Susan Smith, the murderous mom of two who drowned her little boys in a lake, was denied parole in a unanimous vote Wednesday, after serving 30 years in prison.
In South Carolina, parole is granted only about 8% of the time, and the chances are even slimmer during an inmate's first appearance before the board, in high-profile cases, or when prosecutors and victim families are opposed. Smith fits into all of these categories., according to WYFF.
Smith, now 53, testified before a seven-person board with the South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services, in an attempt to persuade them of her worthiness for freedom, following her decades-long prison stint.
Two people, along with her attorney, testified on her behalf and in support of her release, while more than a dozen individuals, including members and original prosecutors from the case, asked the board to keep Smith incarcerated.
In 1994, the then-24-year-old mom was sentenced to life in prison for the 1994 murders of her children – 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alexander.
She strapped them into their car seats and watched as her vehicle rolled into a Union County, South Carolina lake.
Susan Smith has been denied parole, unanimously!#SusanSmith pic.twitter.com/Y0CwhA76Qw
— Jennifer Coffindaffer (@CoffindafferFBI) November 20, 2024
Prosecutors said she was motivated to kill because the wealthy man she was having an affair with amid her separation from her husband didn't want kids.
Smith first tried to pin her children's disappearance on a made-up, armed Black man who she claimed forced her out of her vehicle and drove off with her sons. But after an intense 9-day manhunt, Smith confessed to the murders.
In a letter penned to The State in 2015, twenty years into her sentence, Smith claimed Michael and Alex's murders were spontaneous.
"The only reason I lied is because I didn't know how to tell the people who loved Michael and Alex that they would never see them again," Smith confessed to the paper at the time.
"Something went very wrong that night. I was not myself," she wrote. "I was a good mother and I loved my boys... There was no motive as it was not even a planned event. I was not in my right mind."
Originally published on Lawyer Herald.
