Susan Smith

Susan Leigh Vaughan-Smith is an American convict who was sentenced to life in prison for filicide. Born in Union, South Carolina, she is a former student of the University of South Carolina. On July 22, 1995, she was convicted of the drowning deaths of her two sons, three-year-old Michael Daniel Smith, and 14-month-old Alexander Tyler Smith. The case gained worldwide attention shortly after it developed, due to her false claim that a black man carjacked her and kidnapped her two sons. Her defense attorneys, David Bruck and Judy Clarke, presented expert testimony that she suffered from mental health issues that impaired her judgment when she committed the crimes. According to the South Carolina Department of Corrections, Smith will be eligible for parole on November 4, 2024, after serving a minimum of 30 years. She is incarcerated at South Carolina's Leath Correctional Institution, near Greenwood. The case: On October 25, 1994, Smith reported to police that her vehicle had been carjacked by a black man who drove away with her sons still in it. For nine days, she made dramatic pleas on national television for their rescue and return. However, following an intensive investigation and a nationwide search, on November 3, 1994, she confessed to letting her 1990 Mazda Protegé roll into nearby John D. Long Lake, drowning the boys inside. Her motivation was reportedly to be able to have a relationship with a local wealthy man, even though the latter had no intention of forming a family. Later investigation revealed that detectives always doubted Smith's testimony, and believed that she murdered her sons. On the second day of the investigation, the police, suspecting that she knew their location, 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 searches did not uncover the car because the police believed it would be within 30 feet off the shore, and did not search farther; it turned out to be 60 feet off-shore. After the boys were missing for two days, Smith and her estranged husband, David, were subjected to a polygraph test. The biggest breakthrough of the case was her description of the carjacking location. Smith had claimed that a traffic light had turned red to compel her to stop at an otherwise empty intersection. However, it was determined that the signal would not have changed to red for her unless a vehicle were present on the intersecting road. This conflicted with Smith's statement that she did not see any other cars at the intersection when the carjacking took place. Smith's defense psychiatrist diagnosed her with dependent personality disorder and major depression. Her father committed suicide when she was six years old, and she rarely had a stable home life. It was disclosed in her trial that she was molested in her teens by her stepfather, who not only admitted to it, but also revealed that he had consensual sex with her when she was an adult. At 13, she attempted suicide. After graduating from high school in 1989, she made a second attempt to end her own life. She married David and had the two sons, but the relationship was rocky due to mutual allegations of infidelity, and they separated several times. At one time, Smith was incarcerated in the Administrative Segregation Unit in the Camille Griffin Graham Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina. While she has been in prison, two correctional officers have been punished for having sex with Smith: Lt. Houston Cagle and Capt. Alfred R. Rowe, Jr. Consequently, she was moved to a prison in Greenwood where she is currently held. In 2003, she placed a personal ad at WriteAPrisoner.com, which has since been retracted. 1996 drownings: On the evening of September 2, 1996, a group of 10 local people arrived in a GMC Suburban at John D. Long Lake, to view two monuments that had been erected to Smith's sons at the site of the boat ramp where she had drowned them. The vehicle, which had a history of transmission issues, was parked with seven people inside on an incline facing the lake, and headlights shining on the monuments. Although still in Park, it rolled down the incline and into the lake. All seven people, five in the same family, drowned. The deaths were ruled accidental. The original Smith murders and the accidental 1996 drownings prompted calls to make changes at the lake. On November 16, 1996, the South Carolina Natural Resources Department made the decision to dismantle the boat ramp where both incidents occurred. Another one on the opposite side of the lake remains in use.