Notorious South Carolina mother Susan Smith, who drowned her two young children after initially claiming a Black man had kidnapped them, was denied parole Wednesday.
“I wish I could take that back, I really do,” said Smith, now 53. “I didn’t lie to get away with it. … I was just scared. I didn’t know how to tell the people that love them that they’d never see them again.”
Smith said she is at some peace because of her Christian faith. God is a big part of her life, she testified Wednesday, “and I know he has forgiven me.”
It was her first appearance before the state’s parole board, which unanimously voted to keep her in prison for the rest of her life. Smith can apply for parole every two years now that she’s served 30 years in prison.
“I know that what I did was horrible,” she said in her testimony, delivered via Zoom. “And I would give anything if I could go back and change it.”
“I love Michael and Alex with all my heart,” she said openly weeping and wiping away tears.
The disappearance of 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alex captured national headlines after their mother told a chilling story about how a Black man had stopped her car and taken her children. She appeared frequently on television, appearing every bit the distraught mom, and the search for her boys lasted nine excruciating days.
Susan Smith, a South Carolina woman who admitted to killing her 3-year-old and 14-month-old sons in 1994, speaks at her parole hearing.
— ABC News Live (@ABCNewsLive) November 20, 2024
Smith had initially lied to police, saying a Black man carjacked her and kidnapped her sons. pic.twitter.com/oppN49EvWj
That’s when Susan Smith, questioned by police who had come to doubt her story, came clean with what really transpired on Oct. 25, 1994.
Smith, then 23 years old, strapped her sons into their car seats and let the car roll into a lake near her home in Union, South Carolina.
Smith’s pleas not only fell on death ears with the parole board, but with many on social media as well. As videos of her hearing made its round, hundreds of comments condemned the mother for not seeming remorseful enough for her actions.
“☠️MONSTERS are to be kept in CAGES☠️,” wrote one person on X, formerly Twitter.
Another added, “I remember this when it happened. She claimed her kids were kidnapped by black people. And people believed her, sadly. She should have been sentenced to death. She needs to stay behind bars until the very end.”
“I’m sure her babies that were strapped in their car seats screamed and cried when they drowned by the hands of their own mother just for her lustful pleasures. Shameful,” wrote another commenter.
Sixteenth Judicial Circuit Solicitor Kevin Brackett recalled watching Susan Smith’s car getting pulled out of the water with her children still inside. The crimes traumatized not only the family but the entire state, she said.
“On behalf of the community that I represent now, I don’t believe she should ever be released from jail, until the last person alive who remembers Michael and Alex is dead, and that will not be in her lifetime. She should never be released,” Brackett said Wednesday.
Susan Smith’s defense team argued she had planned to die with her sons but jumped out of the car at the last minute.
Lead prosecutor Tommy Pope noted Smith was neither wet nor injured when she ran for help after the car disappeared under the lake’s surface.
"God is a deep part of my life, and I know He has forgiven me… I just ask that you show that same kind of mercy."
— Fox News (@FoxNews) November 20, 2024
Killer mom Susan Smith makes a plea for release in her first parole hearing 30 years after drowning her two toddler sons. The parole board unanimously denied her… pic.twitter.com/0jR88Mkuzo
“Susan has always focused on Susan,” said Pope, who presented evidence in Smith’s murder trial that she was distraught over her breakup with another man. That relationship ended because Smith had children, prosecutors alleged.
“Susan made a horrible, horrible choice to choose a man over her family,” Pope said. “If she could have put David in the car, he would’ve been there, too.”
David Smith, the father of Michael and Alexander, captured walking into the building, told the board his former wife has never shown remorse for their murder.
David Smith just arrived to Susan Smith’s parole hearing.
— Brian Entin (@BrianEntin) November 20, 2024
He is her ex husband and the father of the boys she murdered.
He wanted the death penalty and now 30 years later has to see her again as she asks the South Carolina parole board to free her. pic.twitter.com/2WdqXjwQxM
“This wasn’t a tragic mistake. … She purposely meant to end their life,” he said.
David Smith testified that the grief over his sons’ loss “came pretty close to causing me to end my life.”
His current wife, Tiffany Smith, said there are still days when her husband can’t get out of bed because of the pain.
“Michael and Alex didn’t get a chance at life,” she said. “They were forced the death penalty.”
His ex-wife has served only 15 years per child, he said. “It’s just not enough.”
Susan Smith’s attorney, Tommy Thomas, told the parole board his client’s case shows “the dangers of untreated mental health.” He said Susan Smith had undiagnosed depression after the birth of her second child.
Her stepfather testified that he sexually abused her for years.
Susan Smith has not been a model prisoner. She has been repeatedly disciplined, once for having sex with a corrections officer and another time for drug possession. She also faced punishment for providing her ex-husband’s contact information to a documentary filmmaker.
If paroled, she would’ve moved in with her brother, her lawyer said.
David Smith said if his wife applies for parole again, he’ll be there for the sake of his sons.
“I will be here every two years going forward to ensure that their death doesn’t go in vain,” he told the board.
