A parent who murders their own child is a special kind of pariah in society. It is a crime most people find unthinkable. But anyone old enough in 1994 to be aware of current events will likely remember just such a crime. That was the case of Susan Smith, a mother who drowned her two young sons in a South Carolina Lake.
Susan Smith
Susan Smith’s childhood was far from ideal. Born Susan Leigh Vaughn, her father died by suicide when she was only six years old. Her stepfather, Beverly C. Russell, Jr., molested her as a teenager, and the two continued to have sexual relations until six months before she murdered her two boys. (Russell later became prominent in the South Carolina Republican Party and, ironically, the Christian Coalition.) Susan herself attempted suicide at age 13 and again after high school when the married man with whom she was having a relationship broke off their affair.
In 1991, she married David Smith. The couple had two sons, Michael Daniel, born in 1991, and Alexander Tyler, born in 1993.
Susan Smith Reports a Crime
On October 25, 1994, Smith called the police to report that a Black man had carjacked her, taking her 1990 Mazda Protégé with her sons still in the back seat. Over the next nine days, authorities conducted an intensive search for the boys. Susan and David, who had been having marital problems, came together to plead on national television for the boys’ safe return.
Two days after she reported the carjacking, police subjected Smith to a polygraph test. The results revealed an inconsistency in where the crime took place. She initially told investigators that she had stopped for a traffic light at an otherwise empty intersection when the man forced himself into her car. However, police noted that that particular traffic signal would not have turned red unless another car was at the intersection on the cross street.
Susan Smith Confesses
Finally, on the ninth day, Smith confessed that she had let her car roll into John D. Long Lake with the boys strapped in their car seats inside.
Smith’s motivation was supposedly to facilitate a relationship with a local wealthy married man named Tom Findlay, with whom she was having an affair. Shortly before the murders, he sent her a letter terminating their relationship, explicitly stating that he did not want children. Smith herself claimed there was no motive, that she was not in a “right state of mind.”
Detectives did not believe Smith’s story from the beginning and thought she had killed her boys. By the second day, police suspected she knew where the boys were and hoped they might still be alive. Investigators searched lakes and ponds in the area, including John D. Long Lake. However, they only looked as far as 30 feet from the shore, and it turned out that the car was 122 feet from the shoreline.
Susan Smith Tried and Convicted
Susan Smith went on trial on July 10, 1995. Her attorneys claimed she drove to the lake to kill herself, but her body willed itself out of the car. However, the prosecution believed she killed her sons to start a new life with her former lover. On July 22, the jury deliberated for only two and a half hours before returning two guilty verdicts.
Although Tommy Pope, the lead prosecutor in the case, argued vehemently for the death penalty, the jury ultimately voted against it. She received two concurrent life terms.
Smith has hardly been a model prisoner. In 2000, authorities charged two corrections officials at the Camille Griffin Graham Correctional Institution with having sex with her. This resulted in her move to the Leath Correctional Institution in Greenwood, South Carolina, where she remains today (2025). She has also faced disciplinary action for possession and use of drugs.
Epilogue
Susan Smith had her first parole hearing in 2024. The Board of Pardons and Paroles denied her parole request.
These books provide details of the murders, allowing you to delve further into Susan Smith’s crime. Beyond All Reason is David Smith’s (ghostwritten) account of his life with Susan. Sins of the Mother by Maria Eftimiades and Carla Thompson’s Susan Smith: Child Killer also examine the case.
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