Send us a text

 Susan Smith has been called a lot of names: evil, egocentric, seductress, and murderer. One name she doesn’t deserve is mother. 

In 1994, the then 23-year-old young woman claimed a man carjacked her and took off with her children who were in the backseat. 

A community-wide search in Union, South Carolina went nationwide as the shocking and tragic story of the missing 3-year-old and 14-month-old boys made headlines when Susan and her devastated husband and father of the children made tearful pleas for their return. 

In a shocking twist, police discovered it was no stranger who was responsible for the boys’ disappearance, but their own mother. She had let the car roll into a lake with her children inside screaming for help. 

She later confessed saying she thought she was going to kill herself, too, but changed her mind at the last minute and jumped out of the vehicle, leaving her children to drown alone. She thought they were the only things standing in the way between her and her paramour who was a single, wealthy young man she had been secretly seeing and he told her in no uncertain terms he didn’t want kids. 

Susan almost faced the death penalty but narrowly managed to avoid it. Now, thirty years later she thinks she deserves to be out of prison and have the opportunity to start another family because she says she’s a Christian and God has forgiven her by his grace and mercy. 

Where was this grace and mercy when her babies were strapped in their carseats, calling for their momma, as the water rose in their sinking car? They were later found upside down. The hand of one child was pressed against the window. 

Her life behind bars has not exactly been exemplary with accusations of seducing guards, blatantly disregarding the rules, and insisting she’s ready to be released back into society, which her ex-husband has a huge problem with, in part because she has never shown any true remorse. 

Join us for the latest on this heartbreaking case that even has a tie to Pensacola, in the latest episode of the Gulf Coast Confidential podcast, “It’s Always the Susan Smith Show: Probation denied for Killer Mom who Drowned Sons.” 

Support the show