Susan Smith killed her 2 young children by pushing her car into a lake. 30 years later, she is to be paroled

(CNN) — “I want to tell my babies that your mommy loves you so much…” Susan Smith, then 23 years old, tearfully told the scrum of the news cameras.

It was early November 1994, and Smith had recently told police that her 3-year-old son Michael and 14-month-old son Alex were taken when she was abducted by a black man in the town of Union, South Carolina , at the end of October. , set off a manhunt and a flurry of media attention on the young mother.

“You guys have to be strong … I just know, I just feel in my heart that you guys are okay,” she said.

But it turned out that Smith’s young children were already dead — strapped into their car seats at the bottom of nearby John D. Long Lake, authorities said.

Investigators were skeptical of Smith’s story from the start, and eventually, under questioning, she confessed to rolling her car into the lake and killing her sons. The story made international headlines, and her 1995 murder trial followed closely around the world.

Prosecutors pointed to reports Smith was having an affair with her boss’s rich son, who had just broken up with her because he didn’t want children. Her lawyers argued that she was suicidal and depressed and intended to stay in the car with her children.

Smith was convicted of murder. Now 53, she has served 30 years of her life sentence, making her eligible for parole under state law at the time of her trial.

“They can’t let her out,” Smith’s ex-husband — and the boys’ father — David Smith told NBC Wednesday morning. “30 years is just not enough. This was not an accident. She deliberately killed Michael and Alex.”

Smith will have his chance today to make his case before the parole board, according to the South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services. Parole is only granted for violent offenders about 8% of the time, the department said said.

“I don’t think she will ever be rehabilitated,” said David Smith, who is expected to appear before the board in opposition to her release. “To me, she was never really sorry for what she did.”

As of the first week of November, the Office of Victim Services had received at least 360 letters, emails and messages about Smith’s parole, with all but six opposed to granting her parole, the department said.

The parole board makes decisions at its discretion, and parole could be granted within moments of the hearing ending Wednesday, or the board could wait until a later time or date, according to the department.

Smith’s attorney, Tommy A. Thomas, did not respond to a request for comment.

Smith’s three decades in prison have not been uneventful. She has met a number internal disciplinary charges.

Just months before her scheduled parole, on Aug. 16, Smith was charged with “communicating with a victim and/or witness” through phone calls with a documentary filmmaker, according to the South Carolina Department of Corrections.

Inmates in South Carolina are allowed to receive and send letters, but cannot legally communicate with reporters in person or on the phone. CNN has sent a letter to Smith in prison seeking comment – but has not received a response.

Smith and the filmmaker discussed filming the documentary after parole and how she would be paid for her participation, according to an incident report.

“They also discussed in depth the crime and the events leading up to and after it actually took place,” the report said. “Including such details as what was in the boot of the car when it went into the water and her plans to jump off a bridge while holding the boys but one woke up.”

The department said Smith agreed to provide the filmmaker with contact information for friends, family and her ex-husband, David Smith. Money was then placed in her jail account, the department said. As a result, Smith lost his phone, tablet and cafeteria privileges for 90 days, according to the department.

Smith can apply for parole because the jury at her 1995 trial declined to impose the death penalty sought by prosecutors.

“I thought the most severe sentence we had would be the most appropriate sentence,” said Tommy Pope, a former 16th Judicial Circuit solicitor who was the lead prosecutor in Smith’s case.

Some jurors he heard from after the trial thought a greater punishment for Smith would be spending a lifetime in prison thinking about his sons, Pope said.

But that hasn’t been the case, Pope said.

“Susan has been focused on Susan for 30 years, not Michael and Alex,” he said.

Pope opposes Smith’s parole and said he will speak to the parole board at the hearing Wednesday. He said he has been in contact with David Smith ahead of the hearing, “He just wants to make sure Michael and Alex are not forgotten,” Pope said.

In 2004, David Smith told CNN’s Larry King that he believed his ex-wife deserved the death penalty.

speaks to Court TV last month David Smith said he had forgiven Susan Smith but wanted justice to be served. He said he planned to remind the parole board of “what Susan did” and “who the victims were in this case — certainly not her.”

His ex-wife “doesn’t deserve to ever be free again,” he said.