Another former cellmate, Stephanie Hulsey, says inmates were able to procure pills for other inmates by stashing them in their upper cheeks to avoid detection by guards. During the pregnancy, David started his own affair due to Smiths distant and irritable ways. She was born on September 26th in 1971, the youngest of three kids. The jury has heard embarrassing testimony about Smith's affair with co-worker Tom Findlay and her claim _ which she later recanted _ that she slept with J. Cary Findlay, Tom Findlay's father and Conso's chairman. Murder of Susan Smith. Tom Findleythe son of the owner of the company where Smith worked as a secretarywho didn't want children. As the car was removed from the lake, the bodies of two children remained in their car seats, grossly deformed from being underwater too long. "Conso is one fine small company," said Kay Norwood, a textile analyst for Interstate/Johnson Lane. Those children had a right to enjoy life, and she had no right to take life from them! "This is an incredibly sad tale," Norwood said. Again, Smith tried to get Tom on her side by going to his office, and declaring what she had told him was a lie. According to jail records reviewed by People magazine, Smith has committed a number of infractions while behind bars, ranging from drug-use issues to self-harm, and has lost a variety of privileges for these infractions (such as loss of phone, canteen and visitation privileges). Susan Smith (born Susan Vaughan) led a troubled childhood, though nobody at her high school would have noticed. Smith was reprimanded by her mom for making the issue public. Under South Carolina law, Smith will be eligible for parole in 30 years, although the notorious nature of her crime makes it unlikely she will ever be released. When her mother Linda married Beverly C. Russell Jr., it seemed the familys luck was looking up. Tom Findlay and Smith were among five people who partied nude in a hot tub at Cary Findlay's estate Oct. 15, 10 days before the boys were drowned in a lake. Findlay painted a picture of Susan Smith as a good friend and caring mother who was also suicidal and unstable. She knows that her parole date is four years away and she cant get parole if she isnt being good., In 2020, Melissa Moore, a crime correspondent for The Dr. Oz Show, said that while communicating with Smith in prison, she realized Smith was a joy to talk to, saying, If she did not commit those crimes, she would be your best friend.. In November 2020, Jon Ozmint, former director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections, told the New York Post that Smith will always be a manipulative person, its who she is.. The composite drawing of the carjacker was so generic that it raised suspicion. Inside Susan Smith's Life In Prison Today, were also covered by newspapers like The New York Times. From the moment Susan reported her kids missing, a nationwide search began for her car. She was eventually found guilty of the highly-publicized crime. "I am not the monster society thinks I am," she wrote. Prosecutor Tommy Pope told reporters he would try in closing arguments to emphasize the character of the crime. After breaking up with David, Susan started working as a bookkeeper at the largest employer in the area, Conso Products. "I was able to see a small hand pressed against the glass.". Christie Smith claims that while at Leath Correctional Institution in Greenwood County, South Carolina, she witnessed Susans drug habit first hand. Her mother Linda, weeks after her divorce, took up a new relationship. Despite the animosity in the marriage both parents were seen as devoted to the children. 'I took David's threats seriously.' Investigators testified Wednesday. Lived In Pittsburgh PA, Upper . Smith was seeing a co-worker from the local grocery store and she was having an affair with a married man. Twice in 2010 and once in 2015, she was disciplined on drug charges, losing privileges for more than a year. All the conspiracies about this financier, 'Dateline': The insane story behind the Chris Smith murder. For nine days, she went on television, pleading tearfully for their safe return. "The company realizes that what happens has to be played out in the courts and that it does not have anything to do with Conso or its business," Cooney said. By March of 92, the couple separated. Though the then-teenager reported the ongoing sexual abuse twice to her high school counselor the first of which resulted in a brief separation between her stepfather, Beverly "Bev" Russell, Jr., who was a "prominent" member of the South Carolina Republican party, per TIME, and the state's Christian Coalition organization the charges were dropped. Jurors in Susan Smith's murder trial heard the words written by an ex-boyfriend that prosecutors say drove the young mother to kill her two sons: ``I just don't want children.'' In a letter to Smith written a week before 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alex were drowned in a lake, Tom Findlay described her as ``intelligent, beautiful, sensitive, understanding.'' Eventually, she sent her car driving into a lake, she watched as the car with her two sons inside sank. You can also find more information, resources, and support at www.thehotline.org. Susan Smith later confessed that the carjacking story was false and that she had driven her Mazda into John D. Long Lake in order to drown her children. Smith and Findley had been dating for a few months after her separation from her . In 1994, Smith strapped her two sons, 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alex, into their car seats and pushed the vehicle into a lake. The police became suspicious of the inconsistencies in Smiths story, and facts that didnt line up. Chances are you or someone you love has experienced what its like to be a caregiver while juggling lifes bills and responsibilities. Hulsen also says Smith would get a lot of money from random men and her family. However, support would soon turn to . For nine days, she stuck to the story that a black carjacker abducted the children on a dark, desolate stretch of country road. Her motive: She was secretly dating a man who didn't want children. Gifts processed in this system are not tax deductible, but are predominately used to help meet the local financial requirements needed to receive national matching-grant funds. Although the high-pressure jobs have contributed to the breakup of some marriages, they are considered among the best in Union. I was not myself, I was a good mother and I loved my boys. She was very frightened.. After graduating from high school, she then met David Smith, the man who would become the father of her two children. Susan Smith slept with two corrections officers in 2000 and 2001, both the officers were convicted and Susan was shifted to another prison. Susan Smith told the police that the car and the children were at the bottom of John Ds long lake. I was not in my right mind.. Susan will have a chance of parole in November 2024, and at that point shell have been behind the bars for 30 years. The Susan Smith I know is very caring, very loving, a good friend to everyone, not just me, he said. Due to a tumultuous marriage between her parents, full of aggression, they divorced when she was seven years old, and soon after, her father Harry, at the age of 37, committed suicide. By Samantha Benitz The case of Susan Smith, the woman who killed her young sons in 1994, will be explored in the upcoming Lifetime docuseries Cellmate Secrets. TO BE HONEST WITH YOU THERE WAS A TIME WHEN I WISHED THAT SHE WOULD DIE IN JAIL, HOWEVER, IF SHE MAKES PAROLE, MY ADVICE TO HER IS THAT SHE WOULD NOT RECEIVE A WARM WELCOME IN SOUTH CAROLINA. The jury deliberated for only two and a half hours, at which point they declared Susan Smith guilty of two counts of murder. He said they had sex. Findlay told of an encounter with David Smith in March 1994, when David and Susan were separated and she and Findlay were just starting to date. Not that it justifies a single thing, but her life wasn't easy. So what has Susan Smith's life been like for well over two decades? The catch? Following the jury's decision, David Smith, expressed his disappointment with the sentence. Initially, there was an outpouring of support for the young mother whose sons had been kidnapped by a mysterious carjacker. Smith first made headlines on Oct. 25, 1994, when she told police she had been carjacked by a Black man who had taken off with her two young sons still in her car. Lead prosecutor Thomas Pope painted a very different picture. Distraught, Smith got her children into her car and began to drive toward her mothers house. Tragedy struck in 1977 when her father, Harry Ray, committed suicide. I feel no sorrow for her at all! Ms. Smith remained stoic during Russells half-hour on the witness stand, but he was choked with emotion. As the daily interrogation proceeded, the police discovered inconsistencies in Susans story. Findlay admitted seeing Smith three times on that fateful day, and that she had been overwrought. They portray the drownings as a failed suicide. Susan Smith murdered her young sons in 1994. . It is highly unlikely Susan will make paroleat least not the first time, Ozmint noted. She was strangled by her handler and lover, FBI agent Mark Putnam. A letter. "The company did not do anything.". She had a guy she was seeing and he used to fly up [to the prison] to see her. she says. Susan Smith Trial: 1995 . On October 25, 1994, Susan Smith trapped her 3-year-old son Michael and 14-month old son Alex in her car and rolled them into John D. Long Lake in Union County. While he was on the stand, jurors heard two intimate letters, one Smith wrote to Findlay and one he wrote in return. For nine days, she made tearful pleas for their safe return. Tom Begaye Jr. left the 11-year-old child to die in the desert after "repeatedly hitting her on the head and face with a tire iron." . The couple were very co-dependent on one another, the early days of their marriage being filled with comforting one another over their losses. She reddened slightly and stared back at him. It drew countless visitors who wanted to take pictures or leave flowers for the boys, and in 1996, its grim reputation darkened even more when seven people (including four kids) drowned there, after stopping to look at the two kids memorials. She says, You never know what someone is going through. However, she had a change of heart during filming when she received more details about Smiths crimes. Smith made an emotional plea on the television for the safe return of her children. While the police and FBI continued their search, Susan and David stayed with their families. [4] Susan Smith and 6 Other Women Who Have Murdered Their Children. And despite reports that Smith hasn't had the most sterling reputation as an inmate during her incarceration atthe Leath Correctional Institution in South Carolina, it seems that Smith has her eyes set on her future meeting with the prison parole board. (Mrs. Smith later told him that she had fabricated that story, an apparent effort to return some of the pain that he had instilled in her, "as a joke," Mr. Findlay testified.). Susan Smith's former cellmates and a prison guard who had sex with her are speaking out about the infamous woman's checkered time behind bars. In March 1988, Russell admitted sexually assaulting Ms. Smith when she was 16, but she and her mother decided not to press charges. Susan Smith, a mother from South Carolina, was convicted of murdering her two sons by drowning them in South Carolina Lake. In a letter to Susan Smith, Tom declared he did not want kids, or to have a part in the life of Smiths kids, nor did he think she was a nice girl. If youre fascinated by the world of true crime, sign up for our newsletter. She then reported her car stolen and her children missing, even pretending that a Black man had carjacked her and abducted her sons. However, Smith was seeing other men too. 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