Chapter 59 Section five

At 5:00 p.m., Officer Howard Wells presided over a press conference for the Union Regional Police Station.At the meeting, he officially announced the arrest of Susan Smith to the media, but he refused to answer questions from reporters on his motive. Soon, the yellow ribbons that were ubiquitous in Uniontown were replaced by blue and white.Light blue is the characteristic color for little boys in the United States, and the white ribbon represents innocence—a reference to the little Smith brothers, not their mother. That night, Susan's car was towed out of John D. Long Lake.It took the operators about 45 minutes to pull the roof-down Mazda out of the mud at the bottom of the lake.Operators turned the vehicle over as it was being towed into shallow water.Due to changes in temperature and pressure, the car was filled with cold water from the bottom of the lake, shattering the windows and gushing out.

The remains of Michael and Alex, together with their stroller seats, were carefully carried into an ambulance by on-site personnel and sent overnight to the State University Medical Center in Charleston, a metropolis in southeastern South Carolina, 200 miles away.An autopsy revealed that the younger brothers were alive when Susan drove them into John D. Long Lake, along with the Mazda sedan.They were strapped into baby carriage seats and drowned in the eerie, icy waters of the lake. On the second day after Susan was arrested, the major newspapers, while reporting the progress of this important case, published several comments on Susan's accusation of black people in her fabricated lies.During the detection of Susan Smith's double murder case, many blacks in the Union area were suspected, questioned and investigated by the police, and the two were taken to the police station. On Friday afternoon, November 4, Susan's brother Scott Vaughan read a letter on behalf of Susan and the family at a press conference.The letter said: "We hereby sincerely extend our deepest apologies to the black citizens of the league and all other regions, and hope that you will not believe those rumors that this is a racially discriminatory incident."

On the night of her arrest, Susan wrote a letter to her estranged husband David. In addition to a series of "I'm sorry", "I'm ashamed" and "I don't deserve to live anymore", Susan still The letter complained that now everyone turned to mourn Michael and Alex, no one paid any attention to the anguish and frustration in her heart, and no one cared about the sadness and pain she went through, which made her fall into the deep again. In deep loneliness and despair, I feel abandoned by the whole world again, and so on. On the same day, J. Cary Ferry issued a ban within Kangshuo Industry:

Anyone who speaks to the media about Susan Smith and Tom Ferry will be fired. The ban is posted in the company lobby. J. Cary Fairey also hired temporary security guards to guard the company's gates and the Fairey estate.A lawyer for the Feli family drafted an open letter specifically for Tom Feli: I am deeply saddened by this tragedy.Since last week, I have been cooperating with the Justice Department regarding the disappearance of Susan Smith's children.The only reason I am publishing this open letter at this time is because of false reports circulating about my relationship with Mrs. Smith.

I had a relationship with Mrs. Smith for a while.I wrote to her on October 17 telling her that, for various reasons, I had decided to terminate my relationship with her, and immediately handed her a copy of the letter.I submitted this letter to the relevant authorities early in the investigation of this case.One of the reasons I ended the relationship was that I was not fully prepared to take on the great responsibilities of being a father, the letter said. However, this was definitely not the only reason I ended the relationship, nor was it the most important reason.At no point did I express to Mrs. Smith that her two children were the only obstacle to our relationship.

I have no idea what happened that night or why. I will continue to cooperate with the Justice Department on this case.I, too, join everyone in this community in deeply grieving the loss of two young children.I will not be commenting of any kind on this. Michael and Alex's funeral is scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 6, at the Methodist Church of Christ in Buffalo.This is the church that the Lusso family often goes to.The children's father, David Smith, was unwilling to separate the brothers with two small coffins, so relatives and friends bought a large adult coffin with white gold trim for them.

Since the bones of the two children were salvaged together with the Mazda, David has been asking to take a look at his two sons, but each time he was politely declined for various reasons.Before being encoffined, David once again expressed that he wanted to take a last look at the two brothers. Uncle Douglas pulled him aside and said softly, "You know, David, they were immersed in water for nine days." But David said it was His last chance, he will never give up.After discussing with the presiding officer of the church, Douglas took David into a side room, pointed to the two white cloth packets next to the coffin, and said, "They're all here."

The day before the funeral, on Saturday night, November 5, thousands of people from all over the United States attended Brother Smith's funeral service.Although it was a farewell to the remains, due to well-known reasons, what people saw was only the closed coffin.The farewell ceremony lasted until after midnight.According to David's later recollection, he and his family stood in the church and shook hands with those who came to mourn for more than six hours. After Sunday's funeral, Michael and Alex's joint coffin was taken to the United Methodist Church of Christ Cemetery to be buried next to their uncle, David's older brother Danny Smith.Three years ago, it was in this church that David and Susan held their wedding ceremony.Michael's childish words are engraved on the children's tombstones:

He is my younger brother.I love him. The tombstone was a gift from a stonemason whom he had never met, and a group photo of the two younger brothers was inlaid on it. The Rousseaus had little time to wallow in their grief or to recover physically and mentally from the tragedy.On the night of Susan's arrest, Linda and Beverly Russo hired the famous Colombian lawyer Davide Blouk for Susan.David, who was 46 years old at the time, studied at Harvard University. After graduating from the University of South Carolina Law School in 1975, he traveled around the North American continent, visited all over the United States and Canada, and finally returned to his hometown.Davide is an idealist.At that time in South Carolina, the vast majority of people sentenced to death were blacks. Daveed Brook believed that these people were sentenced to death not because of their crimes, but because they had no money to hire a good lawyer. .Before taking over the double murder case of Susan Smith, David Brook handled more than 50 capital punishment cases, and only 3 clients were sentenced to death.Many of his clients were already death row prisoners. After David's arguments, the case was reopened and the sentence was changed to fixed-term or life imprisonment. One of them was finally acquitted.These illustrious performances of Daveed Bullock are well-known not only in Columbia, but also in the entire state of South Carolina.

Daveed Brook specially invited the female lawyer Judy Clark from Washington State to be his assistant.Jodie Clark is an influential capital punishment expert and public defender in Washington state federal court.A public defender is a government official whose job it is to defend defendants who cannot afford a lawyer.Judy must ask for leave from the relevant departments and be approved before she can participate in Susan's defense team.After the Susan Smith double murder, in 1997, Jodie Clark served as the defense attorney for Ted Karensky, the sensational serial bomber. To pay expensive legal fees, the Russoes mortgaged their Mount Vernon house, and Bavely Russo sold one of his office buildings.

The prosecutor in Susan's case was Thomas Pope of the Union District Attorney's Office, 32, the youngest prosecutor in South Carolina at the time.Like Susan, Thomas was born and raised in Uniontown, the son of a police officer.Thomas Pope completed his undergraduate studies at the University of South Carolina and went on to the school's law school.Before joining the U.S. attorney's office, he spent several years undercover with the South Carolina State Police's Narcotics Division—posing as a drug dealer.The Susan Smith double murder was Thomas Pope's second murder.Naturally, such experience cannot be compared with the two defense lawyers, but Thomas Pope's energy, hard work, and eloquence and eloquence in court are obvious to all. During the eight months awaiting trial, Susan was held at the State Penitentiary for Women in Columbia, where the prison doctor conducted routine physical examinations and psychological consultations for her.Susan was placed in a special 6-by-14-foot single cell and placed on 24/7 "suicide monitoring."Her room is equipped with a closed-circuit camera system, the lights must not be turned off for 24 hours, and someone checks every 15 minutes.Susan was allowed to take only three items into her cell: a Bible, a blanket and her glasses.Even she was wearing a special paper prison uniform. David has always been ambivalent about Susan.When he read Susan's confession and the letter she wrote to him on the first night in prison, David felt as if he had been deceived. This Susan Smith definitely did not live with him and have children together. The woman of the woman.David repeatedly asked himself, what kind of person is she?Is she the incarnation of the devil?But on Nov. 15, when David was interviewed on television by Katie Karrick, host of the NBC special "Dateline," he told Katie, "Susan, she's a really nice person." ... She is a dedicated and dedicated mother. The two children are her whole life, just like my whole life." David even expressed to Susan's family that if allowed, he would bring Then Susan goes away, hides in a place where no one knows her past, and starts her life anew. On Christmas Eve in 1994, Susan brought a message to hope that David would visit the women's prison.They spent an hour together, Susan repeatedly apologizing for her behavior, but when David asked her why, she was speechless and unable to explain why.David left the prison with sympathy for Susan.However, in the days that followed, David heard more and more stories about Susan and Tom Ferry, and he believed more and more that Susan was treating the two innocent children in order to get Tom Ferry back. Under the poisonous hands. In February 1995, Linda and Beverly Russo separated, and Bowley moved out of their house in Mount Vernon.Soon after, he resigned from the Republican South Carolina executive committee.In his resignation letter, Baveli Russo stated that due to personal reasons, it was not appropriate for him to continue working. In May, the court issued a formal divorce decree for David and Susan Smith.During the divorce trial, Susan abstained from appearing in court, and Tom Ferry testified about his relationship with Susan.According to the divorce decree, Michael and Alex's toys and clothing were divided between David and Susan.The court also awarded David the 1990 burgundy Mazda sedan, but it has been held by police as physical evidence for the prosecution.David destroyed the car after Susan Smith's double murder trial. In June, Susan, who was in prison, received a letter from her former stepfather, Beverly Russo.Baveli wrote in the letter: "I am deeply saddened and ashamed of what I have done to you." "I just want you to know that you are not the only guilty person in this tragedy." The date was June 18, 1995, Father's Day. The defendant and the prosecution respectively invited psychologists to diagnose Susan Smith. From February to June 1995, the defense expert team headed by Dr. Seymour Howler, a professor of psychiatry and law at the University of South Carolina, had four 15-hour contacts with Susan, including observation, conversation and testing.Dr. Howler concluded that Susan suffered from severe "dependent personality disorder": "Lack of self-confidence, feeling that she cannot live on her own", "always needing company, always worrying that one day she will be alone one person".According to Dr. Howler, Susan did not suffer from severe depression.Susan was almost always in a normal state of mind when someone cared about her, only depressed when she was alone, and only when depressed did she contemplate suicide.Dr. Howler's team carefully studied Susan's family medical history and found that many of her family members and close relatives suffered from depression, alcoholism, or suicide.Experts believe that Susan's family has this heredity.Suzanne has been sentimental since she was a child, and her dependence and depression can be said to be innate to some extent. Judge William Hall, who presided over the case, issued a Gag Order at the end of January 1995. The original meaning of "Gag" refers to a mouthpiece or gag placed in the mouth of a boxer or an animal. "Gag order" prohibits the public prosecutor, the defendant and the police from disclosing to the public or the outside world the evidence and testimony that will be submitted to the court.So before Susan Smith's double-murder trial officially opened, no one knew exactly what the diagnosis was, although it was known that both parties had hired psychologists.However, this does not prevent other judicial figures and journalists from expressing their opinions in the press.Articles and comments published at the time predicting the trial of the case believed that the prosecution would use Susan to make up and insist on a lie for nine days, and describe her as a manipulative, manipulative, and scheming murderer.The defense will cite her mental disorder as evidence that Susan didn't really realize what she was doing when she let the Mazda slide into John D. Long Lake.Susan's mother, Linda, told people everywhere that she had a similar experience, when she was extremely depressed, irritable and lost: I feel that I am still in this world, but it seems to be in another illusory space.I kept falling, falling, falling, as if I was going to disappear, to be nothing.I could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing.Thick fog surrounded me, cutting me off from the whole world.I know Bavelli is lying next to me, but he doesn't exist.I was in a utter, actual loneliness. "It's a world upside down," I whispered, "everything is wrong." I knew I was talking to Bavely, but strangely enough, he wasn't there.He is so, so far away from me. ………… I want to grab something, whatever, that will keep me from going mad.I have to stay sane because I know my kids can't live without me.I feel like if I let go, I'm going to lose my mind. Linda believes that on the night of October 25, 1994, Susan was in this state. To many Uniontown residents, Susan seems to have developed two distinct personalities over the past 23 years of her life.She showed this side of her character to some people, and another side to others.Sometimes she is docile, obedient, and pitiful, and sometimes she is cruel, cunning, and deliberate.Could it be this side of her that prompted Susan to push her two young children into a bottomless lake just to please her lover? Linda once led the whole family to make a special trip to the District Attorney's Office to meet Thomas Pope. They wanted to get a feel for the prosecution.Thomas Pope was very cooperative. He showed his hole card unabashedly: "I think the most reasonable treatment for Susan Smith is to go to death row, lock the door, and throw away the key." Because, Thomas Pope explained that according to South Carolina law, if a perpetrator kills more than one person while committing a crime, or if the victim is a child under the age of 11, the offender shall be sentenced to death.For the crimes committed by Susan Smith, two death sentences are more than enough.She has two lives in her hands!And it's still a child, and it's her own son.As the saying goes, "a tiger's poison does not eat its offspring", a person who will not even let her own children be spared, is it possible that she still has a little humanity? Therefore, no one was surprised when the public prosecutor categorically rejected the defendant's offer to exchange Susan's voluntary admission of guilt in exchange for 30 years in prison and never being allowed to appeal. Before the official trial of Susan's case, Judge William Hall presided over two days of pre-trial hearings, where the public prosecutor and the defendant's lawyers argued whether Susan was able to appear in court in terms of her mental and psychological state. Including whether she can follow the relevant legal process, understand the prosecution and other legal documents against her, etc.Dr. Donald Morgan, a psychiatrist hired by the public prosecutor, observed and diagnosed Susan in April, May, and June of the same year, for a total of more than 10 hours. He believed that Susan had strong emotions, impulsiveness, and difficult adjustment. , Control and master your emotions.Dr. Morgan analyzed Susan's depression and suicidal tendencies at the pre-trial hearing. He pointed out that if Susan herself went to the witness stand to testify, she would probably deliberately slander herself in order to die.Dr Seymour Howler of the defense told the court Susan had to rely on antidepressants to attend the protracted trial.Nonetheless, Judge Hall ultimately ruled that the trial proceeded as scheduled. Episode 1: Dale Robinson, an official of the Ministry of Finance in the Union area, once stated in public that because the Union is a poor area in the United States, the per capita income is low, and the government taxes are not high, the annual appropriation for the prosecution to hire expert witnesses is only $60,000.As a case with national exposure, Susan Smith's trial costs will total between $500,000 and $1 million.Dale Robinson worried that the district's finances would not support the case.Before long, the Union Territory Treasury Department began receiving checks of various denominations from all over the country, including a check for $270 from "a small town that cares about you," Bosworth, Montana. Collected by residents.Then Dale Robinson and Thomas Pope went on a national TV show telling people to stop sending money. In order to save money, Judge William Hall arranged for six days a week from Monday to Saturday, and the number of alternate jurors on the jury was reduced from six to two. On Monday, July 10, 1995, the Susan Smith double murder case officially opened in Union District Court.The courthouse, designed by renowned architect Robert Mills, was built in 1913.Robert Mills was also the designer of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States.Judge William Hall's courtroom is on the second floor of the courtroom, with 13 rows of seats in the auditorium, making it one of the largest courtrooms in South Carolina.The seats on both sides of the front row were assigned to the Susan family and the Smith family respectively.During the hearing of this case, the courtroom was full.However, due to the long history and poor equipment, judges, lawyers and witnesses must be very close to the microphone when they speak, otherwise the auditorium will not be able to hear them.The floorboards creaked, too, so much so that Judge Hall had to make strict rules against anyone leaving their seats while the trial was in progress. The selection of jury members took six days.First, 55 candidates were selected from 250 candidates, and then reviewed by the lawyers of both parties one by one.Many candidates made it clear that they were negative about the death penalty.Most of the 12 people selected in the end are blue-collar workers, and there are also a few shopkeepers, businessmen and intellectuals.Almost all seven white jurors—five men and two women—all knew the accused, his family or friends, or a witness, but they said they would not be swayed by affection or friendship, without any prejudice, based only on the evidence provided by the court. Evidence to make a verdict. Only 3 of the 12 jury members were women.Defendant lawyer Daveed Bullock had raised an objection, arguing that the composition was not representative of the jurisdiction's population, but was dismissed by the judge.The defense wanted more women on juries because they believed women would be more sympathetic to Susan's situation. Episode 2: On Monday, July 17, when the trial officially began, the police received a report that someone planted a bomb in Judge Hall's courtroom.This was of course just a false alarm.Those who lied about "military intelligence" were quickly arrested. Katz Gass, an aide to Chief Prosecutor Thomas Pope, opened the statement on behalf of the prosecution: "Over a period of nine days in the fall of 1994, Susan Smith told people of all nationalities the most egregious lie." "She was on TV praying to God for the safe return of her two children, knowing that Michael and Alex were lying at the bottom of the cold, dark John D. Long Lake." "The children became Susan. Smith was in the way of winning Tom Ferry back, and Susan Smith removed them from her life without hesitation." Katz Gass finally pointed out: "The central point of this case is two words— — Selfishness! Everything revolves around me, me, me, and myself, myself, myself." "Susan Smith is a selfish, deliberately weaving lies, and a murderer who is good at deception. In order to get a The love of a rich boy at the expense of his own son." The defense was spoken by Jodie Clarke.She asked the jurors to "see Susan Smith through their own hearts, a struggling soul like a lost child, wandering, lost, lost, at a loss for life and men."Susan Smith has been melancholy and depressed since she was a child, and she has no confidence in herself or life.This frustration comes from her father's suicide as a child, her own suicide later, and her stepfather's sexual harassment as a teenager. "Little by little, all of these factors pushed her to the brink of despair and breakdown, to John D. Long Lake in the night, where she planned to end her life with her two beloved children." It was only at the last moment that the instinct of survival stopped her from going to death, and she survived, but the two young lives were not spared." Judy Clark told the jury: "We hereby express our respect to the jury. You tell Susan Smith's story not to win your sympathy, but to gain your understanding." "It is wrong for Susan to lie, and she should not lie under any circumstances. But don't you think that this More like a childish lie, told by a child who desperately wants to please his parents to escape punishment and their parents' wrath?" Due to the effect of the drug, Susan sat quietly in the dock like a good child from the beginning to the end, or read the letter, or played with any small object in her hand.After more than eight months in prison, she seldom exercised and lacked sunlight and fresh air. Susan obviously gained weight, and her face was pale and haggard.Combined with the lack of concern for her appearance and her lack of dressing up, Susan looked much older than her actual age, despite the efforts of her defense attorneys to present her as a little girl.Susan spent most of the time in court with dull eyes and a blank expression, as if everything around her had nothing to do with her.Only when people mentioned her two children did she cry softly and discreetly for a little while.