Susan Smith, in prison for the cold-blooded 1994 murders of her two young sons, has a parole hearing in just six weeks — and family members say that she has come up with at least four arguments she will make as she makes her bid for freedom — including that she’s been (mostly) well behaved in prison.
“She believes she might be a free woman in less than two months,” a relative told The Post.
“And she’s hoping that [the parole hearing] will go her way. She’s put all her hopes in that basket, and she’s manifesting her freedom.”
The Post has learned that Smith, 52, plans to argue that she grew up in a sexually abusive household that skewed her understanding of right and wrong. “She has a different moral compass than other people, because of her trauma,” the relative said. “It really did a number on her.”
Secondly, Smith wants to argue that she was not in her right mind as a young mom — and that she may have suffered from undiagnosed mental illness.
She was a 22-year-old mom when she let her car roll into John D. Long Lake in Union County, South Carolina, with her boys — 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alexander — still strapped into their car seats.
It’s an argument Smith has used before. “I am not the monster society thinks I am,” she wrote in a letter from jail to reporters at The State in 2015.
“Something went very wrong that night. I was not myself. There was no motive as it was not even a planned event. I was not in my right mind.”
Smith will also bring up the fact that she was disciplined in 2000 for having sex with two guards while behind bars. She has always maintained that the sex was not consensual, due to the differing power dynamics.
“I was a victim,” she told a friend on the outside in 2023, according to documents obtained by The Post. “I had sex with them both because I didn’t feel like I had a choice.”
Finally, Smith plans to argue that she has turned her life around behind bars. According to records obtained by the Post, she has held down a steady job and has had no disciplinary actions against her in nearly a decade.
However, she has had several infractions — including in 2010 and 2015 — for having narcotics or marijuana behind bars.
“She’s grown into a mature woman,” the family member tells the Post. “And she thinks she can thrive outside of prison.
But, the father of the kids she murdered plans to strongly contest her bid for parole.
In an interview with Court TV last week, David Smith said he was either going to write something to the parole board or make a speech to oppose her release.
“I’m going to remind them what she did and who the victims were in this case,” David Smith said. “Certainly not her.”
Smith has been incarcerated at Leath Correctional Institution in Greenwood for more than two decades after the notorious murder of her two sons.
She stood on the side of the lake as the vehicle sank to the bottom of the lake, slowly drowning both boys.
Smith then falsely told police that a black man had carjacked her and kidnapped the boys, leading to a manhunt in which authorities went door to door among local neighborhoods that were predominantly African American.
Smith and her then-husband appeared on national news every day, pleading for the boys’ safe return.
But nine days later, Smith finally confessed that there was no carjacker, and that she had drowned her sons in the lake.
Her alleged motive: She was having an affair with a wealthy man who didn’t want children. The car was pulled from the water with the two boys still strapped in their seats.
She was convicted of murder, but spared the death penalty and instead given life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years.
While experts don’t think that the parole bid will be successful, Smith remains optimistic that she’ll be freed.
“I think it’s time,” she told one of her jailhouse suitors earlier this year. “I’ve paid my debt. I deserve to be released. I’m no longer a danger to anyone. Just let me live my life.”
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