Chapter 58 fourth quarter

On Friday, October 28, Officer Howard Wells was interviewed on NBC's "Today" morning news program and Larry Ken, host of the Central News Network.He told the media that the police intelligence hotline had received thousands of calls, but so far there has been no breakthrough in the case. Early this morning, state and local police officers and more than 50 volunteer firefighters searched a large area on the north and south sides of Highway 49 near John D. Long Lake, but found nothing. In the afternoon of the same day, police officer Howard Wells answered reporters' questions and said that they could not rule out any suspects, including Susan and David.He also told reporters that the police found several inconsistencies in Susan's testimony, but declined to provide details.However, the next day, Saturday's "Alliance Daily Times" published an article on the front page, saying that Susan's testimony was inconsistent with the facts. Knowing that Susan was going to his house; Second, none of Wal-Mart's customers and employees saw Susan and her two children that night.The article also said that Susan told the police that she drove on the street for an hour or two before being hijacked.

After the article was published, the people of Union Town, especially the residents of the black community, said that they had already suspected it in their hearts.Just imagine, the police search is so strict, how could a black man with two white children get away with it?From then on, Susan began to stay away from the media. She tried to avoid reporters’ interviews, especially questions, and spoke as little as possible in any form of public occasions. She was even unwilling to have anything to do with social groups and governments who came to help them Departmental staff contacts.David, who didn't know where to go, also retreated with her.

On Monday, October 31, the Union District Police Department received a call from the Seattle, Washington State Police Department, saying that a 14-month-old boy with similar physical characteristics to Alex was found in their jurisdiction. Left alone in a motel on the outskirts of Seattle.According to hotel staff, the man with the child was driving a vehicle with South Carolina license plates.The news offers a glimmer of hope that at least one of the Smith brothers is missing.The Union Police Department hurriedly sent the relevant materials to Seattle, and soon the other party called back saying that after verification, the child was not Alex Smith.

On Tuesday, November 1, a week after Michael and Alex were kidnapped or disappeared, Constable Howard Wells, Chief David A. Steele, and several FBI officials involved in the case, reached their individual conclusions, which were combined into their collective conclusion: Susan Smith gave law enforcement perjury in connection with her alleged disappearance of the Smith brothers .The next step for the police will be to prove this conclusion, which will be divided into two parts, internal and external. Simply put, external operations are still searches, but the scope will be greatly reduced and the intensity will be increased.After a week of extensive searches, Susan's burgundy Mazda was still missing.Ordinarily, it might not be difficult to hide a few people, but it is not easy to hide a car.After the incident, Susan walked to McGraw's house on foot. If she committed the crime alone, the car should also be within walking distance of McGraw's house.Investigators once again set their sights on the bottomless John D. Long Lake.However, the experts who directed the state police divers to search the bottom of the lake made a fatal mistake here. They believed that if they wanted to hide the car in the lake, the perpetrator should let the car drive at high speed before entering the water, so that it could be used. The car was kept as far away from the shore of the lake as possible, and it went deeper.They did a lot of simulation experiments in this area, and let the divers search the waters near the shore of the lake according to the experimental results.Police also stepped up their operations on the ground in a two-mile radius from John D. Long Lake and McGraw's home.

As for the internal work, we still talk to Susan, but the focus will be on how to induce her to confess.The investigators worked all night to study the countermeasures, and David A. Kazol even designed and wrote the question lines one by one.They also repeatedly discussed and rehearsed the demeanor and tone of speech, etc., and even considered what kind of clothing the talker should wear.Their purpose is to break through Susan's psychological defenses layer by layer so that she can finally tell the truth, but they should not act too hastily, because Susan's situation is very unstable, and applying too much and heavy pressure is likely to cause serious problems. As a result, she kept silent, closed herself with silence, and even committed suicide.

The consensus was that David A. Cajol's role as "bad cop" had come to a successful conclusion, and that "good cops" Howard Wells and Pete Logan should play next.Bit Rogan spent 35 years in the legal profession, including 27 years with the FBI.When he talked or "chat" with Susan, he spoke softly and gently, like a kind elder.Howard Wells, as a brother and friend, speaks with earnestness and sincerity, and is persuasive and persuasive.The two "good policemen" gradually "cheat" Susan's trust. They also moved the location of the conversation out of the police station, which would not only "relax" Susan, but also avoid the eyes and ears of the media.

Thursday, November 3, nine days after Michael and Alex disappeared.The Smiths have been busy since early in the morning, and they have to accept continuous interviews with the morning news of the three major TV stations in the United States.Susan and David sat on the couch in the Russo's living room, shoulder to shoulder, holding hands, just the kind of image that the vast majority of TV viewers hoped to see for a husband and wife supporting each other through adversity.Asked by a reporter on CBS's "This Morning" if she had anything to do with the disappearance of her children, Susan replied: "I have nothing to do with the abduction of my two sons." Whoever did this evil thing must be sick and insane.” Although the Smiths were going through divorce, when the reporter asked David if he believed Susan’s story, David said, “Yes, I trust my wife without reservation."

After lunch, at 12:30, Susan told David that she was out to post some letters.David remembers her leaving in a sweater with a hood and jeans. In fact, it was the investigators who talked to Susan again.Susan took with her a police document based on her testimony from the previous day's conversation. As usual, Susan could take it home to read and revise, and then hand it back to the police the next day.This time, Susan changed only one word, and changed the place where she was hijacked at the red light from "Monaco Mill" to "Calisso", another intersection leading to the black community.

Pete Logan read the testimony she had brought in front of Susan and asked her if there was anything else she wanted to add, and Susan said no. At 1:40, Officer Howard Wells and Susan came to the First Baptist Church on the same street as the Union District Court building, and they faced each other in a small room in the family center of the church. sit down. Officer Welsh began to speak slowly. He had read Susan's revised testimony. Susan changed "Monaco Mill" to "Calisso" because the police told her that if there were no other directions at the Monaco intersection Car, she can't wait there for a red light.But Carlisso couldn't make Susan justify herself, because around October 25, the Union Regional Police Department installed a round-the-clock surveillance post at that intersection to solve a drug case.Howard Wells checked the duty records at that time again just now, and checked with the police officers on duty. Nothing unusual happened at the Carrizo intersection that night.

Police officer Welsh also said that he knew that the black carjackers mentioned by Susan were not true, but the tension between the black community and the Union Town officials and other residents caused by this was growing day by day.The police are considering releasing the inaccuracies in Susan's testimony to the media. Susan was silent for a while, and then said to the Welsh police officer, "Would you like to pray with me?" "willing." "Would you like to say a prayer?" Susan took the hands of Sergeant Welsh. Howard Wells told God in prayer that for the past nine days, whether it was the client and his family, the police, or anyone else who had anything to do with the case, everyone seemed to be living in a nightmare.People are eager to know where Michael and Alex are and if they are safe.The last prayer of Inspector Welsh was: "God, we know that when the time comes all the truth will be revealed. Amen."

He looked up at Susan and said sincerely, "Susan, it's time." Susan hung her head, and she began to cry: "I can't say it, I'm ashamed to see people again." Susan asked the Welsh police officer to give her his gun, and she wanted to kill herself.Officer Welsh asked why, and Susan choked up and said, "You don't know, my children have..." Howard Wells waited patiently for the next. October 25, 1994, was an ordinary Tuesday night like any late autumn night in Union, South Carolina. Susan was driving, and she had been wandering the streets for nearly an hour, trying to calm herself down.She was going to go to Linda first, but she didn't want her mother to see the tears on her face.She drove to Carlisle again, where she planned to jump off the wide river bridge.Finally, somehow, Susan came to the Monaco Mill.She followed the signs on Highway 49 to John D. Long Lake.This is her first time here.Usually, if Michael wanted to feed the ducks, Susan always took a bag of bread crumbs and led the two brothers to the pond in Foster Park, which was very close to home. The driveway ends with a sloping gravel road leading to the lake.People who go to John D. Long Lake to play yachts on weekends will carefully back the car towing the yacht along the slope to the water's edge, and release the hook after the yacht enters the lake.The slope is 75 feet long, or about 23 meters.Susan parked the car at the top of the slope, and she sat quietly in the dark, listening to the breathing of the two children.Michael and Alex are fast asleep in their stroller seats. Susan sat there thinking for a long time.She felt that her life was like John D. Long Lake before her eyes, lonely and dark, dark as far as the eye could see. She is thinking about suicide.She didn't want Michael and Alex to suffer. Just thinking about letting them live with an unknown stepmother, or being sent to a stranger's house by the civil affairs department, Susan felt as if she was being tortured.She believes that letting the two children die with her is the best ending for the three of them. She was thinking about her short life, the failures one after another in her life, and the dreams that were getting farther and farther away from her—about going to college, about love and marriage, about family and children.Originally proposed to divorce David in order to win Tom Ferry, but Tom rejected him again. How will the life of a single mother survive in the future?Just 23 years old, why has my life been messed up in such a mess and fragmented? She was thinking of the men in her life, Beverly Rousseau, the married man of Win-Dix, Davy Smith, Tom Ferry, and so on and on.She was thinking about everything she had done and endured for those men, including the pain and suffering of miscarriages, pregnancies, and childbirth.Only now did she sadly discover that none of them had truly loved herself. There is no hesitation anymore, it is easier and easier to die than to live. Susan shifted the lever from park to neutral, and she could feel the Mazda sliding slowly, down, toward the eerie and mysterious John D. Long Lake.Suddenly, Susan shuddered and shivered, and she began to be afraid.She imagined that she was struggling in the water, thumping, breathless, imagined that her whole body was swollen and white like the water ghost mentioned by the old people.No, no, this way of dying is terrible.Living is not easy, but death is even more terrifying.Susan slammed on the brakes to stop the car, then pulled the emergency handbrake, and the Mazda stopped moving.Susan looked at the lake in the darkness, looked at the elusive death, and finally understood why some people prefer to spend their lives in the monastery, and why some people prefer to live in the world.Susan opened the door, jumped out of the Mazda, then pressed the handbrake and closed the door softly. Susan covered her ears tightly with her hands and ran towards the lake shore.Behind her, with its lights on, the Mazda slid slowly down the sloping gravel road and into the dark John D. Long Lake.The dense lake water overflowed the wheels, the door, and the windows.The surface of the lake was peacefully bursting with bubbles as the water seeped through the closed doors and windows into the car.For a long time, the dense lake overflowed the roof of the Mazda. Susan continued to run toward the only light in sight—the McGraw house, she later learned.At this moment, there is only one thought in her heart: to live.So she started making up her story. Inspector Howard Wells told Susan that he was going out. "Susan's hired," he told Pete Logan. "I need another person to hear her confession, I didn't record it, I didn't take a transcript. You go in with me and she tells it again." Susan was sitting on the floor when the two entered.She looked up at Officer Welsh, tearful, like a helpless child. Howard Wells said, "Susan, tell Commissioner Logan what you just told me." After Susan finished speaking, Howard Wells called Carol Allison of the FBI and asked her to keep an eye on Susan together with Bitter Logan. He repeatedly emphasized that Susan could not leave people for a moment, because she was likely to commit suicide. At 2:30, Officer Howard Wells drove to John D. Long Lake.Police need to corroborate Susan's statement before taking the next step. The first two divers to arrive from the state troopers were Curtis Jackson and Michael Gott.They rowed a small boat away from the sloping lakeshore as Susan had said.Curtis Jackson found nothing when he dived into the bottom of the lake for the first time. He discussed with Michael Gott for a while, and adjusted his position according to Susan's confession given by Howard Wells.The second time, Curtis found the upturned burgundy Mazda in 18 feet (about 5.5 meters) of water, where visibility was only 12 inches, or about 30 centimeters. The location where the Mazda was found was nearly 100 feet, or 30 meters, from the shore of the lake, farther from the shore than the waters delineated by experts in simulation experiments in which the vehicle rushed into the water at high speed.In fact, the faster the vehicle hits the water, the more water it splashes, the bigger the waves it creates and the more drag it creates.In addition, because of the high speed, the vehicle may plunge into the silt at the bottom of the lake and get stuck there.Susan's car slides slowly into the water, and the resistance caused by this movement is much smaller, allowing Mazda to keep the car's own gravity greater than the resistance of the lake water and silt for a longer period of time, so it can follow the slope for a longer period of time The bottom of the lake kept sliding. Two other divers, Steven Moreau and Francis Michume, who arrived later, took a close look at the Mazda's underwater condition by the light of powerful headlights.The Mazda's four doors and all windows remained closed.Steven Morrow later testified in court that he saw first: "a small hand on the window glass." "We had to press our bodies against the mud at the bottom of the lake to see the inside of the car ... they were head down Hanging upside down in the stroller seat." "I saw Michael and Alex through the windows on either side of the Mazda." Sergeant Howard Wells boarded the State Police helicopter and flew from John D. Long Lake to Mount Vernon.The Susan family gathered at the Russo home, the Smith family, and many relatives and friends have heard "unconfirmed information" from a reporter for the United Press that Susan confessed to the police that she killed two children.Officer Welsh stayed at the Russo home for about 20 minutes and told everyone that Michael and Alex had been found.He also told them about Susan's confession and said that the police had arrested Susan Smith for two counts of premeditated murder. At this time, news of all kinds of avenues and trails had spread throughout Union Town through various channels.When Susan was deported by the police to the York Regional Prison and got into the car in front of the Union Police Station, there were thousands of onlookers.Many people shouted loudly: "Executioner!" "Murderer!" "Infant murderer!"〓