Columbia, S.C. (WACH) — The name Susan Smith evokes terrible memories in this state. The South Carolina woman was convicted of drowning her two sons in 1994 and in just a month, she will have a chance to be released from prison. Smith is set to appear before the parole board in November and the people who prosecuted that case are saying she needs to stay right where she is.
Tommy Pope, the prosecutor in the case, is now a state lawmaker, and he says Susan Smith doesn’t deserve to see the light of day. Pope said he pushed for the death penalty in the case.”In terms of seeking the death penalty, I knew it was an uphill battle because she was a woman,” said Pope. However, jurors felt a life sentence would be better forcing Smith to deal with the pain of killing her young sons for her entire sentence, but Pope said it doesn’t seem Smith has been remorseful at all. “When she received a life sentence that at some point down the road we would be having this conversation,” said Pope.
In 1995 Smith was convicted of rolling her car into a Union County lake drowning her two young sons who were strapped into their car seats. A jury chose to give her life in prison instead of the death penalty, feeling that sentence would be more painful to endure, but it also gave her a chance at parole after serving 30 years.”The betrayal of Susan Smith you know she initially blamed the black man for carjacking her,” recalled Pope. According to the State Department of Corrections Smith’s’ actions on the inside have been less than acceptable…