Chapter 55 first quarter

October 25, 1994, was an ordinary Tuesday night like any late autumn night in Union, South Carolina. Shirley McGraw leaned on the sofa in the living room, flipping through the "Alliance Daily Times" of the day.The TV was on, and Shirley's husband, Rico McGraw, was half asleep on the other sofa.The McGraw home was on the outskirts of town, about a quarter of a mile from John D. Long Lake.A highway 49 runs diagonally northeast and southwest from here to Union Town. Shirley is waiting to watch the 9 o'clock program.She looked up at the clock, it was 9:02.Shirley was about to ask Rico to hand her the remote control when there was a sudden knock on the door.The couple got up and turned on the overhead light on the outdoor porch, and through the window saw a young woman who was almost completely white from top to bottom under the light—a white T-shirt and a white sportswear with the word "Auburn" printed in orange on the chest. Fleece sweater, white tennis shoes, white socks and a pair of light blue and white jeans, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, long light brown hair combed into a ponytail behind the head.The woman appeared to be in her early 20s, panicked and tear-stained.Shirley opened the door, and the young woman burst into tears: "Please help me!" "He took my two children and drove away my car." Shirley let her into the house, and the woman continued: "A Black people took my kids and my car."

Rico asked their son Rico Jr. to call 911 immediately.They were called at 9:12 a.m., according to police records. "There was a lady who came to our house and she...someone jumped in the car...at a red light intersection with two kids in her car. The man drove the car away and she was pushed out of the car Come... now at our house." Little Rico said into the microphone while listening to the young woman's explanation. "He took two children?" asked the police officer on duty. "Yes, and the car. I don't...she's very hysterical. I think I should call the police and tell them to send someone quickly..."

As soon as little Rick put down the microphone, his father grabbed the car keys: "Let's go, see if we can find them." They hoped that the robber hadn't gone far, or left the children somewhere nearby.Father and son spent more than an hour outside, especially around John D. Long Lake, and returned empty-handed. In the McGraw's living room, the young woman finally calmed down.She told Shirley her name was Susan Smith and she lived in Uniontown.Shirley asked her to tell the story again. "I was waiting for a red light at the intersection of Monaco Mill, and a black man jumped into the car and ordered me to drive. I asked him why he did this, and he said shut up and drive, or I will kill you." Susan said , her car was parked on the main road leading to Highway 49 at the Monaco Mill intersection, and there was no car around.Susan had no choice but to follow the carjacker's instructions to leave Union Town and drive northeast along Highway 49 for about 4 miles until "passing that road sign, he asked me to stop."

"Is that the sign for John D. Long Lake?" Shirley MacLaw asked.John D. Long Lake's sign is just a few hundred meters in front of McGraw's house. "Yes. He asked me to get out of the car. The car was parked in the middle of the road and there was no one or a car around. I asked him: 'Why can't I take the children?' He said: 'I don't have time.' "Susan went on to say how the man cornered her at gunpoint and pushed her out of the car. "When he finally pushed me out of the car, he said: 'Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt your kids.'"

Susan Smith said that she was sitting on the ground and heard the two children crying for their mother, but could do nothing but watch the man take her children and disappear into the darkness.After an unknown amount of time, Susan started running until she stopped at the door of McGraw's house. Susan asked Shirley McGraw if she could use their bathroom and if she could call her mother.Susan's hands were shaking badly, it was Shirley who dialed the number for her.Susan's mother, Linda Russo, was not at home, and Susan called her stepfather, Beverly Russo, and her husband, David Smith.David was working the night shift manager at Win-Dicks, a supermarket in the center of Union Township.

While Susan and David were on the phone, Officer Howard Wells of the Union District Police Department rushed to McGraw's house.He was the second police officer to arrive "on the scene".Welsh police officer and Susan Smith are no strangers, not only because Union is a small town with a population of less than 10,000, "Everybody knows everybody (everyone knows everybody)", but also the Welsh couple and Susan's brother His sister-in-law Scott and Wanty Vaughn had a close personal relationship.Susan looked quite different now, flushed and slightly puffy, with nervous hands on her knees.Howard Wells routinely asked Susan to retell her story, and he listened to it while taking a formal note, inserting questions about details from time to time.Susan told Welsh police officers that when they were hijacked, the two sons of the Smith family, Alex, one year and two months old, were wearing a red coat with white stripes, and three-year-old Michael was wearing a white suit. underwear.The car that was driven away by the robbers was a 1990 burgundy four-door Mazda Prue Taijin.

In fact, the police have already grasped the situation from 911 calls, and orders for a large-scale search have been issued. The first batch of search personnel who are on duty at various police stations in the Alliance area have already set off, and more people are rushing from their homes.The police quickly realized that because the robber absconded by car, the distance between his possible location and the scene of the crime expanded rapidly over time, and it was impossible to carry out such a large-scale search with the manpower and material resources of the Union area.So the South Carolina State Police and the Highway Patrol joined the operation just before midnight.Soon, FBI officials arrived after hearing the news.

At the same time that Officer Howard Wells was driving to the McGraw home, at least ten other vehicles were traveling in the same direction on Highway 49.Susan's family arrived one after another.Her good friend Donna Glenn and her parents were also there.When David Smith stepped through the door, Susan rushed forward eagerly, threw herself into her husband's arms and wept bitterly.In the opinion of the Welsh police officer, this is just the usual behavior of a married couple in this situation.Little did he know at the time that the two young men had been living apart for many days. Susan Smith was born on September 26, 1971, and her maiden name was Susan Lee Vaughn. She was born and raised in the town of Union.

Union Township is the regional capital of Union, and both are named for the Union Church at West Monaco's Mill in the town.The town of Union is not big. In addition to various government agencies, the town center also has the campus of South Carolina State University Union, a shopping center, and some other stores, including the national chain store Wal-Mart and several supermarkets. The population of Union area is 3 Nearly 70% are Caucasians of Eastern European origin, and less than 30% are black.A large area in the southern part of the area belongs to the Summit National Forest, and almost all the residents are concentrated in the town of Union and several nearby small towns in the north.Surrounding these towns are some large and small traditional industrial enterprises, employing about 13,000 people.

Susan's biological father, Harry Ray Vaughn, was originally a firefighter and later worked in a textile factory. In 1960, when 20-year-old Harry married 17-year-old Linda, Linda was already pregnant with someone else's child.Together, the Vaughans raised Linda's son, Michael, and their two children, Scott and Susan. In Susan's childhood memories, although her mother lived at home, the house was always messy, her parents were always arguing, and her father often punched her, and threatened to kill her and himself from time to time.Harry Vaughan's violence stemmed from his alcoholism and suspicions that Linda had been unfaithful to him.The tense relationship between the parents kept Susan and her younger brother Scott in constant fear that something might happen in the family. In 1975, Susan's half-brother Michael attempted to commit suicide by hanging himself. Later, he was sent to the Duke University Medical Center and other places to be hospitalized for psychological and psychiatric treatment.This unstable family life created Susan's melancholy personality.The mother of a little friend described Susan as a "depressed little girl" when she was young, "often sitting there blankly, as if she didn't know where she was."

Among the Vaughan family, Susan is closest to her father.As long as Harry is around, the little girl will look very happy. In 1977, Linda filed for divorce from her husband, just after Susan's 6th birthday.Two weeks after the divorce decree was officially handed down, Linda married her now-husband, Beverly Russo.Three weeks later, on January 15, 1978, Harry Ray Vaughan committed suicide. According to police reports at the time, Harry became more depressed after the divorce and often got himself very drunk.On the day of his suicide, he smashed a window and entered Linda's apartment.Linda had to call the police when the old couple turned from swearing at each other to fighting.When the police arrived, Harry was still beating his ex-wife.Harry said he knew he shouldn't hit people, but he just couldn't control himself. He asked the police to put him in jail so that he wouldn't hurt others again.Harry later tucked a gun between his legs and pulled the trigger on his stomach.The fatal shot didn't kill him instantly, and Harry struggled to call 911.The ambulance took Harry Vaughan directly to the operating table, but failed to save his life. The father's suicide left a huge gap in little Susan's life that may never be filled.Two treasures that Susan collected in her childhood, one is the coins collected by Harry during his lifetime, and the other is a box of tapes that recorded her father teaching her to speak.Later, a psychiatrist believed that Susan's over-reliance on the opposite sex as an adult was also related to her loss of her father's love since she was a child. Scott and Susan moved with their remarried mother from the civilian house on the outskirts of the Vaughan family to his stepfather's big house in Vernon Hills, an upper-class residential area in Union Town.Beverly Russo owns an electrical store in the heart of Uniontown.He had also been married before, and had several daughters with his first wife.This person is also keen on politics. He followed the Democrats for a while in the early years, and later defected and joined the Republican Party. Later, he even became an executive member of the South Carolina Republican Party. In fact, Susan is an honest and obedient child who studies hard.She is afraid of loneliness and longs to be loved by others, so she has been working hard from elementary school to middle school.In high school, she was a member of the school's beta club. The condition for joining this club is that all subjects must be above B (good).She also participated in the Math Club, the Spanish Club, and the Red Cross.Susan was elected president of the Student Volunteer Association and regularly volunteers at community hospitals, nursing homes, and the local Special Olympics Games for the Disabled. It was during this period of high school that Susan began to intentionally change her personality, or image.Contrary to the timidity and depression in the past, Susan showed a somewhat insincere lightheartedness and pretended to be cheerful and generous in front of her peers. In 1989, when she was in her third year of high school, Susan was voted "the friendliest girl" by her classmates. In everyone's memory, she was a "happy and down-to-earth" girl.At this time, Susan's figure was becoming more and more plump due to her maturity. She judged the situation, put away her bodysuit, and carefully dressed herself up with loose slacks and miniskirts. In the summer of 1988, the last summer of her school days, Susan got a job as a cashier at a Win-Dix supermarket.This is her first job.The town of Union is not big, there is only one Win-Dix.Suzanne was supposed to do well here, and within six months she was promoted to head cashier and then to the store's bookkeeping secretary. It was here that Susan came into contact with the real "men" in society, the kind of men who nakedly pursue physical satisfaction, dismiss the so-called romance or interest, and are completely different from the reserved "boys" in school.I'm afraid Susan didn't expect that she soon became a captive of these men involuntarily.Towards the end of the summer, Susan began secretly flirting with a much older married man and became pregnant.Soon after she had the abortion, the married man found out that Susan was secretly dating another male colleague at the same time, and he flatly refused to continue with her.The infatuated Susan experienced a real lovelorn. On November 7, 1988, she swallowed an overdose of aspirin and Tylenol and tried to commit suicide. She was sent to the Spartanburg Regional Medical Center 20 miles away. Treat for a week. During hospitalization, doctors learned that this was not Susan's first suicide attempt. When she was 13, she took about the same dose of aspirin once. After being discharged from the hospital, Susan followed the doctor's advice to recuperate at home for a period of time.A month later she returned to work at Win-Dix and began her relationship with David Smith. David Smith is the second of three children in the Smith family. He was born in Roja Oak, Michigan on July 27, 1970. When he was two years old, he moved with his parents to Putt, 5 miles northwest of Union Town South.David's father, Charles David Smith, a Navy veteran who served twice in the Vietnam War in the 1960s, first worked in a clothing factory in the center of Union Township and later became the manager of the local Wal-Mart chain of department stores.Mother Barbara worked part-time, attending nursing school while working part-time at a law firm and a clinic.David has an older brother, Danny, a younger sister, Becky, and a half-brother, Billy. The Smith family also rarely had a peaceful day, because Barbara was a devout, even fanatical Jehovah's believer, not only herself, but also required the whole family to abide by extremely strict religious rules.The church regards all forms of entertainment and luxury as disloyalty and blasphemy to God, and because of this, the Smith family never holds any parties, never celebrates birthdays or buys gifts for the children, and never celebrates New Year's Day.David remembers his mother not even allowing them to attend school entertainment and parties at classmates' houses.David left his parents when he was 17 and moved in with his great-grandmother, Moina, not far from the Smiths' home, where his older brother Danny was already living. David started working at Win-Dix at the age of 16.He was not a particularly good student in school, with mediocre grades.But he is easy-going and easy to get along with people.He and Susan were alumni of Union High School, she was a grade below him. When Susan returned to Win-Dix after a series of miscarriages, lovelorn attempts, and suicide attempts, she suddenly found that David, who was not impressive, turned out to be a very good conversation partner. He was patient, meticulous, and understanding. Desirability often makes Susan, who is constantly troubled by loneliness, feel a kind of kindness and warmth.David was already a small leader in the store at that time. He was honest and reliable, and he was serious in his work, which won the trust of the boss.Susan especially liked the occasional carelessness David gave her at work, especially in front of other female companions.In fact, David was already engaged to his girlfriend Christy Jennings at that time. He didn't take the relationship with Susan too seriously at the beginning, just as a general good friend.But couldn't stand for a long time, and Susan dangled in front of him every day, and David had sex with Susan by accident. In February 1991, Susan found out she was pregnant.Like all young people who encounter such unexpected events, David and Susan didn't know how to deal with it for a while. They discussed in private several times but couldn't come up with a perfect plan.One thing is for sure, neither is willing to take the baby away.David decides to take on fatherly responsibilities.He was so guilty that he didn't even dare to tell Christy Jennings in person, so he could only ask his girlfriend for forgiveness over the phone.For Susan, although marriage can provide her with spiritual dependence and emotional sustenance, it means that it is impossible for her to go to college, at least in the near future.Susan has always wanted to be a college student, although she has not yet chosen a school and a major.But now, with an unexpected pregnancy and a hasty marriage, her college dream might be delayed indefinitely. Not only the two parties, Susan's mother and stepfather also did not welcome the sudden news.Linda put on a cold face. She really didn't look down on her future son-in-law. Not only did David not have the college degree Linda required, but he was also not in the right family.The "city folks" who lived in Uniontown looked down on the "country folks" around them. On March 4, 1991, David's older brother, Danny, died of Colon Syndrome.Crohn's disease is a painful intestinal inflammation.Danny was admitted to the Spartanburg Regional Medical Center in the winter of the first year. After the operation, the wound was seriously infected, and he died at the age of 22.David had been close to his brother since he was a child, and Danny's death made him and his family unable to extricate themselves from the grief for a long time.Linda didn't care about these things, she was still busy planning her marriage.She insisted that the wedding be held as scheduled, because she didn't want to see Susan with a showy belly at the wedding, making the guests laugh. Eleven days later, on March 15, 1991, David and Susan were married at the United Methodist Church of Christ.David is 20 and Susan is 19 and two months pregnant.A few days ago, in this same church, the Smiths had just sent Danny away.David later told a friend that when he came out of the church and passed the nearby cemetery, he silently begged his brother for forgiveness in his heart.After all, Danny is still dead. Since David moved into his great-grandmother's house, Moana gave him an old Smith family house.Although the house has been unoccupied for a long time and has been in disrepair for a long time, the foundation is still solid.After all, it is a brick house, which is many times stronger than those new wooden houses that have sprung up in the city today.David is a caring person. Regardless of the extreme heat or cold, whenever he has free time, the cat repairs the house, and puts a lot of money into it.Over the past few years, although it can't be said to have a new look, the house is still decent, which makes the old neighbors look at it differently.David originally planned to live here with Christy Jennings at home. Christy is also very fond of this "nest" and occasionally comes to help.When David brought Susan to his little house and told her that they would have children here in the future, Susan did not object.But Linda and Beverly Russo couldn't agree with this simple shed-like shack.Their daughter was born to live in a big house.So Susan also turned her face and refused to live in the "shabby little shed".In the end, the newlyweds made concessions and temporarily squeezed into the house of their great-grandmother, Mo Na, for a period of time.This "sufficiency" is more than two years. In May of the same year, David's parents were angry again because of something, and Charles was always depressed afterwards.David called his father from class that day, but he was nowhere to be found.He suddenly felt an unspeakable ominous feeling, and hurriedly asked Susan to visit his father's house.Susan initially thought the Smith home was empty. She dialed her husband's number on her mobile phone and asked David to instruct her to search around the house.When Susan checked the bedroom as David had ordered, David heard an exclamation from the other end of the phone—the dying Charles Smith was lying on the narrow floor behind the bed, taking a lot of pills and trying to kill himself. The old Smith couple's stalemate for more than 20 years has finally reached the point of no return.After the divorce Barbara went to Garden City near Myerto Beach, more than 200 miles away.Charles spent a long time in the hospital for treatment of depression.There, he met Su, who later became his second wife.After being discharged from the hospital, they both left South Carolina and moved west to California. Despite all these stumbling blocks, the married life of the two young people was harmonious at first.As they waited for the birth of their first child, the couple looked forward to the future.People in Union Town still remember that Susan had a big belly and a contented and happy expression on her face. Susan worked at Wyn-Dix until she gave birth.Michael Danny Smith was born on October 10, 1991 at the Mary Blake Hospital in Spartanburg.The child's first name "Michael" was taken from Susan's half-brother, and the second name "Danny" was David's recently deceased brother.After Michael's full moon, Susan returned to Wing-Dix to work part-time while taking two courses at the South Carolina State University Union. The excitement and joy brought about by the birth of a son disappeared quickly like a passing cloud, but the troubles caused by chores such as baby bottles and diapers lingered for a long time.Many contradictions that had been lurking between the young couple gradually emerged. The first problem is money.It stands to reason that this should not be a problem.David makes $22,000 a year, Susan $17,000.Union Town is located inland and relatively remote. There is no high-tech industry thriving in other parts of the United States here, only some traditional small factories called township enterprises in China. In the 1990s, the per capita annual income in Union Township was less than US$10,000, and the median annual household income was about US$25,000.By any standard, the Smiths are doing well.According to David, Susan is particularly pursuing material comforts, but doesn't know how to be frugal. She spends ten thousand dollars on a thousand dollars, and always spends beyond her means.What David couldn't tolerate the most was that Susan often asked her mother for money. Another issue implicated in this is David's relationship with his mother-in-law.Linda never concealed her dissatisfaction with her son-in-law.In her opinion, it was David who ruined Susan's future, otherwise Susan would be able to go to college smoothly.On the other hand, David discovered from the moment he and Susan talked about marriage that his wife obeyed her mother-in-law and acted according to Linda's will everywhere, allowing Linda to be half of their home.In fact, in the eyes of ordinary people, Linda is not a very domineering person.Her domineering to her daughter and son-in-law is because Susan always asks her for money, and David has the kind of listless temper, which contributes to Linda's arrogance.Linda often dropped by her son-in-law's house without saying hello, as if it was her own home.She also instructed the young couple on housework, told them how to raise their children, and how to deal with conflicts in their marriage. Of course, she also instilled her own dislike of David in her daughter. Another problem was that David and Susan both worked at Win-Dix.They are husband and wife at home, but they become subordinates when they go to work.Win-Dix employees remember one time when there was a long line of customers waiting to pay, and David told all the cashiers to come to the front desk, only to find Susan dragging a cashier to chat in the lounge .As soon as David said a few words to them, Susan flew into a rage, and felt wronged afterwards, sobbing and crying non-stop.She later admitted that David had a point, she just couldn't stand his attitude.