Susan Smith’s Parole Denied

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There was little chance convicted killer Susan Smith – who drowned her two small boys in a South Carolina lake thirty years ago – was going to be set free by the Palmetto State’s parole board this week.

The egregiousness of her crime, its inherent duplicity, the impact it had on her victims and the community… add it all up and the odds against Smith were always going to be insurmountable. Not only that, Smith has hardly been a model inmate since she was entrusted to the care of the S.C. Department of Corrections (SCDC) on July 28, 1995 following her convictions for the murders of three-year-old Michael Smith and fourteen-month-old Alex Smith.

To be released, Smith needed four of the six sitting members of the board to support her bid. She received the support of precisely zero of them.

Five of the six members – chairwoman Kim Frederick, vice chairwoman Molly DuPriest Taylor and members Reno Boyd, Henry Eldridge and Frank Wideman – voted to deny Smith’s bid, citing both the “nature and seriousness” of her crimes as well as her poor “institutional record.” Interim member Geraldine Miro recused herself from the voting, citing her previous tenure as a warden over Smith.

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Smith can reapply for parole in two years’ time – i.e. November 2026 – however it’s hard to see future hearings going any better for her than today’s did.

To recap: On October 25, 1994, Smith strapped her two young boys into their carseats in the back of her burgundy Mazda sedan – and proceeded to let the vehicle roll down a boat ramp into the John D. Long lake five miles northeast of her hometown of Union, S.C. Smith later told police a black man had carjacked her at gunpoint and driven away with her children still inside the vehicle.

“I wanna say to my babies that your momma loves you so much,” Smith tearfully told reporters at one press conference. “You gotta be strong… I just know, I just feel in my heart that you’re okay. You’ve just gotta take care of each other.”

The truth? Smith killed her children because she was pursuing an extramarital affair with a man who didn’t want kids, according to prosecutors.

Authorities doubted Smith’s carjacking story from the beginning. According to them, the Main Street intersection in Union, S.C. where she claimed to have been carjacked would not have presented her with a red light unless other vehicles were attempting to cross the intersecting roadway at the same time. Smith claimed no other vehicles were present at the time of the carjacking – meaning the light wouldn’t have turned red for her.

(Click to view)

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Aware that Smith was likely lying to them, police began almost immediately to suspect her involvement in the disappearance of her children. In fact, they actually searched the lake where the boys’ bodies were eventually found – but were unable to locate the vehicle right away because it came to rest significantly further from shore than they originally suspected.

Meanwhile, a nationwide manhunt for the fictitious black carjacker continued while Smith – flanked by her husband, David Smith – pleaded on national television for the safe return of her two children.

It was all a lie, though …

On November 3, 1994 – ten days after the alleged carjacking – Smith finally confessed to drowning her children. Shortly thereafter, divers with the S.C. Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) aquatic investigation and recovery team made the tragic discovery: The boys’ bodies were found strapped in their carseats in the back of the burgundy Mazda Protege approximately 122 feet from the shoreline of the lake.

“I was able to see a small hand against the glass,” diver Steve Morrow testified months later at Smith’s trial.

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At her hearing this week, Smith pleaded with the parole board for mercy.

“First of all I want to say how very sorry I am,” Smith said. “I know that what I did was horrible and I’d give anything if I could go back and change it.”

Smith did not appear at the hearing in person. She spoke to board members via a video link from a conference room at the Leath Correctional Institution in Greenwood, S.C. – where she is serving her sentence.

“I am a Christian and I know that God has forgiven me,” Smith continued, begging the board to show her “the same kind of mercy.”

Not only was the parole board having none of it, neither was Smith’s former husband – Alex and Michael’s father.

“God gave us free choice,” David Smith said. “She made the free choice that night to end their life.”

David Smith went on to say the punishment his ex-wife received from the state still wasn’t enough, saying she had served “only fifteen years per child – her own children.”

“That’s just not enough,” he told the board. “I’m asking that you deny her parole today and hopefully in the future.”

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S.C. speaker pro tempore Tommy Pope – then South Carolina’s sixteenth circuit solicitor – sought the death penalty against Smith, but the jury which convicted her of the murders declined to condemn her.

Pope also attended the hearing and spoke against the board granting Smith her freedom.

“Susan has always focused on Susan,” Pope said.

By all accounts, Smith had a difficult childhood. Her father committed suicide when she was only six years old and she attempted suicide herself at the age of 13 – and again at the age of 17. Her stepfather – prominent SCGOP and Christian Coalition member Beverly C. Russell Jr. – is alleged to have molested her extensively during her high school years, although Smith at one point described their relationship as consensual and said she enjoyed it because it made her mother jealous. Smith’s “affair” with Russell allegedly continued through September 1994 – just weeks before the murders.

Smith had not attained the age of consent at the time the affair with Russell began. Russell was never prosecuted, though, because Smith’s family refused to press charges against him owing to his political influence. Also, a caseworker acknowledged sealing the file in a nod to his powerful position.

“I am responsible for and ashamed of what happened,” Russell belatedly admitted upon the occasion of his resignation from the SCGOP in April 1995.

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RELATED | SUSAN SMITH SANCTIONED AHEAD OF PAROLE HEARING

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Smith married her husband in 1991 while two months pregnant with their first child, but the relationship was marred by multiple affair allegations involving both parties. One of those affairs involved Susan Smith and then-27-year-old graphic artist Tom Findlay. This affair began in January 1994 and lasted for two-to-three months. The relationship resumed in September 1994 – just weeks before the murders.

According to Findlay, he and Smith slept together ten times. He broke off the relationship for good on October 15, 1994 after allegedly witnessing Smith kissing a married man at a hot tub party.

There was another reason the relationship failed, though: Findlay was adamantly opposed to having children even though he said he could “see himself” with Smith.

“There are some things about you which aren’t suited for me, and yes, I am speaking about your children,” he wrote in a letter to her discovered in the submerged Mazda. “I’m sure that your kids are good kids, but it really wouldn’t matter how good they may be. The fact is, I just don’t want children.”

Smith insisted her despair over Findlay’s decision to terminate their relationship is what led her to murder her children.

“I was in love with someone very much, but he didn’t love me and never would,” she noted in her confession.

Smith, 53, has continued to make headlines from behind bars. In 2000, she contracted a sexually transmitted disease while incarcerated. A subsequent investigation revealed two former SCDC personnel – a guard named Houston Cagle and a captain named Alfred Rowe – engaged in sexual relations with Smith while she was imprisoned and under their authority.

Smith has also allegedly engaged in sexual relationships with multiple female inmates, sources familiar with her imprisonment have told this media outlet.

Earlier this year, The (U.K.) Daily Mail reported on other sex-related revelations involving Smith: Records which reveal she has been having phone sex from behind bars – in addition to conducting multiple flirtations via text message. Three months ago, Smith was sanctioned again for speaking with a documentary filmmaker about her crimes in violation of a longstanding SCDC policy.

“I trusted the wrong person,” Smith said, referencing her interactions with the filmmaker.

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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. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and seven children.

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