1 week Ago By Fox News
Killer mom Susan Smith has been convicted of a new disciplinary charge after speaking with a documentary filmmaker, weeks before her first parole hearing. The 53-year-old, who was sentenced to life in prison in 1995 for murdering her two children, was charged with communicating with a victim/and or witness of crime on Aug. 26 and was convicted on Oct.
3, Chrysti Shain, director of communications with the South Carolina Department of Corrections, told Fox News Digital. Smith agreed to provide the filmmaker with contact information for friends, family and victims, including her former husband. The filmmaker deposited money into Smith’s account for “Calls and Canteen,” according to the incident report, which redacted the filmmaker’s name.
South Carolina Department of Corrections inmates are not allowed to do interviews on the telephone or in person, according to SCDC policy, but they may write letters. Smith will become eligible for parole on Nov. 4.
, 30 years after she confessed to drowning her two sons, 3-year-old Michael Daniel and 14-month-old Alexander Tyler, in a South Carolina lake. In their conversations, Smith and the filmmaker discussed conducting an interview and even filming for a documentary and ways to get paid for it. They also discussed Smith’s crime in depth and the events leading up to and after it, including details like “what was in the trunk of the car when it went into the water and her plans to jump from a bridge while holding the boys, but one woke up,” the incident report says.
Smith lost her telephone, tablet and canteen privileges for 90 days, beginning Oct. 4. The charge is not a criminal one, but rather it is an internal disciplinary conviction.
It was Smith’s first disciplinary action in almost 10 years. “SCDC inmates are issued tablets that are secured for correctional use. The tablets can be used to make monitored telephone calls and to send monitored electronic messages,” Shain said.
“They are considered a privilege. The department will determine when and if inmate Smith will earn the opportunity to be issued a tablet again.” Smith’s phone conversations with the filmmaker are not the first calls she’s made that have sparked attention.
Over the past three years, Smith has courted nearly a dozen suitors over monitored jailhouse messages and telephone calls, The Post reported. Criminal defense attorney Philip Holloway previously told Fox News Digital that her chances of an early release are “unlikely.” “I expect that she would be denied parole — the facts of this case are horrific,” Holloway said.
“I see it’s unlikely that she would be released into society.” Whether Smith’s latest conviction affects her upcoming parole is unknown. Fox News Digital’s Christina Coulter contributed to this report.
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