COLUMBIA, S.C. (Court TV) — The South Carolina mother who drowned her two toddler sons 30 years ago in a case that shocked the world is up for parole in November. The most recent person to speak out in opposition of Susan Smith’s release is Alfred Rowe, a former prison guard who admitted to having sex with Smith.
Rowe spoke exclusively to NewsNation’s “Banfield,” saying that Smith’s “prison record shows that she’s not really learned anything” besides “how to do illegal drugs.” Rowe also said he believes Smith has “a lot of cleaning up to do” before getting a shot at freedom.
Susan Smith’s most updated mugshot, from 2023. (South Carolina Dept. of Corrections)
Three-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alexander were still strapped into their car seats when Smith’s car was found submerged in a Union County lake in Oct. of 1994. Smith initially lied to police, saying she’d been carjacked while stopped at a red light by a black male who drove off with the boys inside. That never happened. Instead, a massive nine-day search for the kids took place, during which Smith made desperate pleas on television for their safe return.
Susan Smith’s story quickly began to unravel, and on Nov. 3, 1994 she fessed up to having allowed her vehicle to roll into the lake. Smith claimed the murders were not premeditated and that she had been dealing with a mental health crisis. It was soon revealed, however, that she was motivated by an affair she was having with a wealthy older man who did not want children.
At her 1995 trial, Smith’s defense team tried to convince the jury that their client, in a bout of depression, drove to the edge of the lake in a suicide attempt but that her body willed itself out of the vehicle.
Smith, now 52, believes she’s spent enough time in prison. She will become eligible for parole for the first time on Nov. 4. Smith reached out to her ex-husband in hopes of garnering his support, but if David Smith has anything to say about it, his former wife’s sentence of 30 years to life will last as long as possible.
Tommy Pope, the lead prosecutor on the case, spoke to Court TV’s Julie Grant about Smith’s pending parole hearing. As the former solicitor for South Carolina’s 16th district, Pope argued in favor of the death penalty. A life sentence was eventually imposed, but Pope clarified that the jury was unaware that Smith would ever be considered for parole. They took the sentence at face value, believing life meant life.
“The sentence she received of life in 1995, the jury could not be told that life didn’t mean life,” said Pope. “In other words, they were told, ‘Take life in your plain and usual meaning,’ so even afterward, the jurors were saying, ‘She’ll have to sit in prison, she’ll be remorseful about Michael and Alex, and she’ll be there the rest of her life.”
Smith was initially serving her sentence at the Camille Griffin Graham Correctional Institution in Greenwood, S.C. She was moved to Leath Correctional Institution in Columbia, S.C. in 2000 after the two corrections officers were charged with having sex with her.
Correction: A previous version incorrectly stated that Smith would have a parole hearing on Nov. 4. She’ll first become eligible for parole on Nov. 4. A hearing has not yet been scheduled.
