South Carolina mother asks to be freed 30 years after killing two sons

A South Carolina woman who killed her two sons 30 years ago is applying for parole on Wednesday.

Susan Smith, 53, was convicted of killing her boys by strapping them into their car seats and letting the vehicle roll into a lake. The 1994 case captivated many.

Now that she has spent three decades in prison she is eligible for a parole hearing.

She will have a chance to tell a seven-person parole board why she should be freed. The father of her children and the prosecutor of the case will also have an opportunity to argue why she should remain behind bars.

Prosecutors argued during the trial that Smith killed her three-year-old Michael and one-year-old Alex after a man with whom she was having an affair told her that her sons were the reason that the pair did not have a future together.

Smith ultimately confessed to the crime. Defence lawyers said she suffered a mental breakdown and wanted to die with her children but left the car at the last minute.

But that is not what she publicly claimed happened at first.

Smith initially said she was carjacked at late at night and that a man drove away with her car.

While she pleaded publicly for the safe return of her sons, they were at the bottom of a nearby lake.

Smith was convicted of murder, but under South Carolina law at the time she was eligible for a parole hearing every two years after serving 30 years in prison.

In order for Smith to be freed, she will need a two-thirds vote of board members who are present, according to the state Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services.