Sources have revealed that a mom who is serving a life sentence for the murder of her two young sons has vowed to “start fresh” with a long-distance boyfriend if she receives parole in 2024. The now 50-year-old Susan Smith caught national attention back in October 1994 after it was discovered she lied about the deaths of her sons Michael and Alex. Now it seems that the mom is looking forward to freedom, as new snippets of private letters between her and boyfriend show that she’s excited to restart her life.
The shocking case started when Smith told police that her car was stolen on October 25, 1994.
She told police it was a Black man who nabbed the car and took off with her two sons: 3-year-old Michael and 4-year-old Alex, Fox News reported. For the next nine days, the mom and her then husband, David Smith, went on national television and made tearful pleas for their sons’ return.
"Your mama loves you so much,” Smith said at a news conference at the time.
Soon enough, her story started to unravel and she had to confess that there’d never been a carjacker.
Smith finally came clean and confessed that she was behind her sons’ disappearances after she strapped them into their car seats and let her car roll into a lake, according to People. It was determined that Smith killed her children because she was secretly dating a man who didn’t want kids.
Smith was arrested and eventually convicted of two counts of murder and is serving a life sentence.
Even from behind bars, trouble seemed to follow Smith. The Daily Mail reported that she received at least five infractions for self-mutilation and the use and possession of narcotics or marijuana, among other things, while in jail.
In 2000, the then 28-year-old was disciplined four times for having sex with 50-year-old guard Houston Cagle. Cagle himself was jailed for four months after their trysts were discovered. The Daily Mail noted that the affair was discovered after Smith tested positive for an STI.
A year later Smith found herself at the center of controversy again, when prison Captain Alfred Rowe pleaded guilty to having sex with her and received five years of probation.
Smith wrote a letter to The State newspaper in 2015 claiming that she was misunderstood and that she’d never intended to kill her sons.
"I am not the monster society thinks I am," she wrote, according to Fox News. "I am far from it."
"Something went very wrong that night. I was not myself," she continued. "I was a good mother and I loved my boys. There was no motive as it was not even a planned event. I was not in my right mind."
Her ex-husband, however, spoke out about Smith’s actions and said he’d never recovered from the loss of their boys.
"There's always this nagging and gnawing heartache," David Smith told People in 2010. "It's there every day, even if I'm not always conscious of it."
As Smith’s probation looms closer and closer, the mom has tried to clean up her act and stay on her best behavior. A family member, who was not named, told People the mom has also started a "romantic correspondence" with a man outside of prison that she’s hoping to continue if she gets out.
"They write letters all the time," the family member shared. "They started about a year ago. Handwritten letters about what their future will be. She's very romantic like that, always wanting to find a happily ever after."
Another source, who was not named, also stated that the two write each other “a few letters per week.”
The Daily Mail describes Smith’s paramour as a divorcee who works in construction and has two adult children.
He is allegedly 40 and lives outside Columbia, South Carolina. People noted that he started writing to Smith after seeing a documentary about her on television.
The news magazine reported that it’s seen two of Smith’s correspondences with her boyfriend, including one letter where she told him "I hope I get to see you f2f [face to face] soon."
In the other letter, Smith told her boyfriend, "I can't believe I can fall for someone I've never met."
Smith has yet to officially receive parole, but the source who spoke with People said that despite how excited the former mom might be to leave jail, she should stay in prison.
"I don't have a problem with her finding happiness by writing a man," the source said, "but let's not forget what she did. So I hope her 'happily ever after' is happily in jail."
