struggled to get out words at first, pausing several times to compose himself. Susan Smith had “free choice,” he said, and his children’s deaths weren’t a “tragic mistake.”
He said he has never seen Susan Smith express remorse toward him. “She changed my life for the rest of my life that night,” he said.
“I’m asking that you please, deny her parole today, and hopefully in the future, but specifically today,” he said, adding that he plans to attend each parole hearing to make sure Michael and Alex aren’t forgotten.
A decision to grant parole requires a two-thirds vote of board members present at the hearing, according to the state Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services. Parole in South Carolina is granted only about 8% of the time and is less likely with an inmate’s first appearance before the board, in notorious cases or when prosecutors and the families of victims are opposed.
Before Smith testified, she listened to a statement from her attorney, Tommy Thomas. He called her situation one about “the dangers of untreated mental health.” She had several mental health issues as a teenager that went unchecked to produce “horrendous results,” Thomas said.
Thomas discussed the suicide of Smith’s father when she was a child, as well as her own suicide attempts, as contributing factors in the death of her two sons. He also said she had no criminal history before her conviction, making her “low risk” to the public.
The board’s decision was the one David Smith had hoped for, he said in a news conference following the hearing. “In two more years, we’ll go through this again,” he said. “But at least I know, for now, she’ll still be behind bars.”
The family and prosecution had been “cautiously optimistic,” former prosecutor Tommy Pope said, because Susan Smith has continually demonstrated that it’s “always been about Susan.”
“I believe Susan is the same woman she was 30 years ago when she laughed in the courtroom when the jury wasn’t in and cried as soon as the jury comes in,” Pope said.
Smith made international headlines in October 1994 when she said she was carjacked late at night near the city of Union and that a Black man drove away with her sons inside. The claims by Smith, who is white, played into a centuries-old racist trope of Black men being a danger to white women and stoked concerns about crime that were prevalent in 1990s America and remain so today.
For nine days, Smith made numerous and sometimes tearful pleas asking that Michael and Alex be returned safely. The whole time, the boys were in Smith’s car at the bottom of nearby John D. Long Lake, authorities said.
Investigators said Smith’s story didn’t add up. Carjackers usually just want a vehicle, so investigators asked why would they let Smith out but not her kids. The traffic light where Smith said she had stopped when her car was taken would only be red if another car was waiting to cross, and Smith said no other cars were around. Other bits and pieces of the story did not make sense.
Smith ultimately confessed to letting her car roll down a boat ramp and into the lake. A re-creation by investigators showed it took six minutes for the Mazda to dip below the surface, 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, one with a tiny hand pressed against a 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 she had the two young sons.
Smith’s lawyers said she was remorseful, was suffering a mental breakdown and intended to die alongside her children but left the car at the last moment.
Smith’s crime traumatized not only her family, prosecutor Kevin Brackett said, but also people in South Carolina and around the country who “fixated” on this “global sensation.” Her allegation that a Black man kidnapped her children also led to other Black men being wrongfully pulled over as police searched for a “fictitious man,” he said.
The 1995 trial of the young mother became a national sensation and a true crime touchstone even though it wasn’t televised by a judge who worried about what cameras were doing to the O.J. Simpson murder trial going on at the same time. Her lawyers worked to save her life, noting that Smith’s father had killed himself and her stepfather had sexually abused her and then had a sexual relationship with her when she was an adult.
From prison, Smith can make phone calls and answer text messages, many coming from journalists and interested men. Those messages and phone calls were released under South Carolina’s open records act, something Smith didn’t initially realize could happen. She said the invasion of her privacy upset her along with the public revelation that she was juggling conversations about the future with several men.
One told her he was going to use the dates of her birthday and those of her dead sons when he played the Powerball lottery. Others chatted about their lives and sports. Many promised her a home on the outside and a happy life.
Collins and Seminera write for the Associated Press.