Convicted child murderer Susan Smith "threw a tantrum" in her cell after her request for parole was rejected, according to a report in the New York Post.
Smith became a household name in 1994 when police determined that she intentionally killed her two young sons — Michael, 3, and Alex, 14 months — by strapping them into her car and then rolling it into a South Carolina lake.
At the time, Smith told police that she'd been carjacked by a Black man who kidnapped her children. That racist lie sent police into Black neighborhoods to search for possible suspects. Smith even appeared on national news daily to appeal for her children's return, before she caved and admitted that there was never any carjacker nine days later.
She was convicted on murder charges and was later sentenced to life in prison. Her first parole hearing was held on Wednesday, during which she cried and apologized for killing her sons. The 53-year-old said she wished she could take it back, and expressed confidence that God had forgiven her.
"I am a Christian and I know that God has forgiven me," she told the parole board. She begged them to "show the same kind of mercy" in their ruling.
The seven-member South Carolina Board of Parole was not swayed, however, and rejected her request.
An onlooker who witnessed the aftermath of the hearing told the Post that the 53-year-old Smith "was pissed" when she returned to her cell at the Leath Correctional Institution in Greenwood.
"She was angry-crying," the witness said. "Waving her hands, very agitated. It looked like she threw a tantrum."
The source who spoke to the outlet made clear that the other inmates had no sympathy for her, telling the paper that the they found the denial "funny.”
"I don't think she was thinking about her sons at all yesterday," they said. "She was clearly just thinking about herself."
Smith, who has served 30 years behind bars, will be eligible to apply for parole every two years, although her ex-husband David Smith doesn’t think she should ever be released.
"I don't think she'll ever be rehabilitated," he told Today on the day of her parole hearing. "I don't think she's, even to me, she's never been really sorry for what she did.”
