Crime History: Mother lies to cover up murdering her kids
By: Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer
October 25, 2009
On this day, Oct. 25, in 1994, a South Carolina mother told police she was carjacked and her attacker took her car with her two young children inside.
For the next nine days, police searched for Susan Smith's 3-year-old and 1-year-old sons, but found no trace of them or the car. The search ended when Smith admitted to driving her Mazda into a lake and drowning her children.
Smith was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
She and her husband had an on-and-off relationship and at the time of the murders she was dating a man who did not want children. It's believed she drowned the kids in the hope that she could be with her new beau.
Smith buckled and confessed under the intense gaze of the media that turned a glaring eye to the search for her children.
-- Freeman Klopott
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