In October 1994, Susan Smith captured national attention with a terrifying tale: The young South Carolina mother, who was 23 at the time, claimed a Black man had carjacked her, and that he had taken off with her two toddlers in the car.
The truth, however, was even more devastating. After nine days of tearful pleas for her sons’ safe return, Smith confessed that there had been no carjacking. In reality, she had driven her car to a local boat ramp and let it roll into a lake — with her sons, 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alexander, strapped inside.
Smith’s alleged motive for the murders was that she was secretly dating a local businessman, Tom Findlay, who didn’t want children. In an effort to save their relationship, Smith drowned her two young sons. But Smith — who has been serving a life sentence for the killings since 1995 — insists that she is misunderstood.
“I am not the monster society thinks I am,” she wrote in a 2015 letter to The State, a South Carolina newspaper. “I am far from it.”
She continued: “Something went very wrong that night. I was not myself. 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.”
Now, after nearly 30 years behind bars, Smith is set to be eligible for parole on Nov. 4, 2024.
From her life behind bars to her upcoming parole date, here’s everything to know about where Susan Smith is now.
She has been serving a life sentence since July 1995
Murder defendent Susan Smith departs the Union County Courthouse in Union, S.C., on Wednesday, July 19, 1995.
Dave Martin/AP
Smith came clean about killing her two children nine days after their murder, and on Nov. 4, 1994, their bodies were recovered.
Smith’s murder trial began in July 1995. The prosecution sought the death penalty and alleged that it was Smith’s desire for a relationship with Findlay — who did not want children — that led her to kill her two sons. The defense, however, portrayed Smith as a woman with mental illness who intended to kill herself and her children on the night of Oct. 25, 1994 — but saved herself at the last moment, according to The New York Times.
The trial lasted less than a week, and the jury took less than two and a half hours to find Smith guilty on two counts of first-degree murder, The New York Timesreported. However, the jury declined to give Smith the death penalty — instead sentencing her to life in prison. Smith, who was 23 at the time, would be eligible for parole 30 years later, in 2024, according to The Washington Post.
“We all felt like Susan was a really disturbed person,” juror Deborah Benvenuti told reporters. “And we all felt that giving her the death penalty wouldn’t serve justice.”
However, the boys’ father, David Smith, told reporters at the courthouse that he did not feel justice had been served.
“I’ll never forget what Susan has done and I’ll never forget Michael and Alex. Me and my family of course are disappointed that the death penalty wasn’t the verdict,” he said.
Two prison guards were charged with having sex with Smith
Smith began her life sentence at the Camille Griffin Graham Correctional Institution in Columbia, S.C. During her time at that prison, she received two infractions for having sex with prison guards.
The incidents were discovered in 2000, when Smith was 28. According to UPI, 50-year-old prison guard Houston Cagle had had sex with Smith at least four times. An investigator discovered the affair while looking into tabloid claims that Smith had been beaten. Cagle pleaded guilty and was fired. He spent three months in jail, and Smith was disciplined.
In September 2000, a prison captain named Alfred Rowe was arrested for having sex with Smith, according to ABC News. Their encounter came to light after Smith told investigators she had sex with them, and he confessed. A year later, Rowe pleaded guilty and received five years probation.
As a result of the sexual infractions, Smith was transferred to the Leath Correctional Institution in Greenwood, S.C. Prison guards there took special precautions with Smith in light of her past, never allowing her to be alone with one of them and often transporting extra prisoners with her.
“No one trusts her to be alone with a guard,” a prison source told PEOPLE. “She spends most of her time in her cell or working her job, but when she’s being transported, there are always two guards with her, preferably a male and a female.”
She has been in trouble for drug use and self-mutilation while in prison
Susan Smith in prison. South Carolina Department of Corrections
Smith’s disciplinary issues continued at Leath Correctional Institute. Jailhouse records show that Smith was disciplined at least five times between 2010 The and 2017 for infractions including self-mutilation, drug use and possession of narcotics or marijuana. Punishment for her infractions involved the loss of visitation, canteen and telephone privileges.
She was disciplined on drug charges twice in 2010 and once in 2015 and lost privileges for more than a year as a result. Rowe, one of the prison guards who had sex with Smith, claimed that her drug use escalated when she was transferred to Leath.
“She could no longer get the male attention that she used as a drug,” he claimed in an episode of Lifetime’s Cellmate Secrets in July 2021. Christie Smith, Smith’s former cellmate, revealed that her “main purpose was to bring her her pills.”
“I’ve seen Susan do everything,” she alleged, in reference to Smith’s drug use. “Snort, booty bump, swallow, shoot. I’ve seen her do it all.”
She had a long distance boyfriend from behind bars
In March 2022, we learned that Smith — who was then 50 years old and had spent more than half her life in prison — had been sending “romantic correspondence” to a man outside of the jail for over a year.
The long distance romance began after the man (who was divorced, in his mid-40s and had two adult children) saw a documentary about Smith on television. He wrote her a letter, and their correspondence eventually grew to “a few letters per week,” a source said.
“They write letters all the time,” a family member of Smith’s said. “Handwritten letters about what their future will be. She’s very romantic like that, always wanting to find a happily ever after.”
Smith wrote about wanting to “start fresh” with her boyfriend if she were ever freed from jail. “We’re going to have amazing chemistry in person,” she wrote in one letter seen. “I can’t wait to build a life with you. Leave the past mistakes behind and start fresh, just you and me.”
A relative of Smith’s said that the couple were even discussing marriage if she got parole in 2024.
“She’s imagining the normalcy of a married life,” the relative said . “She wants everything in life that she believes has passed her by. So yeah, she is talking marriage with him and thinking that she can spend the last part of her life as a wife and stepmother.”
By October 2022, however, the relationship had “fizzled out.” A Smith family member said, “They are no longer corresponding. It’s over.”
She is eligible for parole in November 2024
Susan Smith looks toward an unidentified law enforcement officer as she departs the Union County Courthouse in Union, SC., on Friday, July 14, 1995. Dave Martin/AP
Smith has reportedly been focusing on turning around her behavior in prison, with the hopes of being granted parole in November 2024.
A prison source who had known Smith for several years said in 2020 that Smith was following prison rules to help better her chances at release. “She’s behaving herself these days,” the source said. “She knows that her parole date is four years away and she can’t get parole if she isn’t being good.”
However, Smith’s disciplinary history — which includes her infractions for drug use, self-mutilation and sexual contact with a guard — will also factor into the parole board’s decision.
“I don’t think she’s got a snowball’s chance in hell of getting paroled in 2024,” a family member of Smith’s told PEOPLE in 2022. “She’s exactly where she needs to be.”
Her ex-husband David said he will do “everything in my power” to keep her behind bars
Before she had murdered their children, Smith had already filed for divorce from David in September 1994. A judge granted their divorce in May 1995, a couple of months before her trial began.
Now, two months ahead of her parole hearing, Smith’s ex-husband David shared on Court TV in September 2024 what he would say to his former wife if they came face to face.
“I would just tell her that you have no idea of how much damage you have done to so many people,” he said. “I would tell her that in my capabilities I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure you stay behind bars.”
David has since moved on from the relationship, welcoming two more children, Savannah and Nicolas, in relationships with other women in 2001 and 2003, respectively, per Go Upstate.
“I’ve said before, I admit being a lousy husband,” David told the outlet in a June 2004 interview. “But I’ve always been a good father to my kids. I enjoy being a father very much. I mean there’s no greater love in the world than loving a child.”
