A South Carolina woman who killed her two sons 30 years ago is applying for parole Wednesday.
Susan Smith, 53, was convicted of allowing her boys to buckle up in their car seats and drive the car into the lake. The 1994 case captivated many people.
Now that he has served three decades in prison, he is eligible for a parole hearing.
He will have a chance to explain to the seven-member parole board why he should be released. The father of her children and the prosecutor in the case will also have a chance to argue why she should be behind bars.
Prosecutors argued during the trial that Smith killed her three-year-old Michael and one-year-old Alex after a man she was having an affair with told her that his son was worried about the couple’s future together. There were reasons.
Smith eventually pleaded guilty. Defense lawyers said she was mentally ill and wanted to die with her children but left the car at the last minute.
But that’s not what he publicly claimed had happened before.
Smith initially said he had been carjacked late at night and a man had taken his car.
When he publicly pleaded for the safe return of his sons, they were at the bottom of a nearby lake.
Smith was convicted of murder, but under South Carolina law at the time she was eligible for a parole hearing every two years after serving 30 years in prison.
To release Smith, he would need a two-thirds vote of board members present, according to the state Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services.
