No Parole: White Woman Who Killed Her Kids And Blamed Fictional Black Man Is Denied Freedom

Susan Smith, handcuffed, leaves court after a hearing on July 10, 1995, in Union, South Carolina. | Source: Brooks Kraft / Getty

A white woman convicted of murdering her infant and toddler children in a pair of drownings she blamed on a fictional Black man has been denied parole nearly 30 years after being found guilty in a case that further exposed American law enforcement’s willing penchant for racial profiling and implicit bias.

Susan Smith learned her fate on Wednesday when the South Carolina parole board shut down her request for freedom at a hearing, the first she’s had since being incarcerated in 1995. The 53-year-old told the parole board via a virtual appearance that she was “sorry” for her actions that landed her behind bars, according to the Associated Press.

“I know what I did was horrible,” Smith told the panel. “And I would give anything so I could change it.”

Of course, it was unclear exactly what “it” referred to — the murders of her own children, blaming it on a Black man who never existed, or the fact that she got busted trying to start her life over by marrying a wealthy man without having the burden of her old family.

More from the Associated Press:

Prosecutors have long said that Smith killed 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alex because a man she was having an affair with suggested the boys were the reason they didn’t have a future together.

A group of about 15 people urged against parole. They included her ex-husband and the father of the boys, David Smith; his family members; prosecutors; and law enforcement officials. Along with a few others, David Smith had a photo of Michael and Alex pinned to his suit jacket.

He struggled to get out words at first, pausing several times to compose himself. Susan Smith had “free choice,” he said, and his children’s deaths weren’t a “tragic mistake.”

It was decidedly in that context that the parole board shut down Smith’s attempts to be released from prison.

What happened to Susan Smith?

In 1995, Smith was convicted of murdering her 3-year-old and 14-month-old sons by strapping them into their car seats and letting her car roll into a lake in South Carolina. After killing her children, she told police that a Black man carjacked her and kidnapped the kids. Police began hunting for fictional Black men who fit the description Smith gave them. More than a week later after crying on national TV in a purported appeal to get her children back, Smith admitted she lied and there was actually no Black suspect.

Smith is now eligible to have subsequent parole hearings every two years.

This is America.

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