Terry Benjamin IIGreenville News
Convicted child killer Susan Smith, scheduled for a parole hearing 30 years after she let her car roll into a lake with her two toddler sons strapped inside, will remain in prison if the lead trial prosecutor has his way.
Former prosecutor Tommy Pope and Smith's ex-husband, David Smith, plan to testify against her release before the South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole, and Pardon Services board on Wednesday.
"It's the ultimate betrayal," Pope said Friday about Smith murdering her children. "We thought that maybe a bad guy or a criminal could do something horrible like this. For some reason, societally, we think sometimes, maybe even accept, a father could do that to children, but we just don't expect that coming from a mother."
At 9:15 p.m. on Oct. 25, 1994, Smith drove her burgundy Mazda onto a boat ramp with toddlers Michael, 3, and Alex, 14 months, secured in car seats, and released the car into the John D. Long Lake in Union County. The boys drowned. Smith initially said a Black man hijacked her car, kidnapping her children but admitted to the crime nine days later.
She was sentenced to life in prison in 1995 with eligibility for parole after 30 years. She became eligible on Nov. 4.
Smith, now 53, will attend the hearing virtually from the Leath Correctional Institute in Greenwood, where she is incarcerated.
More: South Carolina sets parole hearing date for Susan Smith; here's when she becomes eligible
Investigators became suspicious
A nationwide search for the boys began after they were reported missing. Smith made television appearances appealing for the return of her sons.
Smith was arrested on Nov. 3, 1994, after law enforcement grew suspicious.
The Spartanburg Herald-Journal reported a State Law Enforcement Division agent recalled Smith being calm during the search process and asked him how she looked on television. The newspaper also reported Smith told the agent she “wanted to go to the beach” when the search ended.
Smith later admitted to the murders after being interrogated by SLED investigators.
More: 'We'll never get over this'
Motivated by an extra-marital affair
At the trial, prosecutors revealed that Smith and her husband were divorcing. Smith was seeing a man named Tom Findlay, who wanted to break off the relationship citing Smith's children as the reason. The breakup sparked Smith to kill her children, according to prosecutors.
Smith’s childhood was also brought up during the trial. Smith’s father committed suicide when she was young. Her stepfather, Beverley Russel, a former Union County Republican Party chairman and leader in the Christian Coalition,began molesting her when she was 15.
The discoveries during the trial opened theories to Smith's motives.
"There was a truly a large combination of factors in her life that made her who she was, because ultimately, in my estimation, she chose to get rid of those kids in the hope that she would be with Tom Findlay," said Pope, who has served in the South Carolina House of Representatives since 2010.
Pope said he thinks a lot about the horror of Smith identifying an innocent Black man who could've been convicted and sentenced to death for her crimes.
"If we would've convicted the wrong person, everybody involved would have to live with themselves knowing a man was in prison or died because of us," Pope said.
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Pope said he prosecuted Smith no differently than how he would a man seeking the death penalty but failed when the jury elected for life in prison.
"I sought the death penalty. I always thought I knew it was an uphill battle with her being a mom, I just felt strongly that she needed to be treated the same and received the same punishment if the Black guy or David had done it," Pope said.
Prisondiscipline
During her 30 years in prison, Smith has been punished multiple times for violations.
The most notable of the violations occurred in 2000 when Smith engaged in sexual acts with two corrections officers while at the Women's Correctional Center in Columbia. Afterward, she was moved to Leath.
"The belief was that she would spend her time thinking about Michael and Alex. It's clear she hasn't been thinking about Michael and Alex," Pope said.
She also was disciplined on four occasions for self-inflicted mutilation or injury. The others happened in April 2010, June 2012, and October 2012. There also were reports of misuse of another inmate's PIN and drug use.
"She's having sex with the guards and now got guys that want her on social media when she gets out of prison," Pope said. "She's not focused on remorse for the lives she took. I think she needs to continue to serve her sentence and serve it out forward."
