Susan Smith, the notorious mother convicted of drowning her two sons in a South Carolina lake back in 1994, has recently made some startling revelations to her male admirers regarding her unsuccessful parole attempt last year.

“I didn’t cry enough,” she confided to one of her correspondents earlier this year. “They expect to see remorse and emotion, and apparently, I just didn’t display enough of it.”

Smith added, “I’ll be better prepared next time.”

The Daily Mail has come into possession of transcripts detailing hundreds of voice and text exchanges between Smith and multiple men, all while she serves her life sentence at Leath Correctional Institution in Greenwood, South Carolina.

Smith maintains an active communication routine, sending and receiving about 15 to 20 text messages daily and spending extensive hours on phone calls with men who engage her in romantic and intimate conversations. These men range in age from 27 to their mid-60s.

“I know that I’m where God wants me now,” Smith expressed to another man. “But I believe with all my heart that I will be released in two years.”

Susan Smith is incarcerated at Leath Correctional Facility, where she is serving a life sentence

Smith drowned her two young sons in a South Carolina lake in 1994

Smith texted both men after her unsuccessful parole hearing in November 2024, when the board unanimously voted to deny her request. In the hearing, Smith acknowledged her crime. 

‘I know what I did was horrible,’ she said quietly with a wavering voice. ‘I would give anything so I could change it.’ 

She then added: ‘God is a big part of my life. He has forgiven me, and I ask that you show that kind of mercy, as well.’ 

But her ex-husband, David Smith, pleaded with the parole board to keep Smith in jail. 

‘It’s just not enough,’ he said through his tears. “I’m asking that you please, please deny her parole today and hopefully in the future, but specifically today.’ 

After the hearing, he told reporters that he would attend each parole hearing in the future to ensure that she remained behind bars. 

Under South Carolina law, Smith must wait two years between parole hearings. She will be able to make another bid for freedom next year. 

But away from the parole board, Smith does not appear as contrite.

‘They were never going to let me out,’ she told the first man in a text. ‘That decision was made before I ever went in front of them. It was tilted against me.’  

Another former suitor – an airline employee from Michigan who corresponded with Smith for nearly two years between 2023 and 2024 – told the Daily Mail he is unsurprised that Smith spoke so callously about her parole hearing. 

‘She is so good at telling everyone what they want to hear,’ he said. ‘If I wanted to talk about God, she’d talk about God. If I wanted to talk about sex, she’d talk about sex. But one thing that we never talked about was those two boys. She just didn’t talk about them at all.’ 

‘She said all the right things, but then I saw that she was talking to all these other guys,’ he added. ‘And that was my deal breaker. I backed away. She will say whatever she wants to say, to whoever can help her. Doesn’t care who she hurts.’  

Smith wiped away tears during her parole hearing, but later claimed she did not cry enough

After the boys went missing in 1994, Susan and David Smith spoke to reporters, pleading for their sons’ return

Michael and Alex Smith drowned in 1994 because Smith didn’t want to have children anymore 

A makeshift memorial was erected after the boys’ bodies were found 

Smith was a 22-year-old married mother living in Union, South Carolina in 1994 when she became internationally infamous for drowning her two sons – Michael, three, and 14-month-old Alex – in a lake near her home 

According to court records, she had started an affair with Tom Findlay, the son of her boss at Conso Products – a home décor trim company.

But after Smith kissed and fondled another man during a 1994 naked hot tub party, Findlay, now 56, dumped her – and told her in a letter that he didn’t want to be with a woman with children.

‘Susan, I could really fall for you,’ Findlay wrote. ‘You have so many endearing qualities about you, and I think that you are a terrific person.’

‘But like I have told you before, there are some things about you that aren’t suited for me, and yes, I am speaking about your children.’

‘I’m sure that your kids are good kids, but it really wouldn’t matter how good they may be… the fact is, I just don’t want children.’

A week later, a furious and despondent Smith let her burgundy Mazda roll down a boat ramp into John D. Long Lake with her two sons still strapped into their car seats. She stood on the side of the lake and watched the car sink to the bottom as the boys cried. 

After the brothers drowned, Smith falsely told police that a black man had carjacked her, leading to an exhaustive search in which cops went door to door of black residents in the area, interrogating hundreds of innocent men. 

For nine days Smith and her husband David made tearful appearances on TV begging the supposed kidnapper to return their boys before she finally confessed to killing them. Authorities dragged her vehicle from the lake with the two boys’ lifeless bodies still strapped in their car seats. 

Smith was convicted on two counts of first-degree murder. The jury rejected the death penalty and she was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 30 years.

But Smith, now 54, is convinced that she will someday be free. 

‘I will get out of here,’ she told a friend over the summer. ‘I am not going to die in prison. I believe that will all my heart.’