Killer mother Susan Smith denied parole 30 years after drowning sons

Thirty years after South Carolina killer mother Susan Smith was once put at the back of bars for drowning her two infant sons, a board unanimously voted to disclaim her parole after she gave the impression on a jailhouse court docket feed on Wednesday morning.

Smith gave the impression emotional and crying at the feed. 

“I do know that what I did was once terrible…I’m sorry that I put them via that…I want I may just take that again, I in reality do…I used to be simply scared,” she stated. “I didn’t know the way to inform the folk that enjoyed them that they might by no means see them once more…I’m sorry, I do know that’s now not sufficient…simply phrases, however they arrive from my center.”

The explanations for the parole board’s denial have been the character and seriousness of the crime and Smith’s institutional document of offenses. 

Susan Smith’s legal professional, Tommy Thomas, advised the parole board that the suicide of Smith’s father “set the degree for some critical psychological well being problems,” checklist “postpartum despair” for instance. “I may just see the ache on her face…I believe that she is actually remorseful for what took place…and that she would do anything else on this planet to convey those youngsters again.”

He added that if Smith have been granted parole, she can be residing together with her brother. 

The 53-year-old’s ex-husband, David Smith, arrived on the parole listening to to stand the girl who killed his youngsters, dressed in a pin appearing his two infant sons.   

David Smith arrives on the South Carolina Division of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services and products in Columbia, SC on November 20, 2024. Smith’s ex-wife, Susan Smith, was once denied parole nowadays for her existence sentence within the 1995 drowning murders of her two little toddlers. (Matthew Symons for Fox Information Virtual)

“I am right here to suggest on Michael and Alex’s behalf and as their father,” David Smith stated as he spoke on the listening to. “God provides us unfastened selection, and she or he made unfastened selection that evening to finish their existence. This wasn’t a sad mistake…she purposely supposed to finish their existence.”

“I am asking that you simply please deny her parole nowadays,” he stated emotionally, conserving again tears.

David Smith together with his spouse, Tiffany Smith, depart the South Carolina Division of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services and products in Columbia, SC on November 20, 2024. Smith’s ex-wife, Susan Smith, was once denied parole nowadays for her existence sentence within the 1995 drowning murders of her two little toddlers. (Matthew Symons for Fox Information Virtual)

David Smith holds up an image of his murdered sons Michael and Alex and smiles July 28 after his ex-wife [Susan] Smith was once sentenced to existence imprisonment on two counts of homicide in Union, South Carolina. A relative of Smith’s former husband stated that the person intends to oppose Smith’s parole subsequent yr.  (Reuters)

Susan Smith’s ex-husband and father of Michael and Alex, David Smith, attended the parole listening to Wednesday, together with his spouse and daughter and Tommy Pope, the prosecutor at the case. 

“I imagine the jury meant for her to serve a complete existence sentence,” Tommy Pope, the prosecutor who helped convict Smith in her case, advised Fox Information Virtual. “They sought after her to spend her existence and regret for Michael and Alex and what she had finished, and she or he has time occupied with herself having intercourse with guards, and so on.”  

Pope additionally attended Wednesday’s parole listening to, and he requested the board to disclaim Smith’s parole. 

Pope, together with a former director of the South Carolina Division of Corrections and certainly one of Smith’s former fans spoke out in Fox Country’s newest particular at the case and Smith’s time in jail, “Susan Smith, The Killer Mother: 30 Years Later.”

 WATCH “SUSAN SMITH, THE KILLER MOM: 30 YEARS LATER” ON FOX NATION

Susan Smith Prosecutor Tommy Pope talking at her parole listening to sooner than asking the board to disclaim her parole

Criminal id {photograph} of Susan Smith. She was once convicted on July 22, 1995 of murdering her two sons, 3-year-old Michael Daniel Smith, born October 10, 1991, and 14-month-old Alexander Tyler Smith, born August 5, 1993. Susan Smith when she was once first arrested in 1994.  (Picture through Brooks Kraft LLC/Sygma by means of Getty Pictures)

Susan Smith strapped her sons, 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alexander Smith, into the again seat of her automotive and let it roll down a ramp into John D. Lengthy Lake in Union, South Carolina. (Tommy Pope)

“The South Carolina State Area has a greater probability of having hit with a meteor this night than Susan Smith may have at getting parole day after today,” Legal professional Eric Bland, who has represented sufferers of Alex Murdaugh, every other infamous South Carolina homicide case, advised Fox Information Virtual on Tuesday.

“She by no means confirmed actual contrition for murdering her youngsters.”

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David Smith together with his spouse, Tiffany Smith, arrives on the South Carolina Division of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services and products in Columbia, SC on November 20, 2024. Smith’s ex-wife, Susan Smith, was once denied parole nowadays for her existence sentence within the 1995 drowning murders of her two little toddlers. (Matthew Symons for Fox Information Virtual)

Bland stated Susan Smith contacted her ex-husband at one level over the past a number of months, asking him if he’d be prepared to not oppose her parole and to talk to different members of the family and notice in the event that they too can be prepared to not oppose. 

“He was once furious, like, ‘Are you from your thoughts?’,” Bland added, noting that up till she reached out to her former husband, she may have had an opportunity of having parole. “She’s delusional… It is his youngsters, , and he misplaced them. I imply, the wound remains to be as uncooked as I am positive it was once at the first day that they have been murdered.”

SUSAN SMITH’S EX-HUSBAND ‘STILL BROKEN’ 30 YEARS AFTER SONS’ MURDERS AS KILLER MOM UP FOR PAROLE, AUTHOR SAYS

Susan Smith prosecutor Tommy Pope all the way through the 1995 trial (Tommy Pope)

“Below customary cases… it is been 30 years… and oftentimes, sufferers’ households themselves say, ‘Glance, has she served sufficient?’ You already know, we are an overly Christian state, so other folks imagine in forgiveness,” Bland stated. “No person I have spoken to… has ever had any sympathy for her by any means.”

Here’s a timeline, detailing the occasions main as much as, all the way through and after Smith’s horrific crime all through her a long time in jail: 

Oct. 25, 1994

Susan Smith strapped her sons, 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alexander Smith, into the again seat of her automotive and let it roll down a ramp into John D. Lengthy Lake in Union, South Carolina.

Smith, 22 on the time, watched because it took six mins for water to fill the auto, drown her boys and sink the auto to the ground of the lake. 

She ran to a space close to John D. Lengthy Lake, falsely telling the house owners {that a} “Black guy” had stolen her automotive together with her two sons inside of. The house owners referred to as 911. 

EX-HUSBAND OF KILLER MOM SUSAN SMITH, UP FOR PAROLE, SAYS SHE CRAVES ATTENTION AND LIKELY HASN’T CHANGED

Oct. 26-Nov. 2, 1994 

For 9 days, the younger faces of Michael and Alexander Smith unfold throughout nationwide headlines, whilst government looked for the person Susan stated abducted the men. Susan and David Smith pleaded on nationwide tv for the go back in their youngsters. 

Pope watched the scoop spread on the time and gained updates from SLED at the case. 

“The entire tale sounded extremely not likely,” Pope stated within the Fox Country particular, “By no means are you listening to a carjacker taking youngsters generally.”

David Smith together with his spouse, Tiffany Smith, depart the South Carolina Division of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services and products in Columbia, SC on November 20, 2024. Smith’s ex-wife, Susan Smith, was once denied parole nowadays for her existence sentence within the 1995 drowning murders of her two little toddlers. (Matthew Symons for Fox Information Virtual)

Nov. 3, 1994

After failing a polygraph take a look at, Susan Smith retracted her lie concerning the kidnapping and confessed to killing her two sons. She was once charged with two counts of homicide.

KILLER MOM SUSAN SMITH DISCIPLINED BEHIND BARS WEEKS BEFORE PAROLE HEARING

3 unident. cops, 1 clad in scuba tools, speaking lakeside as they comb the water’s backside for the auto of Susan Smith, who admitted to drowning her sons Michael & Alex in her automotive in John D. Lengthy Lake.     (Picture through Thomas S. England/Getty Pictures)

Nov. 6, 1994 

Masses attended the funeral of Michael and Alexander Smith. 

July 17, 1995 

Susan Smith’s trial started lower than a yr after she drowned her sons. Whilst prosecutors argued her purpose for killing the men was once {that a} guy she was once seeing on the time did not need youngsters, Smith’s protection stated she was once suicidal and at first deliberate to drown together with her sons sooner than in some way pulling herself out of it.

“I used to be very emotionally distraught. I did not wish to reside anymore! I felt like issues may just by no means get any worse,” Smith wrote in her confession letter, got through Fox Information Virtual. “I felt I could not be a just right mother anymore however I did not need my youngsters to develop up with no mother. I felt I needed to finish our lives to give protection to us all from any grief or hurt.” 

KILLER MOM SUSAN SMITH THINKS PAROLE IS NOW UNLIKELY AFTER SHE WAS CAUGHT TRYING TO PROFIT OFF CASE: REPORT

“I sought after to finish my existence so dangerous and was once in my automotive in a position to head down that ramp into the water and I did pass phase approach, however I finished. I went once more and stopped…I dropped to the bottom once I allowed my youngsters to head down that ramp into the water with out me. I took off working and screaming ‘Oh God! Oh God, NO!’ What have I finished?”

July 22, 1995

Susan Smith was once convicted within the homicide of her two sons, Michael and Alexander. 

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Susan Smith was once convicted on July 22, 1995 of murdering her two sons, 3-year-old Michael Daniel Smith and 14-month-old Alexander Tyler Smith. First of all, Smith claimed {that a} Black guy carjacked her with the 2 boys nonetheless inside of her car. However her tale unraveled, and the girl admitted that she let her car roll right into a lake with the men strapped inside of.  (Getty Pictures)

July 28, 1995

Although prosecutors argued that Susan Smith must obtain the dying penalty, she was once in the end sentenced to existence in jail. 

Susan Smith advised a suitor over the telephone that she can be a “just right stepmom” and may just “see [herself] round youngsters” in a recorded telephone name. Grief-stricken David Smith, the inmate’s former husband, is pictured weeping amidst a crowd of mourners as he leaves funeral for his youngsters Michael and Alex. (Thomas S. England/Getty Pictures)

July, 1995-March, 2015 

Smith gained 10 disciplinary sanctions, together with one for having intercourse with a jail guard and others for repeated drug use.

David Smith together with his spouse, Tiffany Smith, depart the South Carolina Division of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services and products in Columbia, SC on November 20, 2024. Smith’s ex-wife, Susan Smith, was once denied parole nowadays for her existence sentence within the 1995 drowning murders of her two little toddlers. (Matthew Symons for Fox Information Virtual)

Aug. 26, 2024 and Oct. 3, 2024

Smith was once charged on Aug. 26 and due to this fact convicted on Oct. 3 for speaking with a sufferer/and or witness after talking to a documentary filmmaker. South Carolina Division of Corrections inmates aren’t allowed to do interviews at the phone or in individual, in step with SCDC coverage, however they’ll write letters. Smith misplaced her phone, pill and canteen privileges for 90 days.

Susan Smith, pictured in a contemporary mugshot at left and at 22-year-old in 1994 at proper, has been incarcerated in South Carolina for just about 30 years for the homicide of her two sons. (South Carolina Division of Corrections)

In her talks with the filmmaker, Smith mentioned her crime extensive and the occasions main as much as and after it, together with main points like “what was once within the trunk of the auto when it went into the water and her plans to leap from a bridge whilst conserving the men, however one aroused from sleep,” the incident document says.

Nov. 4, 2024 

On Nov. 4, Susan Smith had spent 30 years at the back of bars, making her eligible for parole. 

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Nov. 20, 2024

Smith gave the impression on a jailhouse court docket feed for her first parole listening to on Nov. 20. 

Her parole was once unanimously denied on the finish of the listening to. One parole board member recused herself from the listening to because of the truth that she had up to now been a warden at a facility the place Smith was once housed.  

Smith shall be eligible for parole once more in two years. 

Fox Information’ Audrey Conklin contributed to this document.