Mom who drowned her young boys in a car in 1994 ‘cries for them every day in prison’
A MOM who drowned her two young boys more than two decades ago in a case that shocked the country is filled with “guilt and regret” over the heartless act.
The case of Susan Smith made international headlines in 1994 when she claimed a black man carjacked her and drove off with the children - Michael, 3, and Alex, 14 months.
Smith’s story unraveled in just nine days, and she was eventually convicted in 1995 of leaving her sons strapped in their car seats as she rolled her car into a lake in South Carolina.
Prosecutors said Smith killed her sons because a wealthy, well-connected man she was having an affair with cut off the relationship. A prosecutor sought the death penalty, but Smith was sentenced to life in prison.
Now, having spent more than half her life behind bars, Smith - who is now 48 - is reportedly a “tortured soul” who “tears up every day”.
“The holidays fill her with guilt and regret,” someone who has known Smith for years told .
“She cries for her children every Christmas. She knows she did the most horrible thing imaginable, and it tears her up every day. She’s a tortured soul.”
Smith also is said to keep a photo of her two boys in her cell, along with a Bible.
She has previously claimed to be “misunderstood” and that she did not plan to kill her boys.
“Something went very wrong that night. I was not myself,” she wrote in a 2015 letter to The State newspaper in South Carolina.
“I was a good mother and I loved my boys. ... There was no motive as it was not even a planned event. I was not in my right mind.”
Smith said she only lied about the kidnapping because she didn’t know what to tell people about their deaths.
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“I am not the monster society thinks I am,” she wrote.
“I am far from it.”
Smith is serving a life sentence, and she is not eligible for parole.