Susan Smith gained notoriety when she blamed a Black man before admitting she drowned her children in a lake. She is up for parole in November and told one suitor she is "ready to go."
Susan Smith, who has been behind bars for nearly three decades after drowning her two sons, is optimistic about her upcoming parole hearing, reportedly telling one of several suitors on a recorded phone call that she's served enough time in prison.
Family members told the New York Post that the notorious South Carolina inmate, now 52, has spent the last several months convinced that a parole board will let her out of prison after her upcoming hearing on Nov. 4.
In preparation, Smith has been hard at work courting her admirers – according to recorded phone calls from Leath Correctional Institution reviewed by the Post, the convicted killer carried on romantic and sexual conversations with at least 12 suitors over the past three years.
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"It's time for me to get out," Smith told one such suitor over the phone earlier this year. "I've done my time. I'm ready to go."
In March, she asked another man how he could support her if she is paroled, according to another conversation reviewed by the Post. The man replied that she has a large nest egg – a combination of money that he had saved up, gifts from her admirers and the sale of family property – waiting for her if she gets out.
"I’ll tell you what I did last night, thinking of you – I made a spreadsheet that starts out with $213,000," the caller told the notorious inmate. "You’re gonna have more than that. I think you’ll be in the $220,000 range, all put together. You can [spend] $40,000 a year. While you’re withdrawing from that balance, it’s still earning interest on the undrawn amount."
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"In 20 years’ time, you will have spent most of that," he said. "But you will still have some of it left over."
"I love you so much," Smith said after a short pause.
"I love you too," the suitor replied.
The conversation took a raunchy turn, the Post reported, with the man speculating about what Smith would look like in a wet T-shirt.
"I'm going to have you in the front seat of my car," the man said. "You're so bad," Smith replied, giggling.
"I have some ideas of things we can do. But I'm going to make you wiggle and squirm before I tell you."
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"Babe, I'm already wiggling and squirming," the man replied.
Late last year, she had "ways to get [his] attention" and speculated about how she might cater to him in the morning.
"I can get you up in the morning," she said, coyly. "And I mean up."
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But Smith is unlikely to be paroled on her first attempt – or ever, experts told the Post.
According to South Carolina Department of Corrections records, Smith began her life sentence on Nov. 4, 1994, after she was convicted on two counts of murder in the deaths of sons Michael Daniel Smith, 3, and Alexander Tyler Smith, 14 months.
Smith let her car roll into John D. Long Lake in Union County, South Carolina, with the two boys strapped into their car seats. She stood by as the vehicle sank to the bottom and drowned both children.
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Initially, then-22-year-old Smith told investigators that a Black man had carjacked her while the two boys were still inside the car.
Days later, she wept alongside husband David Smith on national television, pleading for their safe return:
"Your mama loves you so much," she said during one news conference.
But nine days later, she confessed – she was allegedly motivated by her affair with a wealthy man who didn't want children.
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Her prospective affair partner and ex-boyfriend, Tom Findlay, penned a letter a week earlier that prosecutors said drove Smith to drown the boys.
"Susan, I could really fall for you. But like I have told you before, there are some things about you that aren't suited for me, and yes, I am speaking about your children," he wrote, according to Deseret News.
David Smith, the father of the two slain children, has since remarried and fathered two additional children. He and his family intend to oppose Smith's release.
"David still thinks of his boys every day, and doesn't ever want Susan to get out," one of the man's relatives told The Messenger. "She belongs in jail… she is exactly where she needs to be – in prison. And we will do what it takes to keep her there."
Smith has confirmed her intention to show up at the hearing, the Post reported. Meanwhile, the South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services has notified victims' families about the upcoming hearing.
