On Wednesday, shortly after the Parole Board rejected Susan Smith's appeal for freedom, the depressed 53-year-old returned to her cell and went on an emotional rant.
“She was furious,” said an onlooker at Reese Correctional Facility in Greenwood, South Carolina. “She was crying and angry. She was waving her hands and was very upset. It looked like she was having a tantrum.”
Not that the convicted murderer got too much sympathy from his fellow inmates. “Almost all the girls think this is funny,” said an onlooker. “She walks around here like she rules the roost. Guess what? You don't. You're just like everyone else.”
The source added: “I don't think she was thinking about her sons at all yesterday. She was clearly thinking only about herself.”
At Wednesday's hearing, Smith tearfully apologized for drowning her two young sons in 1994 and said she wished she could have taken it back.
Smith, who attended meetings remotely via Zoom, lost touch with reality when he killed his sons Alex and Michael by strapping them into car seats and drowning them in a South Carolina lake in 1994, directors said. told the meeting.
“I am a Christian and I know that God has forgiven me,” Smith told the committee, imploring them to “show the same mercy.”
However, formally Smith still refused to take full responsibility for his actions, blaming others for his choices.
Her arguments swayed the seven-member South Carolina Parole Board, which immediately voted to deny Smith's request.
Smith was a 22-year-old mother when she shot to fame after killing her sons, three-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alexander. In 1994, she drove her car into John D. Long Lake in Union County, South Carolina, with her sons strapped into child seats.
Smith falsely told police that a black man had carjacked her and kidnapped her infant, leading authorities to go door-to-door in her predominantly African-American neighborhood. .
Smith and her then-husband, David Smith, appeared on national news daily to plead for the boys' safe return.
But nine days later, Smith finally confessed that the carjacking had never happened and that he had drowned his sons in the lake.
She was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Her first parole hearing was held Wednesday.
Smith will now be able to apply for parole every two years. That means the murdered son's family will have to come forward and resist the demands if they want to ensure Smith stays behind bars.
