By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-11-18 17:17:06 | Updated at 2024-11-23 07:52:55
4 days ago
A mother who murdered her two young sons 30 years ago will learn this week if her bid for freedom has been successful.
Susan Smith, 53, drowned sons Michael, three, and Alex, 14-months, in a South Carolina lake in 1994.
She was sentenced to life in prison with possibility of parole after 30 years and will make her case for release to the South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole, and Pardon Services board on Wednesday.
The seven-member board will hear from Smith virtually from the Leath Correctional Institute in Greenwood, where she is incarcerated.
She will need at least a two-thirds majority of the panel to her approve her application and needs to meet pre-release conditions which include employment, residence, programming and detainers, according to Court TV.
The case should be heard pretty quickly and Smith will likely learn if it has been successful on the same day.
If her application is denied, she can apply again in two years. Data shows the board grants approximately 8 percent of parole requests for violent offenders.
The boys father, David Smith, and former prosecutor Tommy Pope plan to testify against her release.
Convicted child killer mother Susan Smith (pictured), 53, will make her case for release in front of a South Carolina parole board on Wednesday
Smith, 53, drowned sons Michael (left), three, and Alex (right), 14-months, in a South Carolina lake in 1994
David told Court TV that he has forgiven Smith, but does not want her released from prison.
'You have no idea of how much damage you have done to so many people,' he said.
Pope said Smith's outrageous prison behavior shows she has not learned from her time behind bars.
'The belief was that she would spend her time thinking about Michael and Alex. It's clear she hasn't been thinking about Michael and Alex,' Pope told Greenville News.
'She's having sex with the guards and now got guys that want her on social media when she gets out of prison. She's not focused on remorse for the lives she took. I think she needs to continue to serve her sentence and serve it out forward.'
Just weeks before she became eligible for parole, Smith was convicted of a prison disciplinary charge.
The Department of Corrections revealed that the convicted child killer was found communicating with a filmmaker from behind bars in August this year.
She was said to have been discussing her crimes, and providing contact information for friends, family and victims, including her former husband, David Smith. The filmmaker also deposited money into Smith's account, police said.
She was sentenced to life in prison with possibility of parole after 30 years for the 1994 murders
Smith reported her two sons missing in October 1994 and she and her husband (pictured) begged for their safe return
Her story was quickly picked apart and Smith confessed to strapping the two boys into their car seat and watching the car roll into the lake
Smith has had a history of infractions during her incarceration, including drug use, self-mutilations and incidents in which she was caught having sex with guards.
And in February this year, DailyMail.com revealed that the evil mother had been having phone sex with a man half her age from prison.
Smith reported her two sons missing in October 1994 and told deputies the boys had been taken by an unidentified black man during a carjacking.
She wept on national television while her husband begged for their safe return.
Her story was quickly picked apart and Smith confessed to strapping the two boys into their car seat and watching the car roll into the lake.
It was claimed she killed the boys after the man she was having an affair with, Thomas Findlay, broke up with her because he didn't want children.
