A parole board decided unanimously Wednesday that Susan Smith should remain in prison 30 years after she killed her sons 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 for freedom 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.”
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“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 appealed to her Christian faith, saying, “God is a big part of my life.” God has forgiven her, Smith said, and she asked the same of the board.
“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 large group of about 15 people entered the room to urge against parole. They included her ex-husband and the father of the boys, David Smith; his family members; prosecutors; and law enforcement officials.
As family members and prosecutors delivered tearful remarks, David Smith kept his head bowed with his gaze fixed at the floor. Along with a few others, he had a photo of Michael and Alex pinned to his suit jacket.
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Smith struggled to get out words at first, taking several pauses throughout his statement to compose himself. He said Susan Smith had “free choice,” and his children’s deaths weren’t a “tragic mistake.”
“It’s just not enough,” Smith said through tears. “So I’m asking that you please, deny her parole today, and hopefully in the future, but specifically today.” He told the board that he plans to attend each parole hearing in the future 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 stoically 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. He also referenced that she had no criminal history before her conviction, making her “low risk” to the public.
Smith has arrangements to work with a licensed mental health professional if released on parole, Thomas said. She also has plans to live with her brother.
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 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.
At Wednesday's hearing, prosecutor Tommy Pope characterized Smith’s crime as selfish, centering on a “horrible, horrible choice to choose a man over her family.”
Smith’s crime not only traumatized her family, prosecutor Kevin Brackett said, but further affected the state of South Carolina and the country at large who were “fixated” on this “global sensation.” Her allegation that a Black man kidnapped her children also led to other Black men in the area 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 that her stepfather was having sex with her along with the owner of the business where she worked.
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.
Some men know why she is famous. Others are more coy. 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.
Smith also had sex with guards. And she violated prison policies by giving out contact information for friends, family members and her ex-husband to a documentary producer who discussed paying her for her help, according to former prosecutor Tommy Pope.
