Susan Smith

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Susan Leigh Smith (née Vaughan; born September 26, 1971) is an American woman who was convicted of murdering her two sons, three-year-old Michael and one-year-old Alexander, in 1994 by strapping her children in their car seats, and rolling her car containing her two children into John D. Long Lake in South Carolina.<ref name="Spitz 2005 846–881">Template:Cite book</ref>

The case gained international attention because of Smith's false claim that a black man had kidnapped her sons during a carjacking.<ref name="NBC News">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Her defense attorneys, David Bruck and Judy Clarke, called expert witnesses to testify that she had mental health issues that impaired her judgment when she committed the crimes.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Smith was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years.<ref name="Spitz 2005 846–881"/> Smith was first eligible for parole on November 20, 2024, which was denied.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> She is incarcerated at the Leath Correctional Institution near Greenwood, South Carolina.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Family backgroundEdit

Smith's father died by suicide when she was six years old, and Smith herself attempted suicide at age 13. Her mother then married Beverly C. Russell Jr. who later was revealed to have molested Smith when she was a teenager. Russell was a local businessman who later gained prominence in South Carolina's Republican Party and the Christian Coalition. Both Smith and Russell have stated that sexual relations between them continued until six months before the murders.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

After graduating from high school in 1989, Smith made a second suicide attempt after a married man she was in a relationship with ended their affair.<ref name="trutv.com">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> She married David Smith, and they had two sons.

CrimesEdit

On October 25, 1994, Smith reported to police that she had been the victim of a carjacking by a black man while driving her 1990 Mazda Protégé sedan with her sons still in the back seat.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> For nine days, she made dramatic pleas on national television for their safe return. However, following an intensive investigation and a nationwide search for them, she confessed on November 3, 1994, to letting her car roll into nearby John D. Long Lake,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> drowning them inside.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Her motivation was reportedly to facilitate a relationship with a local wealthy man named Tom Findlay. Prior to the murders, he sent her a letter ending their relationship and expressing that he did not want children.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> She said there was no motive nor did she plan the murders, stating that she was not in a right state of mind.<ref name=NBC>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Later revelations indicated that detectives doubted Smith's story from the start and believed that she murdered her sons. By the second day of the investigation, the police suspected that she knew their location and hoped that they were still alive. Investigators started to search the nearby lakes and ponds, including John D. Long Lake, where their bodies were eventually found. Initial water searches did not locate the car because the police believed it would be within 30 feet of the shore, and did not search further; it turned out to be 122 feet from the shore. After the boys had been missing for two days, Smith was subjected to a polygraph test. A significant breakthrough in the case was her description of the carjacking location. She had claimed that a traffic light had turned red, causing her to stop at an otherwise empty intersection. However, it was determined that the light would not have turned red for her unless another vehicle was present on the intersecting road. This conflicted with her statement that she did not see any other cars there when the carjacking took place.

TrialEdit

In 1995, David Bruck and Judy Clarke served as co-counsel for Smith.<ref name="Smith Trial">Template:Cite news</ref> In their opening statement, Clarke argued Smith was deeply troubled and experienced severe depression.<ref name="Smith Trial" /> Clarke told the jury: "This is not a case about evil. This is a case about despair and sadness."<ref name="CNN" /> The defense's theory of the case was that Smith drove to the edge of the lake to kill herself and her two sons, but her body willed itself out of the car.<ref name="Smith Trial" /> The prosecution, on the other hand, believed she murdered her sons in order to start a new life with a former lover.<ref name="Smith Trial" /> It took the jury only two and a half hours to convict her of murdering them. During the penalty phase, Tommy Pope, the lead prosecutor in the Smith case, argued passionately in favor of sentencing Smith to death. The jury ultimately voted against imposing the death penalty.<ref name="CNN">Template:Cite news</ref> Smith was sentenced to two concurrent life terms in prison in 1995 for the murders of her two sons. Smith's defense psychiatrist diagnosed her with dependent personality disorder and major depression.<ref name="trutv.com"/>

IncarcerationEdit

Smith was originally incarcerated in the Administrative Segregation Unit in the Camille Griffin Graham Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

In 2000, two correctional officers at the Camille Griffin Graham Correctional Institution were charged after having sex with her.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Consequently, she was moved to the Leath Correctional Institution in Greenwood.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Smith's first parole eligibility was in November of 2024, at which time she was denied parole.<ref>Template:Citation</ref> It was reported that after Smith's chance for parole was denied she threw a tantrum in her cell.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In popular cultureEdit

The season three premiere of Arrested Development ("The Cabin Show") features a flashback scene in which Lucille Bluth (Jessica Walter), having recently gone off her postpartum medication, is watching a news story about Smith, and says, "Good for her!"— much to the concern of her son Buster (Tony Hale). The end of the episode features Lucille walking away from her car, with Buster asleep in the back seat as it rolls into a nearby body of water.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Season 6, Episode 8 ("Angel") of Law and Order was based on her case.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Blind Melon's song "Car Seat (God's Presents)," from their 1995 album Soup, was inspired by the Susan Smith murders,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> as was the Tom House song "I'm in Love with Susan Smith." The song "When This is Over," on Hayden's 1995 album Everything I Long For, is written from the point of view of one of Smith's sons as the car sinks into the lake.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> The first song released by Red Star Belgrade, "Union, S.C.", is written from Smith's perspective.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> "Paper Gown", a song from folk singer Caroline Herring's 2014 album Lantana takes the form of a murder ballad from the point of view of Smith.

Smith appears briefly in archival footage in the 2002 film Bowling for Columbine in a scene about "dangerous black guys".<ref>[https://www.imdb.com/{{#if: tt0310793

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ReferencesEdit

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External linksEdit

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