Susan Smith, the South Carolina mom who killed her young children by driving her car into a lake 30 years ago, was denied parole on Wednesday.
A South Carolina parole board voted to keep the 53-year-old killer behind bars despite her claims of being a Christian who’s been forgiven by God.
“I just ask that you show that same kind of mercy as well,” Smith pleaded to board members via video.
Smith was convicted of killing her 3-year-old and 14-month-old sons in October 1994, then telling investigators she’d been carjacked by a Black man who took the automobile and the children in it.
For nine days Smith begged the public to help locate her allegedly kidnapped boys, despite knowing they were at the bottom of John D. Long Lake, authorities said.
Smith eventually admitted to rolling her Mazda down a boat ramp and into the water with her sons strapped into their car seats.
More than a dozen people, including the boys’ father, opposed Smith’s request for release.
“I’m asking that you please, deny her parole today and hopefully in the future, but specifically today,” David Smith said.
A jury opted to give Smith life in prison rather than the death penalty following her 1995 conviction. Her sentence is up for review every two years.
During her murder trial, Smith’s defense team contended her father had killed himself and that her stepfather and another man were having sex with her. Her lawyer argued Wednesday that “untreated mental health” issues led to Smith killing her sons and that she no longer poses a threat to the community.
“I know what I did was horrible,” an emotional Smith told her parole board. “I would give anything so I could change it.”
Prosecutors meanwhile argued during trial that Smith was having an affair and saw her children as an obstacle in that struggling relationship.
Records during her incarceration have shown she’s discussed having a future with men who’ve contacted her by phone, according to The Associated Press. One prison guard admitted to having sex with Smith in 2000.
With News Wire Services
