COLUMBIA, S.C. — A parole hearing date has been set for Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman who killed her two children in one of the most notorious crime cases in state history.
The South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole, and Pardon Services said Monday that the hearing for Smith is set for November 20. Smith officially becomes eligible for parole on November 4.
Smith is serving life in prison at Leath Correctional Institution near Greenwood after being convicted of killing her two young sons -- three-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alexander -- in 1994. She was sentenced to life in prison during a 1995 trial but was given life in prison with possibility of parole after 30 years.
The case gained international attention after Smith made a false claim that a Black man had kidnapped her sons during a carjacking. In reality, Smith had placed her sons in her car and drove it into John D. Long Lake in Union County, drowning the boys. She confessed on Nov. 3, 1994, that she had murdered the boys because she was trying to maintain an extramarital relationship with a man who allegedly did not want children and wanted to end the affair.
A parole hearing, of course, does not mean parole will be granted, only that the prisoner has a chance to plead their case. The state will likely argue that she needs to remain behind bars. Her ex-husband and the father of the children, David Smith, told CourtTV last month he plans on being at the hearing and will advocate strongly that she not be released.
"Her only doing 30 years would be an injustice to Michael and Alex," Smith said in the interview. "She doesn't deserve to ever be free again."
David Smith said he has not spoken to Susan since about a month after the killings took place.
The hearing also comes just weeks after she was disciplined for violating corrections department regulations. The South Carolina Department of Corrections said she communicated with a media outlet about proposed interviews, filming a documentary and getting paid for it.
A corrections department incident report from Aug. 26, 2024, showed Smith was the subject of an internal investigation at Leath and was found to have misused and abused the phone and tablet system inmates use to communicate with a reporter. Smith also said she would provide contact information for her friends and family, even her ex-husband, for the documentary and stated a preference for the release of the documentary after her parole hearing. The agency said she also had money deposited into her "calls and canteen" account.
She was found guilty at an internal hearing on Oct. 3 and lost her telephone, tablet and canteen privileges for 90 days, starting Oct. 4.
She hasn't been disciplined for actions behind bars in some time but previously, she slept with two correctional officers in 2000 and 2001 and was transferred from Columbia to Greenwood following those incidents. She has also been disciplined for other offenses, including drug use, mutilation, and unauthorized use of another inmate's personal identification number.
