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Crime-courts
Top StorySpotlight
Convicted murderer Susan Smith seeks freedom from prison. What to know
Lyn Riddle
TNS/The State
Convicted murderer Susan Smith will seek her freedom for the second time during a hearing next month.
She will face the South Carolina Probation and Parole Board on Nov. 19.
Smith
SCDOC
The board unanimously denied her application in November 2024 after she served 30 years for the drowning deaths of her young sons, Michael and Alex, in Union.
During that hearing, Smith said, “I want to say how very sorry I am. I know that what I did was horrible and I would give anything if I could go back and change it.”
But the people who spoke against her release, including her ex-husband and father of the boys David Smith, said not only should she not be released, but should spend the rest of her life in prison.
“She changed my life for the rest of my life that night,” he said.
Her attorney, Tommy Thomas, said during the hearing that Smith’s actions were the result of untreated mental health issues, caused by, among other things, her father’s suicide when she was 6. He said she had attempted suicide multiple times.
At her 1995 trial, it was revealed that Smith had been molested as a teenager by her stepfather, Beverly Russell, a leader in the local Republican Party and member of the Christian Coalition.
Smith let her car roll into John D. Long Lake in Union County with her boys strapped into car seats on Oct. 25, 1994.
She lied that a man had taken her car with the boys inside at a stoplight, a story she maintained for 10 days before confessing what she in fact had done.
Smith was convicted of two counts of murder.
She has been in prison since July 28, 1995, and is now at Leath Correctional Institution in Greenwood.
While in prison, Smith was cited for possession of drugs, using another inmate’s PIN and mutilation. She had no infractions for 10 years until not long before her parole hearing when she was disciplined for speaking with a documentary film company.
She lost canteen privileges, tablet privileges and telephone for 90 days.
Smith is currently working as a wardkeeper assistant, and at various times has worked as a landscape laborer, food service aide, laundry helper, bookkeeper and teacher assistant.
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