(NewsNation) — Thirty years after she killed her two children, Susan Smith is now eligible for parole, raising the question of whether she will get out of prison.
Susan Smith initially told law enforcement that a man carjacked her and took off with her two children still inside the car in 1994.
Smith, who is white, identified the carjacker as Black when she described the alleged late-night carjacking near Union, South Carolina.
Smith pleaded with the media and public for help locating three-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alex, attracting international attention to the case. For nine days, she appeared on TV begging for help.
But elements of her story didn’t add up, including her description of the carjacking and why the carjacker would release her but keep her young children.
Eventually, Smith admitted to strapping her two sons into car seats in the back of her car and driving it onto a boat ramp at a South Carolina lake, letting the vehicle roll into the water with her children inside.
Smith said she was having an affair and the man that she was cheating with didn’t want kids.
Now, 30 years later, Smith is eligible for parole. That angers investigators like Union County Sheriff Jeff Bailey, who says Smith deserves to spend every day of her life behind bars, even if she’s already been locked up for 30 years.
“Those kids didn’t have a chance and I don’t think she deserves one,” Bailey said. “She still killed her kids, that is the bottom line That is [her] blood, [she] chose to let them go into the water and drown. That is a horrible death.”
Smith’s parole hearing is set for Wednesday morning, where she will make her case for release. She will appear via video conference before the parole board in Columbia at 9 a.m. Wednesday. Under current South Carolina law, which was changed after Smith’s conviction, she would not be eligible for parole if convicted in 2024.
During the trial, Smith’s lawyers said she was experiencing a mental breakdown and had intended to stay in the car with her sons but had exited at the last minute.
Smith has also made claims that her then-husband abused her, something he has denied.
About 400 people have written letters opposing Smith’s release, while five or six have advocated for her second chance. Smith’s ex-husband David, who had originally supported the death penalty in the case, plans to attend the hearing with his family to oppose her parole.
Smith has also made claims that her then-husband abused her, something he has denied.
During her time in prison, Smith has faced trouble multiple times, for everything from using drugs to having sex with prison guards.
The former prosecutor who sought the death penalty for Smith revealed Tuesday to NewsNation that he believes her sons screamed for their mother as they drowned.
Tommy Pope, now a state representative, said Smith’s initial false claim that one of her sons yelled “mommy” during an alleged carjacking may have contained a kernel of truth — but not in the way she presented it.
“That prosecutor believes that as they were going down in the water… the boys were screaming out for their mother at that time, and that she just stood there and watched the car sink,” Pope said.
Pope, who was 32 when he prosecuted the case, said the defense team effectively transformed the public perception of Smith “from Susan the monster to Susan the victim” in their small mill town of Union, where “everyone knows everyone.”
Susan Smith case: ‘View’ from the car seats as boys drowned
NewsNation’s “Banfield” revisited evidence from her trial, including the view from the car seats of Michael and Alex in the back of Smith’s Mazda sedan as she rolled it into South Carolina’s John D. Long Lake, leaving them strapped inside.
During the trial, investigators recreated the scene using cameras inside and outside Smith’s actual car, capturing the act from the perspective of her young sons.
NewsNation’s Damita Menezes contributed to this report.
