Who is Susan Smith? Mom who murdered two young sons 'behaving herself' in prison after sex scandals, in hope of parole
GREENWOOD, SOUTH CAROLINA: A South Carolina mother who was jailed for drowning her two young sons more than two decades ago is reportedly "behaving herself" now and following prison rules as she gets closer to her first parole date.
In 1994, Smith murdered three-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alexander after a man she was having an affair with said he didn't want kids. She will be eligible for parole in November 2024. Smith, who spent her time behind the bars in Leath Correctional Institution in Greenwood, South Carolina, previously violated prison rules after she was allegedly caught having sex with guards and was also involved in drug abuse and self-mutilation.
According to a People report, Smith is now aware that her past crimes have created a difficult road for her but is now determined to turn things around, "She's behaving herself these days. She knows that her parole date is four years away and she can't get parole if she isn't being good," a source told People. Smith, who is working as a ward-keeper assistant is behaving herself now and the source said that "she is giving her best."
On October 25, 1994, Smith drowned her two sons and reported to police that she had been carjacked by a Black man, who kidnapped her sons. She kept telling the same story for nine days to the police and constantly lied about the series of events that occurred. However, the investigators soon found out that there was no carjacker and she had let her car roll into a lake with her two sons, still strapped in their car seats.
She committed the hideous crime, as her boyfriend didn't want her to have children and she just wanted to get rid of them, all in the name of love. In 2015, she wrote a letter to The State, saying, “I am not the monster society thinks I am. I am far from it.”
“Something went very wrong that night. I was not myself,” she continued. “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.” Her ex-husband, David Smith, told People in 2010 that "he never fully recovered from the pain." He said, “There’s always this nagging and gnawing heartache. It’s there every day, even if I’m not always conscious of it."
Smith had been disciplined at least five times in the last 10 years for self-mutilation and possessing marijuana, each time she lost some privileges including visitations, canteen and telephone calls. In 2000, she was caught having sex with a 50-year-old prison guard named Houston Cagle after which he pleaded guilty and was jailed for three months. In 2001, she was caught doing a similar sex act with prison captain Alfred Rowe, who was sentenced to five years probation.