The jury deliberated for only two and a half hours, at which point they declared Susan Smith guilty of two counts of murder. Tom Findlay, according to the Chicago Tribune. Tom Begaye Jr. left the 11-year-old child to die in the desert after "repeatedly hitting her on the head and face with a tire iron." . 4,617 17 Nov 01, 2008 #1 SUSAN SMITH'S LETTER TO TOM FINDLAY Dear Tom, Just a note to say thank you for everything. While juggling multiple lovers Smith became pregnant and got an abortion. In fact, Smith had drowned her two sons, 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alexander, by launching her car into the local John D. Long Lake. Warning: The following contains disturbing descriptions of violence. A nation watches horrified as the grieving mother makes emotional pleas on television for the safe return of her two small boys, three-year old Michael, and 14-month old Alex. Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. Newly resurfaced . She attended and graduated from Lexington High School in 1957. After graduating from high school, she then met David Smith, the man who would become the father of her two children. They both came from families tormented by tragedy. Unless all 12 jurors vote for a death sentence, Ms. Smith, 23, will receive life in prison. However, support would soon turn to . According to aPeople report in 2020, a source inside the prison said that Smith is "behaving herself these days." At home, however, he was molesting his 15-year-old stepdaughter, fondling her breasts and genitals. Smith has spent more than half of her life in prison. Those children had a right to enjoy life, and she had no right to take life from them! Findlay admitted seeing Smith three times on that fateful day, and that she had been overwrought. I feel no sorrow for her at all! Ostensibly, one for the remainder of her life. A car matching the description of Susans Mazda was spotted in North Carolina, but it was not her car. In this (thankfully) small pool, there are still those that stand out in the minds of the public and perhaps one of the most well-known in the U.S. is convicted murderer Susan Smith, who, per A&E, was found guilty in 1995 for intentionally killing both of her sons. Get breaking news delivered to your inbox as it happens. The prosecution claimed that since she killed her children it was easy for her to gain the sympathy of her former boyfriend Tom Findly. Only time will tell if this will aid in keeping her behind bars for good. Hulsen also says Smith would get a lot of money from random men and her family. On October 5, 1994, an unassuming 23-year-old woman named Susan Smith seized the national spotlight when she called police to report that her two children had been kidnapped by an anonymous Black man during a carjacking. On the second day of the search, Susan Smith took a lie detector test and failed. But eventually, her lies came crashing down and the horrible truth about what happened to Susan Smiths children was revealed. Chances are you or someone you love has experienced what its like to be a caregiver while juggling lifes bills and responsibilities. A Look Back At Susan Smith The South Carolina Mom Who Killed Her 2 Young Sons . ``To see unfolded before my eyes the principle of reaping and sowing, to lose Michael and Alex, to see you and (your mother) Linda crushed. "I am not the monster society thinks I am," she wrote. Smith was convicted of two counts of murder and is serving a life sentence. In January 1994, Susan and Tom began dating casually, but soon Susan was back with her husband David, and that again led to the couple wanting a divorce. https://www.aetv.com/real-crime/susan-smith-now. The defense also profited from an unexpected disclosure during Mr. Findlay's testimony. Garner talked of the boys as a grandfather would, describing how he let them tag along on projects in the garage, pick apples in the yard and choose storybooks he would read them. As the car was removed from the lake, the bodies of two children remained in their car seats, grossly deformed from being underwater too long. Smith was willingly sleeping with Bev, and also began sleeping with Tom Findlay. Company business required them to travel to Atlanta, New York, London and Frankfurt, Germany. Donna Garner is Ms. Smiths closest friend. . Susan Leigh Vaughan was born on September 26, 1971 in Union, South . Twice in 2010 and once in 2015, she was disciplined on drug charges, losing privileges for more than a year. ", Florida migrant flights lawsuit dismissed in wake of Legislature passing law, Editorial Cartoons for Thursday from Times Wire Services, Bucs new coordinator is confident! The Charlotte brokerage underwrote the company's initial public offering of stock in December 1993. Well send you all the relevant quizzes, articles, polls, and news you could want to your inbox. As a $17,000-a-year secretary to Cary Findlay, Smith worked for one of Union's wealthiest people. Forgiving, Smith said, is "something I guess I . Dr. Rekers explores the facts and offers fascinating psychological explanations to help the public . Inside the car with the bodies of Mrs. Smith's sons -- Michael, 3 years old, and Alex, 14 months -- was a letter from the man she loved telling her that their relationship would never work, in part because of her children. According to Alfred Rowe, who pleaded guilty in 2001 to having sex with Smith and was sentenced to five years probation, Smith's drug use escalated when she switched prisons from Camille Graham Correctional Center in Columbia, S.C., to Leath Correctional Institution in Greenwood. Brynley Louise is an avid watcher of movies & television, everything from action thrillers to the occasional sappy rom com. A lot of people knew Susan.". Susan will have a chance of parole in November 2024, and at that point shell have been behind the bars for 30 years. "I am far from it. David was already engaged to another woman, but he broke it off to pursue a relationship with Smith. Yet, like many institutions in this close-knit town, Conso is deeply intertwined with the people of the community, who cross paths at work, at church and at their children's Saturday morning baseball games. On January 19, 2015, Smith wrote a letter to Columbia, South Carolinas The State newspaper explaining what allegedly drove her to kill her children. While following other leads about the supposed black carjacker. And for that she was sentenced to life in prison -- with the chance of parole. Findlay, a slight, balding graphic designer, appeared to exchange a quick half-smile with Smith from the stand during a break in his testimony about their brief fling, which he said began. During their breakup, Susan dated her former boyfriend, but when she found out that she was pregnant again, which seemed to bring David and her into clearer focus, the two reunited. When Susan Smith's story was first broadcast to the public she appeared to be a distraught mother desperate for the return of her two children. Give directly to The Spokesman-Review's Northwest Passages community forums series -- which helps to offset the costs of several reporter and editor positions at the newspaper -- by using the easy options below. Findlay testified as a prosecution witness, but his sympathetic testimony may have helped the defense. 'I took David's threats seriously.' Investigators testified Wednesday. Per TIME, Smith later said the relationship continued until roughly six months before she committed murder, and later revised their relationship as "consensual.". Findlay received a salary of $214,615 last year, according to company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and he controls 53 percent of Conso's stock, a chunk valued at $24-million. Until front-office secretary Susan Smith killed her two sons, Conso Products Co. hummed quietly along, rolling out decorative trimmings for chairs, sofas and drapes. Texas woman Andrea Yates drowning her kids to save them from the Devil, Alice Crimmins, the New York mom accused of killing her kids. Meanwhile, David had no idea that she suffered from depression and dependent personality disorder. The case attracted international attention because of her false claim that a black man had kidnapped her sons during a carjacking, but instead. "I had to put my light against the window, and peered in," Mr. Morrow testified yesterday in the murder trial of Susan Smith. I will always treasure our friendship and all of the many wonderful memories we have made. I was not myself," she continued. What Is Chris Watts Life in Prison Like? Smith and Findley had been dating for a few months after her separation from her . She made a tearful plea on national television for their safe return. Susan Knick Smith, 67. As NYT summarized, Smith eventually confessed to taking her children to a nearby lake and intentionally "rolling her car down a boat ramp and into the "body of water. Ss for the crimes that put her in prison in the first place, she broke her decades-long silence in 2015 via a letter to South Carolinas The State. That was more important to her than the actual act, Findlay told defense attorney David Bruck during cross-examination. Distraught, Smith got her children into her car and began to drive toward her mothers house. Susan hadnt been a model prisoner, as she has been disciplined five times for offenses, including for drug uses. Some think Smith hoped to land one of them. It comes with the possibility of parole one that she'll be eligible for in 2024, per the New York Post. Her mother was worried about potential embarrassment. Susan Smith told the police that the car and the children were at the bottom of John Ds long lake. "I was able to see a small hand pressed against the glass.". The Susan I knew was not a vindictive person.. Five weeks after the divorce, Smiths father killed himself. However, Smith was seeing other men too. One day in October 1994, Susan Smiths kids, three-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alexander, joined her for a drive. Findlay recalled Smith being upset because David knew, or so she thought, some information that he was going to make public that upset her. Its unclear just what this was, while it would later be revealed that Smith had continued having sexual relations with her former stepfather. You dont have all the guilt of this tragedy, he read from a letter he wrote Ms. Smith this past Fathers Day. At trial, Smiths defense lawyers claimed she was severely mentally ill and pointed to her troubled life as cause. He sent her a lot of money.. All the conspiracies about this financier, 'Dateline': The insane story behind the Chris Smith murder. Before Susan Smith had taken more than a few steps up a boat ramp after rolling her car into the lake with her two children strapped inside, she was already wondering what people would think of. America's original most-hated mom Susan Smith was found in a pool of blood in her prison cell after she slashed her wrists during one of her bizarre cutting rituals, according to reports. Susan Smith falsely accused a black man of carjacking her children in 1994 Andrew Smith, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Her behavior behind bars has only made her more infamous, as shes been caught smoking marijuana and sleeping with a correctional officer. Gifts processed in this system are not tax deductible, but are predominately used to help meet the local financial requirements needed to receive national matching-grant funds. Her sentence? Susan Smith (born Susan Vaughan) led a troubled childhood, though nobody at her high school would have noticed. Susan Smith's former cellmates and a prison guard who had sex with her are speaking out about the infamous woman's checkered time behind bars. Mayor Jane Castors partner vowed not to lobby the city. Excerpts from a letter Susan Smith wrote to Tom Findlay on Oct. 17, and his reply, written the same day and given to her Oct. 18. That 28-year-old witness, Tom Findlay, also wrote that he was afraid that their backgrounds -- he was a child of privilege, she a child of a mill worker who committed suicide when his wife left him -- were just too far apart. . Later she stated she wanted to kill her sons and herself. Findlay was one of nine witnesses Wednesday, the second day of testimony in a trial to decide whether Susan Smith lives or dies. While the authorities searched for her two young sons, Susan Smith watched herself lie to the nation on a taped television newscast, and even smiled at the television screen, a counselor who. One of the revelers, Susan. However, after a nine-day . . Thomas S. England/Getty ImagesDavid Smith Sr. mourning his grandsons at John D. Long Lake. She tried anything she could think of to get him back. Her stepfatherbegan sexually abusing her during her high school years, per the outlet. Eventually, Christie realized that Susan was a master manipulator and they grew apart. "The company realizes that what happens has to be played out in the courts and that it does not have anything to do with Conso or its business," Cooney said. A divorced father of three, Russell was a thriving stockbroker, and a member of both South Carolinas Republican community and the Christian Coalition. ], On July 22, 1995, Smith was convicted of both boys murders and sentenced to life in prison. Again, Smith tried to get Tom on her side by going to his office, and declaring what she had told him was a lie. She had a guy she was seeing and he used to fly up [to the prison] to see her. she says. This is what prompted Susan Smith to drown her own children. 'The Susan Smith Story: A Mother's Confession' is an 'American Justice' episode that chronicles the 1994 tale of a young mother claiming that she had been a victim of a carjacking and the perpetrator had taken off with her two toddler sons still in the car. Judge William Howard passed a box of tissues to a juror who wept during testimony from Walter Garner, who often cared for the boys with his wife, Barbara, and daughter, Donna Garner. Published on July 9, 2021 11:53 AM. They married on March 15th in 1991 due to Smith being pregnant. There was no motive, as it was not even a planned event. Christiewho says she looked up to Susan as a mother figurealso claims she witnessed Susans sexual escapades first hand. Findlay told of an encounter with David Smith in March 1994, when David and Susan were separated and she and Findlay were just starting to date. The thing that hurts me the most is that people think that I hurt my children in order to be with a man. I could never express in words how much you mean to me. who has been on the run for 47 years, was convicted of killing 14-year-old Mary Ellen Deener in 1966. Susan Smith was convicted on July 22, 1995 of murdering her two sons, 3-year-old Michael Daniel Smith, born October 10 and 14-month-old Alexander. Christie Smith claims that while at Leath Correctional Institution in Greenwood County, South Carolina, she witnessed Susans drug habit first hand. Browse from a variety of styles, sets, and sizes of women's wear for every fit and occasion. Obituary. Ms. Smith remained stoic during Russells half-hour on the witness stand, but he was choked with emotion. They mentioned that her children had become a major handicap in Susans choice to get what she wants. Tom had caught Smith in a hot tub while making out with someone elses husband at a party. What Made a Mother Kill Her Young Son by Dropping Him Off a Bridge? He holds dual bachelor's degrees from Pace University and a master's degree from New York University. Refine Your Search Results. Mr. Findlay testified that when he called Mrs. Smith's house on one occasion, Mr. Smith snatched the phone from her. The company recently donated that money to day-care centers in the area. Rowe received five years of probation in 2001. All the drama surrounding the duo. That is so far from the truth. Today Susan Smith is incarcerated at Leath Correctional Institution in Greenwood, South Carolina. He claimed Smith was a murderous manipulator who killed her children to regain Findlays affections. . bore some of the responsibility of the crime, He also expressed disappointment with her sentence, local and national African American communities, said that while communicating with Smith in prison. As the murder trial of Susan Smith begins this week in Union, Judge William L. Howard Jr., who is barring all cameras from the courtroom, has indicated that the proceedings will not come to. Findlay, 28, short and balding with a pleasant face, has been the shadowy figure at the center of the Susan Smith mystery. Why did Susan Smith drive her two sons into a lake. Fox, 82, of Findlay died at 3:39 p.m. on Saturday, January 22, 2022 at the Bridge Hospice Care Center surrounded by her loving family. Susan navigated that grief by keeping his coin collection and an audio recording of her fathers voice, but tried to kill herself at 13. For nine days, she stuck to the story that a black carjacker abducted the children on a dark, desolate stretch of country road. A questionnaire asked potential jurors whether they had ever worked at Conso or had a financial stake in it. Snort, booty bump, swallow, shoot. But in 1994, she destroyed her own family when she murdered her children. The jury has heard embarrassing testimony about Smith's affair with co-worker Tom Findlay and her claim _ which she later recanted _ that she slept with J. Cary Findlay, Tom Findlay's father and Conso's chairman. She reddened slightly and stared back at him. In a long day of testimony, the relationship between Smith and Findlay took center stage. She pleaded for the safe return of her boys, 14-month-old Alexander and. Susan was working at the local grocery store when she began a relationship with a co-worker and high school friend named David Smith. But the account by Mr. Morrow, a diving expert with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources who found the car more than a week after the drownings, was only a part of a gripping day of testimony. The residents did their part too. The mom did it, the question was soon becoming more obvious as the search continued. On cross-examination, Mrs. Smith's lawyer, David Bruck, asked Mr. Findlay whether he had ever had reason to believe that Mrs. Smith would harm her children to win him back. She gained the . The motive behind Susan Smiths murdering her children was indeed a shocking one. A look at the notorious convicted murderer's life in prison after she drowned her two sons in 1994 By Steve Helling Updated on November 15, 2022 10:05 AM On October 25, 1994, Susan Smith told. Smith hid it well. On October 25, 1994, a mother would commit an unspeakable act. 28 year old Tom Findlay had no idea when he began a relationship with Susan Smith, who worked within his father's company, that his name would be irrevocably linked with a tragedy that horrified the state, the nation, and many around the world. True Crime newsletter for susan smith tom findlay pictures Crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases stock December. 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