COLUMBIA, S.C. — Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman whose lies about killing her two sons sharply divided a small town, was denied parole Wednesday morning.

Smith’s denial was decided unanimously by six members of the parole board of the South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services. Smith appeared via video conference before the board.

The board members cited the “nature and seriousness of her crime” and an unfavorable “institution record.”

Few believed that Smith, 53, would be granted parole just 30 years into her two life sentences for the murders of her sons Michael, 3, and Alex, 14 months. In the lead up to her hearing, the probation department said that they received 471 letters and email about Smith’s parole. Just 6 were in support of her release.

Smith’s crimes, and her subsequent media appearances and lies about what happened, drew national attention to South Carolina.

“This was a global sensation,” said Kevin Brackett, the 16th Circuit Solicitor who helped prosecute the case as an assistant solicitor. “This didn’t just traumatize him (David Smith), it traumatized Union, it traumatized South Carolina. The entire county was in the grip of her lie.”

Since being imprisoned, she has committed multiple infractions, including possession of drugs, using another inmate’s PIN and, most recently, speaking with a documentary company.

On Oct. 25, 1994, Smith, just 23, released the handbrake of her Mazda Protege and let the car roll backwards into the cold water of John D. Long Lake, in Union County, South Carolina. Michael and Alex were inside.

Smith then claimed that she had been carjacked by a Black man at a red light who shoved a gun in her face and demanded her car, claiming he wouldn’t hurt or her boys. He then sped off without her but with the boys in the car. Over the following days, as police and volunteers searched constantly for her children and as racial tensions rose, Smith pleaded on television for the safe return on her sons.

“How many Black men in red Mazdas got pulled over around the country?,” Brackett asked.

But suspicious law enforcement officers coaxed the truth out of Smith, who nine days after reporting her sons missing admitted that she killed them.

The search and Smith’s trial became a media sensation as lurid details were exposed. Solicitor and future state representative Tommy Pope argued that Smith had killed her children in order to start a relationship, and a new life, with a wealthy man in town who didn’t want children.

It was revealed that when Smith was 15 she was molested by her stepfather Beverly Russell, a leader in the local Republican Party, member of the Christian Coalition and a nephew of a governor.

No charges were pressed, but Smith’s parents separated. Russell ultimately mortgaged his house to pay for Smith’s lawyer and, according to court testimony, his relationship with Russell continued for many years even after she married David Smith.

©2024 The State. Visit at thestate.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.