SET ME FREE!

IN 1994, SHE BRUTALLY KILLED HER TWO YOUNG SONS. BUT WITH HER PAROLE HEARING IMMINENT, “MODEL PRISONER” SUSAN SMITH WANTS TO BE BACK IN THE REAL WORLD.

IT was the crime story that shocked the world. In October, 1994, Susan Smith reported both of her young boys missing, insisting to her husband and to the police that an African American man had forced her out of her car and driven off with them. Repeatedly, she appeared on national TV alongside her estranged husband, David, begging the carjacker to safely return her “babies.” But it all turned out to be an ugly lie. Weeks later, authorities learned that Susan herself had strapped Michael, 3, and Alex, 1, into their car seats, driven to a boat ramp on South Carolina’s John D. Long Lake, and pushed her car into the water, drowning the little boys — allegedly to assuage a secret boyfriend who didn’t want children. After a headline-making trial, Susan was sentenced to life behind bars. But still, she repeatedly claimed she was a good person who deserved a second chance. “I am not the monster society thinks I am,” she wrote in 2015. “Something went wrong that night… I was not in my right mind.”