Susan Smith denied parole after serving 30 years for drowning her children

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Susan Smith, a South Carolina mother convicted of killing her two sons by rolling her car into a lake in 1994 with the boys strapped in their carseats, was denied parole Wednesday. 

It was the 54-year-old’s first chance at parole after serving 30 years behind bars. 

Prosecutors at trial said Smith, 22 at the time, 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.

In 1995, a jury convicted her of murder but decided not to sentence her to death. She’s serving a life sentence, and state law at the time said she is now eligible for a parole hearing every two years now that she has spent 30 years behind bars.

On Wednesday, Smith made her case for freedom to the seven-member 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 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.

She then went offline, and her ex-husband and father of the children, as well as the prosecutor at her murder trial, argued that she remain incarcerated.

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. 

The board’s vote was unanimous that she remain incarcerated. 

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, the Associated Press reported.

Who is Susan Smith? 

Smith made international headlines in October 1994 when she said she was carjacked late at night near the city of Union and that a man drove away with her sons inside. 

Smith, who is White, said the carjacker was Black.

For nine days, she made numerous and sometimes tearful pleas asking that 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old 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. 

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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 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.

Susan Smith’s 1995 trial

The 1995 trial of the young mother became a national sensation. But it wasn’t televised, a decision made 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.

Smith’s correspondence in prison

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 says in some of the messages she still grieves for her children.

"I am really sad today and just want to hang out in the bed. Today is my youngest son’s birthday, he would have been 30 today. Hard to believe," Smith wrote in August 2023.

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.

RELATED: Killer mom Susan Smith thinks parole is now unlikely after she was caught trying to profit off case: report

"The jury believed she got a life sentence and that’s what she should serve," Pope said last month shortly after the parole hearing was announced.