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If last year’s double homicide trial of convicted killer Alex Murdaugh was the ‘Trial of the (21st) Century’ in South Carolina, the ‘Trial of the (20th) Century’ was the double homicide trial of convicted killer Susan Smith.
Smith was convicted in July 1995 of killing her two sons – three-year-old Michael Smith and fourteen-month-old Alex Smith – strapping them into their carseats in the back of her burgundy Mazda sedan and letting the vehicle roll into the John D. Long lake five miles northeast of Union.
Smith told police a black man had carjacked her at gunpoint and driven away with her children still inside the vehicle – a story she later confessed to fabricating. The truth? Smith killed her children because she was pursuing an extramarital relationship with a man who didn’t want kids, prosecutors alleged.
A jury took just two hours to find Smith guilty of the two murders – but prosecutors weren’t able to secure the death penalty in her case. This fall, Smith is seeking to be paroled from the custody of the S.C. Department of Corrections (SCDC) – but before that hearing takes place, she continues to find herself in the news for all the wrong reasons.
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Also this week our Andy Fancher filed a big report tied to the ‘Blood Money Massacre‘ – a mass stabbing incident that took place in Anderson County on Halloween 2015. Last December, two arrests were made in connection with this case – and the husband and wife who stand accused of the crime appeared in court this week.
S.C. circuit court judge Heath Taylor denied bond for both Amy Vilardi, 40, and her husband, Rosmore “Ross” Vilardi, 36 – but prosecutors in the office of S.C. attorney general Alan Wilson have their work cut out for them if they hope to secure guilty convictions in this case.
Finally, I joined Dylan Nolan to discuss the latest rally for former U.S. president Donald Trump in ‘First in the South’ Carolina – a state he is poised to sweep a week from today. Dylan also filed an excellent piece on the ‘Republican ratchet,’ a decades-long trend of GOP appeasement that must be broken if America expects to be free and prosperous again.
Thanks again to everyone who tuned in this week and please remember, your support drives everything we do here at FITSNews. As we continue holding those in power accountable – and continue pushing for reforms that enhance accountability at the institutional level – please consider subscribing today!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina and before that he was a bass guitarist and dive bar bouncer. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and seven (soon to be eight) children.
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2 comments
No way Susan Smith is going to get out on parole. I’m from Charlotte and the coverage in 1994 was intense!
Alot of people who live near that boat ramp where Susan killed her children say the area is haunted. There was actually a another family that died at the same ramp, while looking at the monument that had been erected in memory of Susan’s children. Still gives me chills.