Posted on 07/21/2015 4:33:45 PM PDT by Gamecock
Susan Smith, the Union mother sentenced to life in prison after confessing to the murder of her two young boys 20 years ago, said she never planned to kill her children.
Smith reiterated in a letter she wrote to The State that she loved her boys. She said the deaths were unplanned, that she was distraught. She only lied about the boys being kidnapped because “I didn’t know how to tell the people who loved Michael and Alex that they would never see them again.”
So she said she planned to kill herself. “I had planned to kill myself first and leave a note behind telling what had happened,” Smith said in a letter to The State newspaper. “I didn’t believe I could face my family when the truth was revealed.”
“Mr. Cahill, I am not the monster society thinks I am. I am far from it,” she wrote to reporter Harrison Cahill.
Wednesday marks the 20th anniversary of Smith’s conviction, for which she received a life sentence in the deaths of 14-month-old Alex Smith and 3-year-old Michael Smith.
In August 2014, The State submitted a letter to Smith asking if she would share her experiences of her trial and investigation for a 20th-anniversary article regarding the untold stories of the Susan Smith case, which was published in the newspaper in October.
Smith said she was unable to respond in time to tell her side because the letter “was sent to the SCDC Correspondence Review Committee and was not approved until Nov. 19, 2014.”
“I imagine that was done on purpose,” Smith said. “I wanted to let you know that I would have most likely responded to your letter because I have (not) yet been able to speak on my behalf. It has been hard to listen to lie after lie and not be able to defend myself.”
But now, 43-year-old Smith has shared some of her thoughts regarding the night she killed her children.
On Oct. 25, 1994, Smith told law enforcement she was stopped at a red light at an intersection on Main Street in the town of Union, when a black man forced her out of the car at gunpoint and drove off with her two small sons in the back.
“Something went very wrong that night. I was not myself,” Smith said. “I was a good mother and I loved my boys. ... There was no motive as it was not even a planned event. I was not in my right mind.”
Nine days after reporting to police that her sons were missing, Smith confessed to watching her 1990 Mazda Protege roll into John D. Long Lake with 14-month-old Alex and 3-year-old Michael strapped into the backseat. “The only reason I lied is because I didn’t know how to tell the people who loved Michael and Alex that they would never see them again,” Smith said.
The nation had been riveted by Smith’s story. Many were shocked by her confession. And her lie about a black man hijacking her car caused ripples of racial anger for decades.
On July 22, 1995, then-16th Circuit Solicitor Tommy Pope failed to convince a jury that Smith should receive the death penalty for killing her two children. Smith was sentenced to life in prison.
Initial reports suggested that Smith’s motivation for killing her children came on the heels of a letter she received breaking off an affair she was involved in with Tom Findley, son of the owner of Cosno Products, where Smith worked as a secretary and with whom she was having an affair. But Smith said that is a lie.
“The thing that hurts me the most is that people think I hurt my children in order to be with a man,” Smith said. “That is so far from the truth.”
Smith signed the letter to The State, “Sincerely, Susan.”
The State wrote a follow-up letter to Smith in June after receiving her response in January. However, she has not responded.
Letter, Page One
Letter, Page Two
Uncomplicates life, doesn’t it?
I understand she got quite a "welcome" when she arrived at the penitentiary, but survived it. I suspect she's been isolated from the general population since, which would be why she's still breathing...
the infowarrior
Exactly.
Same here.
I knew the first time I saw this monster on TV pretending to be pleading for the “kidnapper” to return her children that she had killed them.
I like things simple and just.
Stopped at my mother’s house at the time she was doing a presser with the sheriff and packs of news monkeys. My mom believed her of course, but I told her that Smith was lying.
A real tell was her generating the waterworks yet still being able to speak clearly. Saw that plenty growing up from my seven younger siblings with fake crying.
If the boys father had done this he would have been executed years ago.
What a waste of a human being. In a just world, she’d already be dead and if I were Queen of the world, she’d be electrocuted by now and not “put to sleep”......;(
One of the saddest news stories ever. Her little boys were calling for their mother as she killed them
The saddest story, though, was that little girl (I think it was in Texas), who, as her mother was torturing the poor little thing to death, kept crying out to her mother: “I love you, mommy!”
Now, I consider myself a pretty tough guy, as I’ve seen a lot of bad shit in my lifetime, and in my work, but, I tell you: I lost it when I heard that report. And I’m not ashamed to say it.
Ditto what you said.
I remember that well. It was her first statement in front of cameras and I knew without a doubt she was lying.
There’s the old story (maybe told about the Melendez brothers in California?) who killed their parents and threw themselves on the mercy of the court because they were orphans.
This woman sounds like she killed her children and wants sympathy because she’s been bereaved...
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