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Killer mother’s prosecutor, Susan Smith, says she should serve life sentence
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Killer mother’s prosecutor, Susan Smith, says she should serve life sentence

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Thirty years after South Carolina killer mom Susan Smith was put behind bars for drowning her two infant sons. She will appear on a prison court wire for her first parole hearing Wednesday morning, preparing for her freedom.

“I believe the jury wanted her to serve a life sentence,” Tommy Pope, the prosecutor who helped convict Smith in her case, told Fox News Digital. “They wanted her to dedicate her life to being remorseful for Michael and Alex and what she had done, and to have time to focus on having sex with guards and so on.”

Pope, alongside a former director of South Carolina The Department of Corrections and one of Smith’s former lovers spoke out in Fox Nation’s latest special about the case and Smith’s time in prison, “Susan Smith, the mother killer: 30 years later.”

WATCH “SUSAN SMITH, THE MOM KILLER: 30 YEARS LATER” ON FOX NATION

Photos by Susan Smith

Legal ID photograph of Susan Smith. She was convicted on July 22, 1995 of the murder of her two sons, Michael Daniel Smith, 3, born October 10, 1991, and Alexander Tyler Smith, 14 months, born August 5, 1993. Susan Smith, when she was arrested for the first time in 1994. (Photo by Brooks Kraft LLC/Sygma via Getty Images)

Susan Smith's children

Susan Smith strapped her sons, Michael, 3, and Alexander Smith, 14 months, into the back seat of her car and let her drive down a ramp to John D. Long Lake in Union, South Carolina. (Tommy Pope)

The father of her murdered sons and her recently ex-husband Carolina told Fox that he “hopes with all his heart that she doesn’t make it.”

“She always wanted to be in the spotlight in one way or another… she always wanted attention and she always tried to manipulate people, and I don’t think she’s going to change,” David Smith told the outlet, adding that he still misses his two boys. “I wish I could have stopped it.”

David Smith and Tommy Pope will both be present at Wednesday’s parole hearing.

“The South Carolina State House has a better chance of being hit by a meteor tonight than Susan Smith has of being paroled tomorrow,” said attorney Eric Bland, who represented victims of Alex Murdaughanother notorious murder case in South Carolina, Fox News Digital told Tuesday.

“She never showed any real contrition for the murder of her children.”

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Bland said Susan Smith contacted her ex-husband at some point in recent months, asking if he would be willing to not oppose her parole and talk to other family members to see if they too would be ready not to oppose.

“He was furious, like, ‘Are you out of your mind?'” Bland added, noting that until she contacted her estranged husband, she might have had a chance at parole . “She’s delusional…They’re his children, you know, and he lost them. I mean, the wound is still as raw as it was, I’m sure, the first day they were murdered.

Bland believes David Smith will oppose his ex-wife’s parole when he attends her hearing Wednesday.

“He’s going to testify about how his life has been changed because of this,” Bland said. “He never healed…It’s on his mind every minute of every day.”

SUSAN SMITH’S EX-HUSBAND ‘STILL BROKEN’ 30 YEARS AFTER SON’S MURDERS AS KILLER MOTHER UP FOR A SAY, AUTHOR SAYS

Tommy Pope, Susan Smith's attorney during the trial

Susan Smith’s attorney, Tommy Pope, during the 1995 trial (Tommy Pope)

Smith was unable to find a single character witness to testify on his behalf, The NY Post reported.

“Under normal circumstances…it’s been 30 years…and often, the families of the victims themselves syes: “Listen, has she served enough? You know, we’re a very Christian state, so people believe in forgiveness,” Bland said. “No one I’ve talked to…has ever had any sympathy for her.”

Here is a timeline detailing the events leading up to, during and after Smith’s horrific crime throughout his decades of imprisonment:

October 25, 1994

Susan Smith strapped her sons, Michael, 3, and Alexander Smith, 14 months, into the back seat of her car and let her drive down a ramp to John D. Long Lake in Union, South Carolina.

Smith, 22 at the time, saw that it took six minutes for the water to fill the car, drown his boys and sink the car to the bottom of the lake.

She ran to a home near John D. Long Lake, falsely telling the owners that a “black man” had stolen her car with her two sons inside. The owners called 911.

EX-HUSBAND OF KILLER MOTHER SUSAN SMITH, UP TO SPEAK, SAYS SHE NEEDS ATTENTION AND PROBABLY HAS NOT CHANGED

photo of sons murdered near where they were found

Toys and photos of Michael and Alex Smith at the John D. Long Lakeside Sanctuary, site of the drowning murder of 2 boys by their mother Susan Smith (she said they were kidnapped). (Photo by William F. Campbell/Getty Images)

October 26-Nov. 2, 1994

For nine days, the young faces of Michael and Alexander Smith made national headlines, while authorities searched for the man Susan said kidnapped the boys. Susan and David Smith pleaded on national television for the return of their children.

The Pope watched the news unfold at the time and received updates of SLED on the case.

“The whole story seemed highly improbable,” Pope said on the Fox Nation special, “You would never hear of a carjacker taking children away normally.”

November 3, 1994

After failing the polygraph test, Susan Smith recanted her lie about the kidnapping and confessed to killing her two sons. She was charged with two counts of murder.

Killer mother Susan Smith disciplined behind bars weeks before parole hearing

Police investigating Susan Smith murders

3 strangers. Law enforcement officials, 1 dressed in scuba gear, talk at the lakeside as they comb the water bottom for the car of Susan Smith, who admitted to drowning her sons Michael and Alex in his car at John D. Long Lake. (Photo by Thomas S. England/Getty Images)

November 6, 1994

Hundreds of people attended the funeral of Michael and Alexander Smith.

July 17, 1995

Susan Smith’s trial began less than a year after her sons drowned. While prosecutors argued that her motive for killing the boys was that a man she was seeing at the time did not want children, Smith’s defense said she was suicidal and that she had originally planned to drown with his sons before somehow escaping.

“I was very emotionally distraught. I didn’t want to live anymore! I felt like things could never get worse,” Smith wrote in her confession letter, obtained by Fox News Digital. “I felt like I couldn’t be a good mom anymore, but I didn’t want my children to grow up without a mom. I felt like I had to end our lives to protect us all from any heartbreak or harm.”

Killer mother Susan Smith thinks parole now unlikely after she was caught trying to profit from her case: REPORT

“I wanted to end my life so badly and I was in my car getting ready to go down this ramp into the water and I made it part of the way but I stopped. I went back and I got arrested… I fell to my lowest point when I allowed my kids to go down that ramp into the water without me I took off running and screaming “Oh my God, Oh my God, NO!” did I do?”

July 22, 1995

Susan Smith was convicted of murdering her two sons, Michael and Alexander.

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Susan Smith was convicted on July 22, 1995, of murdering her two sons, Michael Daniel Smith, 3, and Alexander Tyler Smith, 14 months. Initially, Smith claimed a black man carjacked her while the two boys were still inside her vehicle. But her story came to light and the woman admitted she left her vehicle rolling into a lake with the boys strapped inside.

Susan Smith was convicted on July 22, 1995, of murdering her two sons, Michael Daniel Smith, 3, and Alexander Tyler Smith, 14 months. Initially, Smith claimed a black man carjacked her while the two boys were still inside her vehicle. But her story came to light and the woman admitted she left her vehicle rolling into a lake with the boys strapped inside. (Getty Images)

July 28, 1995

Although prosecutors argued that Susan Smith should receive the death penalty, she was ultimately sentenced to life in prison.

David Smith crying

Susan Smith told a suitor over the phone that she would be a “good stepmother” and could “see herself with kids” in a recorded phone call. Grief-stricken David Smith, the inmate’s former husband, is pictured crying amid a crowd of mourners as he leaves the funeral of his children Michael and Alex. (Thomas S. England/Getty Images)

July 1995-March 2015

Smith received 10 disciplinary sanctions, including one for having sex with a prison guard and others for repeated drug use.

August 26, 2024 and October 3, 2024

Smith was charged on August 26 and convicted on October 3 of communicating with a victim/and/or witness after speaking to a documentarian. According to SCDC policy, South Carolina Department of Corrections inmates are not allowed to conduct interviews over the phone or in person, but they can write letters. Smith lost his phone, tablet and canteen privileges for 90 days.

Susan Smith

Susan Smith, pictured recently on the left and aged 22 in 1994 on the right, has been incarcerated in South Carolina for nearly 30 years for the murder of her two sons. (South Carolina Department of Corrections)

During his interviews with the filmmaker, Smith discussed his crime in-depth and the events leading up to and following it, including details like “what was in the trunk of the car when it went into the water and her plans to jump off a bridge while holding boys, but one of them woke up,” the incident report says.

November 4, 2024

As of November 4, Susan Smith had served 30 years behind bars, making her eligible for parole.

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November 20, 2024

Smith will appear on a prison court wire for his first parole hearing on November 20.

The parole board is not expected to announce its decision at Wednesday’s hearing. The board will release its decision later via an announcement on its website.

Fox News’ Audrey Conklin contributed to this report.