Susan Smith (born September 26, 1971 as Susan Leigh Vaughan), of Union, South Carolina, and a student at the University of South Carolina Union, was convicted July 22, 1995, of murdering her two sons, 3-year-old Michael Daniel Smith, born October 10, 1991, and 14-month-old Alexander Tyler Smith, born August 5, 1993, and later sentenced to life in prison. Playboy is an American Men's magazine, founded in Chicago Illinois, by Hugh Hefner and his associates which has grown into Playboy For the word "playmate" in the common sense see its definition in Wiktionary. Susan M Smith (born January 14, 1959 in Beloit Wisconsin) is an American model and actress Events 46 BC - Julius Caesar dedicates a Year 1971 ( MCMLXXI) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar of the 1971 Gregorian calendar. Union is a city in and the County seat of Union County, South Carolina, United States. South Carolina ( is a state in the southern region ( Deep South) of the United States of America. The University of South Carolina Union is a Public university with its main campus in Union and a branch campus in Laurens. Events 1099 - First Crusade: Godfrey of Bouillon is elected the first Defender of the Holy Sepulchre of The Kingdom of Year 1995 ( MCMXCV) was a Common year starting on Sunday. Events of 1995 Filicide is the deliberate act of a parent killing his or her own son or daughter Events 680 - Battle of Karbala: Shia Imam Husayn bin Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, is decapitated Year 1991 ( MCMXCI) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar. Events 642 - Battle of Maserfield - Penda of Mercia defeats and kills Oswald of Bernicia. Year 1993 ( MCMXCIII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1993 Gregorian calendar) Life imprisonment or life incarceration is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime often for most The case gained worldwide attention shortly after it developed.

According to the South Carolina Department of Corrections, Smith will be eligible for parole on November 4, 2024, after serving a minimum of thirty years. Events 1333 - Flood of the Arno River, causing massive damage in Florence as recorded by the Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani 2024 ( MMXXIV) will be a Leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. She is currently incarcerated at South Carolina's Leath Correctional Institution, near Greenwood. Leath Correctional Institution is L3/maximum security Prison for women Greenwood is a city in and the County seat of Greenwood County, South Carolina, United States. ^[1]

Contents 1 The case 2 Cultural references 3 See also 4 Books 5 References 6 Footnotes

The case

Smith initially reported to police, on October 25, 1994, that she had been carjacked by an African-American man who drove away with her sons still in the car. Events 1147 - The Portuguese, under Afonso I, and Crusaders from England and Flanders conquer Lisbon after a Year 1994 ( MCMXCIV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full 1994 Gregorian calendar) Carjacking is a Crime of stealing a motor vehicle when the vehicle is occupied African Americans or Black Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa Smith made tearful pleas on television for the rescue and return of her children. A Usenet chain letter circulated in the following days, asking Internet users to be on the lookout for the vehicle. Usenet, a Portmanteau of "user" and "network" is a world-wide distributed Internet discussion system A typical chain letter consists of a Message that attempts to induce the recipient to make a number of copies of the letter and then pass them on to as many recipients However, nine days later, following an intensive, heavily publicized investigation and nationwide search, Smith eventually confessed to letting her 1990 Mazda Protegé roll into nearby John D. The Mazda Familia is a long-running nameplate used by Mazda for their Small family cars manufactured between 1964 and 2003 with 10589052 sold worldwide Long Lake (34°46′32″N 81°30′25″W / 34.77556, -81.50694), drowning her children inside. Many people across the United States and around the world, to whom she and her two "missing" sons had been the subject of an outpouring of sympathy, felt strongly betrayed. Their reaction to the betrayal was further aggravated by the fact that she had attempted to cast blame, falsely, upon an African-American man, making the case racially sensitive. Additionally, her alleged motive for the deaths — to dispose of her children so that she might have a relationship with a wealthy local man who had no interest in a "ready-made" family — was met with widely held contempt and revulsion. There has been no answer from Susan Smith regarding her choice not to give her husband custody of the children, instead of killing them.

Smith pleaded not guilty, despite her confessions, when prosecutors refused to offer a plea bargain. A plea bargain (also plea agreement, plea deal or copping a plea) is an agreement in a Criminal case whereby the Prosecutor offers Her lawyers sought access to an advance copy of a book written by her ex-husband, David Smith, about the marriage and about Susan Smith's killing of her sons. Eventually David Smith struck an agreement allowing the lawyers to receive an advance copy of the book, which they could use to impeach him and for any other purpose relevant to her defense. ^[2]

While she has been in prison, two guards have been punished for having sex with Smith^[3], and in 2003 she placed a personal ad at WriteAPrisoner.com which has since been retracted. WriteAPrisonercom is an online Business that posts personal profiles and requests for legal assistance for inmates ^[4]

Smith is believed to be a sufferer of Borderline personality disorder. Borderline personality disorder ( BPD) is a psychiatric diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ( DSM-IV Personality ^[5]

Cultural references

• The 1995 episode of Law & Order entitled "Angel" was based on the Susan Smith case. Law & Order is an American Police procedural and Legal drama television series created by Dick Wolf. The Smith case is referred to specifically in both the investigation and the eventual trial.

• An episode of South Park in which Butters' mother tries to murder him in the same way, and blames "some Puerto Rican guy", parallels this case (though, based on timing and explicit references, it is more derived from the Ramseys). " Butters' Very Own Episode " is episode 79 of the Comedy Central series South Park and the season finale for the show's fifth season making it JonBenét Patricia Ramsey ( August 6, 1990 – December 26, 1996) was an American girl and child beauty pageant contestant made famous

• The character Shirley Bellinger from the HBO drama Oz, who was executed for drowning her daughter by driving into a lake, is based on Smith. Shirley Bellinger is a fictional character in the HBO series Oz played by Kathryn Erbe. Oz is an American Television drama series created by Tom Fontana, who also wrote or co-wrote all of the series' 56 episodes

• Canadian singer-songwriter Hayden's "When This Is Over" (from Everything I Long For, 1995) describes the tragedy from the perspective of Michael Smith. Paul Hayden Desser (born February 12, 1971) who records as Hayden, is a Canadian Singer-songwriter from Thornhill Ontario It is commonly believed that Blind Melon's "Car Seat" (from Soup, 1995) was also written from Micheal Smiths's POV, but in actuality the song was written by Blanche Bridge on February 11, 1884^{[6] [7]}

• The first section of Cornelius Eady's Brutal Imagination (New York: Penguin Putnam Inc. Blind Melon is an American rock band that originally existed from 1991 to 1995 and ceased with the death of lead vocalist Shannon Hoon shortly after the release of the Soup is the second album by the American rock band Blind Melon, released shortly before vocalist Shannon Hoon 's fatal drug overdose , 2001) recounts the murders in poetic verse from the perspective of the imagined black kidnapper.

• Poet Lee Ann Brown's The Ballad of Susan Smith is a sung poem set to an old southern mountain hymn tune. A music video of this poem can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr6qU4BlJVI

• In 2003, a journalist from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, who was writing a story about Smith being held in general population at a South Carolina women's prison, a setting likely to endanger her because of her notoriety, concluded that the deaths of Michael and Alex Smith were the result of an accident, not murder. Bethlehem is a city in Lehigh and Northampton Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, in the His conclusions were based on psychological analysis of Smith's behavior after the disappearance of the boys, ambiguities in her confession, and a laboratory report obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request from South Carolina's State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) indicating that Smith could not have rolled the car into the lake from the top of the boat ramp by releasing the Mazda's hand brake, because of a mechanical flaw in the car's braking system. The Freedom of Information Act ( FOIA) is the implementation of freedom of information legislation in the United States South Carolina ( is a state in the southern region ( Deep South) of the United States of America. The article claims that Smith fabricated her story about the "black carjacker" to cover up her role in the death. An eeriely similar accident has happened in Hungary in January 2007, when a car slid into a river, killing two children inside when the parents were out of the vehicle waiting for the ferry. Hungary (Magyarország 'mɔɟɔrorsaːg) officially in English the Republic of Hungary ( Magyar Köztársaság, literally Magyar (Hungarian Republic The father claims no responsibility in the deaths. ^[8]

• Susan Smith's story loosely inspired Richard Price's 1998 novel Freedomland, which was adapted to the 2006 film Freedomland starring Samuel L. Jackson and Julianne Moore. Richard Price ( February 23, 1723 &ndash April 19, 1791) was a Welsh moral and political philosopher Freedomland is a Mystery novel by Richard Price Plot introduction A woman staggers into a local hospital too dazed to speak Freedomland is a 2006 film starring Samuel L Jackson and Julianne Moore. Samuel Leroy Jackson (born December 21 1948 is an American Academy Award -nominated and BAFTA -winning actor Julianne Moore (born December 3 1960 is an Academy - and BAFTA -nominated and Emmy - and Golden Globe -winning American Actress

• The Susan Smith case is referred to in the third season opener of the sitcom Arrested Development. " The Cabin Show " is the forty-first episode aired of the TV comedy series Arrested Development. Arrested Development is a character-driven American television Sitcom about a formerly wealthy habitually Dysfunctional family. In the episode, Lucille Bluth, freshly off her antidepressants in a flashback, cheers upon hearing the news of Smith's action. At the end of the episode, Lucille accidentally lets her car roll into a lake with her son Buster sleeping inside.

• The Susan Smith case is also referenced by a potential juror in the 14th season Law & Order episode "Gaijin". Law & Order is an American Police procedural and Legal drama television series created by Dick Wolf.

• In "The Calusari", an episode of The X-Files, parents are suspected in the death of a child, and the father says he and his wife are not like the woman who drowned her kids in a lake. " The Calusari " was the twenty-first episode of the second season of The X-Files science-fiction television series created by The X-Files is a Peabody, Golden Globe and Emmy Award -winning American Science fiction television series created by Chris Carter

• Caroline Herring's song Paper Gown off her album Lanta is about Susan Smith and her crime. Caroline Herring is an Mississippi -born Austin Texas and Atlanta Georgia -based Country and Folk singer-songwriter

See also

• Andrea Yates
• La Llorona
• Dena Schlosser

Books

• Rekers, George (1995). Andrea Pia Yates (born July 2 1964 a Houston, Texas resident is known for killing her five young children on June 20 2001 by drowning them in the Bathtub La Llorona (la ʝoˈɾona or approximately "lah yoh-ROH-nah" Spanish for "the crying woman" sometimes called the Woman in White or the Dena Schlosser, born in 1969 in Plano, Texas, killed her eleven-month-old daughter Margaret Schlosser in 2004 amputating the baby's arms with a knife and offering Susan Smith: Victim or Murderer. Glenbridge Publishing. ISBN 0944435380.  
• Russell, Linda; Stephens, Shirley (2000). My Daughter Susan Smith. Authors Book Nook. ISBN 9780970107619.  
• Smith, David (1995). Beyond All Reason: My Life With Susan Smith. Zebra. ISBN 9780821752203.  

References

South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED); SLED Latent Print and Crime Scene Worksheet: Floatation Characteristics of 1990 Mazda Protege; May 24, 1995

Footnotes

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