Nobody Should Believe Me - Case Files 14: Susan Smith and the Impact of False Accusations with Celisia Stanton

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

In this episode, Andrea is joined by Celisia Stanton, the host and creator of Truer Crime. Andrea and Celisia dive into the Susan Smith case, a story that garnered national attention in the 90s. Through talking about the case, they segue into the complex themes surrounding false accusations, media representation, racial bias, mental health, and the nature of violence. Andrea and Celisia discuss the dichotomy of having empathy for an offender, while also holding them accountable for their actions. *** Listen to Truer Crime: https://truercrimepodcast.com/ Order Andrea's new book The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy https://read.macmillan.com/lp/the-mother-next-door-9781250284273/ View our sponsors. Remember that using our codes helps advertisers know you’re listening and helps us keep making the show! https://www.nobodyshouldbelieveme.com/sponsors/ Follow Andrea on Instagram for behind-the-scenes photos: https://www.instagram.com/andreadunlop/ Buy Andrea's books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Andrea-Dunlop/author/B005VFWJPI To support the show, go to http://Patreon.com/NobodyShouldBelieveMe or subscribe on Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nobody-should-believe-me/id1615637188?ign-itscg=30200S&ign-itsct=larjmedia_podcasts) where you can get all episodes early and ad-free and access exclusive ethical true crime bonus content. For more information and resources on Munchausen by Proxy, please visit http://MunchausenSupport.com The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children’s MBP Practice Guidelines can be downloaded here: https://apsac.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Munchausen-by-Proxy-Clinical-and-Case-Management-Guidance-.pdf *** Sources: https://www.hulu.com/series/impact-x-nightline-killer-mom-the-case-of-susan-smith-0b1f5ce7-cb4f-4a2a-a827-84052e5a5415 https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/21/us/susan-smith-south-carolina-case-parole/index.htmlhttps://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp3npzxd1lwo https://apnews.com/article/susan-smith-parole-south-carolina-3c7c12e0cd0a23eee0e42a599b689597 https://apnews.com/article/susan-smith-parole-south-carolina-ae37185c6d9d056104c839b03bd1cac0 https://www.wyff4.com/article/local-history-arrest-parole-killer-susan-smith/62028246 https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-07-28-mn-28940-story.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

True Story Media Hello, it's Andrea and I've got a really fascinating Case Files episode for you today. This is a crossover with my friend, Celicia Stanton, creator of the excellent podcast, Truer Crime, which we will be sharing an episode of in the feed tomorrow. Today, Selesi and I are talking about the Susan Smith case, which touches on a bunch of themes that both of our shows cover. I love doing these crossover episodes with other shows, so let me know if there are other shows or creators that you think we should talk to. If you want to get in touch with us about that or anything else, give us a

shout at hello at nobody should believe me.com or you can leave us a comment on Spotify. We also appreciate ratings and reviews of the show on Apple podcasts. And of course, if you want even more, Nobody Should Believe Me, you can subscribe on Apple podcasts or Patreon and get two bonus episodes a month. Now with that, here's the show. Just a quick reminder that my new book, The Mother Next Door, Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy, is on sale right now wherever books are sold. The book was an Amazon editor's pick for nonfiction, and the Seattle Times called it a riveting deep dive into MBP.

And if you are an audiobook lover and you like hearing my voice, which I'm assuming you do since you're listening here, you should know that I narrate the audiobook as well. If you have already read the book, which I know so many of you have, thank you so much. Please let me know your thoughts and questions at helloandnobodyshouldbelieveme.com and we will bring my co-author, Detective Mike Weber, on for a little book Q&A and post-retirement tell-all special. Thanks for your support. on for a little book Q&A and post-retirement tell-all special. Thanks for your support. This episode is brought to you by FX's Dying for Sex on Disney Plus. Based on the podcast of the same name, Dying for Sex tells the story of Molly, who is diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. Determined to feel everything she can before she can't feel anything, she

decides to leave her unhappy marriage to explore her sexuality, with some encouragement from her best friend, Nikki. FX's Dying for Sex, streaming April 4th, only on Disney+. Sign up now at DisneyPlus.com. Well, hello, Sleesia. Thank you so much for being here. Really excited to talk about this case with you today. To start off with, can you tell us about your about your show, Truer Crime? Yeah, well, I'm really excited to be able to chat with you

today. My show Truer Crime, I actually created it to sort of as an outgrowth of my own personal experiences in 2020. I actually, long story short, was defrauded of my life savings by a financial advisor who turned out he was defrauding all of his investor clients. He was actually a fiduciary, meaning he had extra legal financial responsibilities and he still chose to kind of use this money for his own personal gain, like vacations and homes and cars and things like that. And so that was obviously a super jarring experience for me. And after I had found out about this, like, you know, all my life savings was gone.

He actually had stole over two million dollars total from all of his clients. But after that, I was kind of like, you know, navigating this whole criminal legal process and also just, you know, it was 2020. So there wasn't a lot going on. I've been a wedding and portrait photographer for many years. And so winter in Minnesota during the pandemic, not a time of a lot of business. And so I was like literally just binging true crime all day. It was kind of like a coping mechanism for dealing with this thing

that, you know, I'd never'd never seen coming. And then just constantly pausing those shows and complaining to my husband about things I felt like were missing from a lot of true crime narratives. Obviously, I found that listening to them interesting and engaging, and there was something that was really drawing me in for episode after episode, but I also felt like a lot of these shows really didn't dive into race or gender or sexuality or the root causes of crime. And so I, you know, kind of just started having so many conversations with my husband about that, that he was eventually like,

why don't you start your own podcast? And I was like, yeah, like, I love that idea. Let me see if I can do it, give it a try. And so that's how True or Crime came to be. And I was like, yeah, like, I love that idea. Let me see if I can do it, give it a try. And so that's how Truer Crime came to be. And I just produced that first season kind of independently, put it out in the spring of 2021. And it really grew from there.

And I found that a lot of people also resonated with like wanting to hear true crime, told a little bit differently with more nuance and empathy and just kind of like diving into, you know, why does, why do these things happen? And so, you know, I've been working on the season two after that first season. And so that's 10, 10 additional episodes that, you know, we started releasing in January. And yeah, it's been an interesting ride.

I'm excited to kind of continue and put out more episodes down the road. Yeah. Well, you know, your show is excellent. I love it. And I love the way that you cover cases. And you know, I have a similar relationship to the genre, right? I got into it because of a personal experience and because I could not find the kind of content around that, the kind of information around that that I wanted, and that would have been helpful to me when I was going through it. So yeah, so this story that we're gonna talk about today,

we had gotten together and kind of brainstormed what is a good truer crime, nobody should believe me crossover. And I think this one really fits the bill because I think it has just the elements that both of our shows are kind of focused on. So I'm just going to do a quick recap of this case. So we're going to talk about the Susan Smith case.

So this is a case from the mid-'90s, a woman called, it happens in Union County in South Carolina. So a woman named Susan Smith, married to a man named David Smith. They got married quite young when Susan Smith was 19. She gave birth to her first son, Michael, and then two years later had her second son, Alex. And then on October 25, 1994, her children disappeared. And Susan Smith reported that she had been carjacked at night by a black man wearing a toboggan hat with a gun.

And she told this story that he had carjacked her and then forced her out of the car and driven off with her two children strapped into their car seats in the back of the car. So, investigators who were looking into this case, the Sheriff's Office in Union County, reportedly had some doubts about her story from the beginning. So, yeah, so for the first week or so of this case, there was a ton of media attention.

There was local, there was national, and there was this gigantic manhunt for the alleged kidnapper and this gigantic search for these two little boys. And the couple, Susan and David Smith, did a bunch of interviews. They did a morning show interview where they were pleading with the kidnapper to return their children. Now, Slecia, did you get a chance to watch any of that video of Susan and David Smith?

SLECIA DERKIN Yeah, yeah, definitely. I feel like you never know how anyone would react in a situation like that. You know, everyone probably is a little bit different, but I think, you know, anybody could watch that and just feel like so much, you know, stress of like, oh my gosh, like, what had happened to these kids? And, you know, for these parents to kind of be

without their kids is super alarming. Yeah, so really heartbreaking story, obviously. Like like easy to see why this really caught attention. And yeah, I think as a parent, like this is just your worst fear, right? Someone disappearing with your kids, anything happening to your kids. So I think anybody who's a parent, I mean, I think anybody who's a human being with a heart, but also like in particular parents, this this just gets at such a visceral fear that you can see why this had such a big reaction. So as this is going on, as this mass of manhunt is going on,

investigators are talking to both of the parents. And unfortunately, statistically, if something bad happens to children, it is most likely to be their parents or a family member. The whole stranger danger thing is, you know, which I don't know how old you are, but I was born in the early 80s. So it's like that was kind of like peak, like 80s and 90s was like stranger danger, like someone's going to drive up in a van and snatch you. So I think this was still like, this was probably still within that cultural context of a lot of attention to how dangerous strangers could be to children and not a lot of attention to how dangerous parents could be to children. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I think, you know, just in general, I feel like there's so many true crime stories that come out of the 90s that are especially like really, you know, well known that folks are talking about. I mean, I think about like also Jean-Bernier Ramsay happening in this kind of

similar era. This is actually in 1994 is the year before I was born. So, you know, like, I don't have like a ton of memories of this time, but just being in the true crime space, it's like, yeah, there's so many stories kind of like this. And I think, you know, I think of even in Minnesota, you know, we have the Jacob Wetterling case. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that one. But this happened before the 90s. But it was just a time where I feel like it was like, oh my gosh, something could happen to your kids.

A stranger could come out of nowhere and just take them. And I think that created a lot of panic. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, so basically, as these pleas to the media are happening and she's doing, Susan Smith does a number of interviews, the investigators are looking closely at the parents to see if they know anything about what happened.

And Susan Smith's story about the carjacking just basically completely falls apart. There's a ton of holes in it. The friend that she said she was going to visit wasn't actually home that night. The car was nowhere to be found in this gigantic search. There was an issue with the traffic light where she said she was stopped at a traffic light when

the carjacker approached her and got in the car and put a gun to her side. But there would not stopped at a traffic light when the carjacker approached her and got in the car and put a gun to her side. But there would not have been a red light unless there were any other cars at the intersection. Then she claimed she was at a different intersection and there was actually a patrol car that had been nearby that intersection. So just nothing really added up. And they gave her a lie detector test and she had trouble answering the question, do you know where your boys are?

So lie detector tests, like from my understanding of having talked to law enforcement about them, sort of tricky. They're not actually admissible in court, but obviously, along with the holes in her story and the fact that they could find no evidence of the car, of this alleged carjacker, really led them to believe that she was lying.

And sure enough, under pressure, she confesses to driving her two sons into a lake. So obviously so horrific. And I have to say, like, and it's funny, I'm now like interested in like what you sort of observed about her when she was doing those interviews in that interim time, right? And it's, it's hard because knowing the outcome, I think you can kind of project onto that person of like, oh, this seems really off.

Like, I don't know if that would seem off to me if I didn't know that. But but she did seem like next to her husband in particular, like her husband looks genuinely shattered and like Susan just looks kind of blank. And then when she's giving an interview by herself to some TV cameras, she's almost kind of like half smiling. And I wouldn't want to read too much into just that, right? Because I think people do act weird

when they are in states of shock, when they are experiencing grief. Like I think you can't, it's kind of like, it reminds me of that whole like Amanda Knox case, you know, where people were like, well, she did a cartwheel and it was like, made this big thing and you know, she was acting, she was smooching her boyfriend or whatever.

And it's like, well, yeah, people like act weird under stress. That that alone is not evidence of anything. But I have to say, like looking at her and just kind of like looking at her eyes and looking at her facial expressions, she did seem very flat to me in those interviews. Yeah. Yeah. And I think for me, like, I think that obviously, you know, knowing what we know now, there is something to the way that she's reacting to things. Like, it's just true, right? If you're if it's like, you can watch it back and be like, Oh, she seems kind of flat or, or maybe she seems like she's

kind of smiling and some of those that probably is happening to some extent, because we know how the story ends. But I think for me, I always like when I was when I watch those sorts of videos, I like really just don't know what to think of them usually, because I was, when I watch those sorts of videos, I, like, really just don't know what to think of them usually because I feel like any sort of, like, assumption that I'd have about how somebody should react could be incorrect. I think the Amanda Knox case is a great example. I also think about, like, Darlie Rudier, you know, she was accused of killing her children. She's in prison actually

now for killing two of her kids. And I covered that case actually for the first episode of Tour Crime. And one of the things that really stood out to me about her case and just sort of the media frenzy before the trial and during the trial was that there was so much attention placed on how she was reacting to things. It was like, for example, her son, one of her sons who had been killed, his birthday was a few days after the murder. And so they, her and a bunch of family members had gone out to his grave,

or a few days after the funeral, I should say. They'd gone out to his grave and they had, I think, cake and balloons and things like that, and had sang happy birthday and had kind of put up some confetti and things like that. And the media had gotten some of that on film. And it was just everywhere. I was like, oh, wow.

Woman dances on her son's grave. That was the headline, which to me, I was like, oh, that's so odd because not only did I not think it was that weird, but I'm like, you know, beyond that, it's just like everyone reacts differently. But also it's like, to me, it did seem a little bit normal. It's like, you know, you wanna try to celebrate

the life of this person that, you know, her and her family deeply loved. And also her family was there too. So for me, that case really just being early in sort of my own journey of true crime media kind of solidified this idea of like, I don't know how anyone's gonna react. I don't know how to interpret it. I'm certainly not an expert in that. I have undergrad degree in psychology. And so, you know, I could pretend

I know a thing or two, but really that's just me. I would just like utilize my abnormal psych class to try to diagnose my friends, but I have no credentials. But yeah, so I don't know. Like, I'm sure there is something to how she was reacting, because we know that she was responsible. But I don't know how to read into it myself. Yeah, and I certainly agree with you that it's not something you would want to read too much into, because I think it can only tell you so much.

And I also think that it's really interesting to look at how the media treats female suspects or female offenders. And then especially if that woman is a mom, because I know this as a mom in the world, you know, incredibly judgmental of moms, right? And how they handle everything. And so you really get this like, you know, either they're like sort of saint or sinner thing. Yeah, it's like you wouldn't want to parse too much just based on facial expression or just seems like she's off.

I would be off too if my children were missing. I don't know how I would read on camera. I think why it intrigued me is because I think a lot about liars and how they compartmentalize because the offenders that I cover, and I mean, I think this is true across a lot of types of offenders, but it is that deception piece of how you can go on camera and say those things while simultaneously knowing the reality. I was talking to actually a psychologist colleague about this yesterday about why it seems like some of the offenders that we deal with are telling the truth when they're not, where

it just doesn't necessarily read like they're lying when they are lying. She talked about how people in this sort of area, and I think we can talk about sort of like the mental health aspects of this with Susan Smith, but that like, if you have these types of personality disorders that cause people to do these things, that you're much, much more adept at compartmentalization, right? And I sort of like, I think that was just what was in my mind watching her. I'm like, I think it's just such a trip to sort of watch someone making this appeal and making this big story up about, you know, a Black man carjacking her when she

knows the truth. Yeah, you know, that actually that's interesting that you kind of mentioned that. Because, well, it's almost like you would think it'd be the opposite, like somebody who is a really adept liar, or perhaps has some kind of personality disorder, or whatever that, you know, is somehow related to this crime that they've committed or these actions they've taken. You almost think that they would be able to sort of,

if they can compartmentalize so well, deceive people pretty well. And versus it being something that we can kind of pull out and tease out, which is I think what a lot of us like to do listening to true crime is like, okay, maybe if I listen to this 911 call or I watch that video, then I can kind of tell based on my gut feeling. But it does also remind me of my own experience, just working with the financial advisor who had defrauded me and was defrauding all of his clients, you know, we didn't have one of those relationships where it was like, oh, you would, you know, you talk to them like once a year, like he was very involved with his clients and kind of just like helping with sort of financial health broadly. And so I actually met with him, I don't remember

if it was every week or every other week, but like consistently. And so it was so interesting, like in retrospect, because, you know, we would get on these calls and we would like talk about our pets or you'd ask about my husband or, you know, I remember the election, one of the 2020 election was happening at the time. So we would be talking about that. And all the while, he knows what he's doing. He knows he's like stealing all of this money. And he's not just having these conversations with me.

He's having the conversations with all of his victims who I would eventually go on to meet a good number of them just through that whole criminal legal process. And I think obviously everybody trusted him or they wouldn't have invested their money with him. And it's just so interesting to think, I definitely believe he had to have had a major amount of compartmentalization going on. And I also think he thought, oh, well, I'll pay the money back. It'll work out.

I think he was delusional enough to believe that this was all going to be OK. And so, yeah, just kind of an interesting connection there. Yeah, and the rationalization and justification of, oh, I'll find a way to make good on all this. And I'm not actually screwing over these people. And I'm just whatever you know, whatever it is, he was sort of telling himself about what he was doing.

Yeah. So Susan Smith ends up submitting a handwritten confession that she had killed these two boys and this story changes as she goes. So initially she said that this was an attempted murder-suicide where she had meant to go into the car and drive into the lake with the two boys because she was suicidal, because she had been having an affair with her boss's son at the, I believe, factory where she worked, and that he had broken up with her.

And so her justification for this was that she wanted to kill herself and she didn't want her boys to grow up without a mom, so she decided to take them with her. And this was debunked once they found the car and did the forensics on how long it would have taken. This is a really heartbreaking detail that she had put the car in neutral and it had rolled down the hill with a boy strapped into their car seats in the back. It was not speeding into the lake, but it would have taken a full six minutes for the car to sink.

And so I think that definitely paints a picture of someone who did not make any attempt to save the children or did not probably jump out of the car at the last minute. And also, I think a detail that really struck me was that she had photo albums and her wedding dress in the car at the last minute. And also, I think a detail that really struck me was that she had photo albums and her wedding dress in the car with them. So it was really seemed like this sort of symbolic sending her old life into the lake move.

And then it was revealed that the reason that her lover that she was having an affair with had broken things off was because he didn't want children. And, yeah, I mean, like, how did these details of what actually happened in this case kind of land on you? Yeah, I mean, this is obviously a super tragic, upsetting case. And I think what's interesting too about, you know, this, you know, affair that she was having with this guy

and him wanting to cut it off because he didn't want to have children or didn't want to be, you know, assume any kind of responsibility for her children, kind of makes it feel like, you know, this story about, oh, I'm going to take my own life. It's really about maybe she's, you know, kind of delusional enough to believe, oh, I can get rid of my old life and then enter into this new life, and then I don't have children anymore. So there's no baggage, there's no problem, um, for this, you know, guy to then start the...

restart this relationship with me. Which doesn't actually make any sense, right? Like, even putting her wedding dress and the photo... and the photo albums in the car doesn't make sense, because at some point, they're gonna come across this car and they're going to be like, why is this in here? Right? So like, I think it kind of speaks to what we had already said about the sort of like delusion and compartmentalization that had to have been happening. But I also think it's interesting that she didn't kind of come clean.

Even now, it sounds like she's sort of lying. Even after she's admitted to it, she's lying about what her intentions were. Maybe she's hoping to garner some sympathy or something like that. But it's really upsetting because you would hope that at the point that, all right, I've done it, she could at least be honest about why. Yeah, and I mean, it definitely strikes me as like, and not delusional in the sense that she's suffering

from like actual delusions or psychosis, but sort of a disordered way of thinking, right? Where it's just like, oh, well, yeah, let me solve the problem by getting rid of my children and getting rid of my old life and then this person will want me back. And I think, you know, she had one of the things, I think, that really worked against any defense about, you know, mental health or anything about it being not premeditated was that she had told family members that she had sort of like, fantasized about what if she hadn't had kids so young. And so I think there was some evidence that she had been sort of felt felt as though she was like trapped in that, in that situation.

had been sort of felt as though she was like trapped in that situation. So she's arrested and the car is pulled out of the lake, again, just so shattering for the father, shattering for the family members, and really for the whole community. Because I think especially when there's this, you know, there was this massive manhunt and massive amount of resources dedicated to finding these boys. So you can imagine that people really felt a sense of betrayal when they found out who had been responsible for it. And then there's this additional element

of her blaming a fictional black perpetrator. Um, and that this had really caused some tension and some fear within the community of, are they going to find someone that fits that sort of general description and hold them accountable for it? Um, and you know, when there was like no was no such person even on the scene. And yeah, watching some of those interviews with the community members and how that had affected them, yeah, that just really struck me. And of course, this goes back to some very, very age-old biases and very, very dark history

of white women accusing black men of crimes. Yeah, I think what's interesting to me about, you know, her accusation, well, actually, you know, they did it, they ended up doing a police sketch based on her description of this perpetrator and, you know, folks can look it up online. It's a pretty generic, it's a side profile which is interesting and it's just kind of a pretty generic you know looking guy he's wearing

a cap like it doesn't look like there's nothing about him that I think is like oh this is like super distinguishing right and then also there was like kind of you know descriptions circulating in the media and one of them said that they were looking for a black man in his 30s or 40s, five, nine to six foot tall, and he was wearing a shirt, blue jeans, and a knit cap. And I'm like, how many people could that description possibly have matched? Like, so many people. And so that means there's potentially, so many black folks, black men in that area who are potentially being called in about or accused

or kind of are on high alert because they might be accused of having executed this crime. And police actually said that they received thousands of tips and that there was such a media frenzy around this, you know, and they were on TV so much, and it was in all the papers, that they received so many tips and you gotta imagine that, well, literally all of the tips were incorrect

since she did it herself. And you just kind of have to wonder about those individual stories too, the people who were maybe like called in by their neighbor or a person walking across the street or however it may be. And so that to me is like super disturbing. And I remember I actually covered this case on like a just like short TikTok that I did a few years ago.

And one of the things that kind of stood out to me when I was looking into the story was just like, nobody was really focused on this angle of like, she had accused somebody that didn't exist. She had made up a fictional character and their real lives impacted by that. So I just thought that was kind of an interesting part of it was that you know this case got so much attention but that angle of it was so sort of like overlooked you know in the aftermath of her confession. Yeah absolutely I just sort of think about how badly this case could have gone

if they had acted on those tips. I don't think that's implausible. I think her story didn't make a lot of sense. But I know that the way that a lot of times law enforcement looks at especially white, but young female offenders, they very easily, I think, could have sort of looked at her and been like, well, this lady would never kill her children. So let's keep looking for, you know, the fictional perpetrator and could have pinned it on someone. Yeah, I think it's interesting too, because it's like,

there are so many cases that when you hear them, they sort of like defy logic. It's like, how could that have even been possible? And I feel like I have such little faith in, you know, the criminal legal process just from, you know, just covering enough stories that it's like somewhere, something like this has happened, I'm sure. And you know, somebody has, you know, been pursued in this same dynamic of maybe a white woman accusing a Black person that didn't exist. And then, you know, you have other kind of similar cases. I know that one case I'd covered this season on true crime was the case of Alice Siebold, the author of The Lovely Bones, and Anthony Broadwater, who was the man who was convicted of her rape. She was raped

when she was in college and she had identified him on the street just a few months after her attack. And then Anthony was, you know, put to trial and ultimately convicted. He served 16 and a half years in prison. And we just found out in just the last few years that he was actually wrongfully convicted. And in that case, you know, it's a little bit different because Alice Sebold was actually attacked. She just misidentified her perpetrator, but like, I think there was so many holes in that case as well, insofar as like, you know, for example, Alice was presented a lineup that included Anthony Broadwater

and a bunch of other people, and she didn't pick the right person. Or she didn't pick Anthony, I should say. She picked a different person out of the lineup. So, red flag number one, right? That maybe she's misidentified Anthony. And there's a number of sort of other things like that, but you know, it goes to trial. She sits up on the witness stand. She points him out when she's asked to like, you know, point to the perpetrator. And she's given a lot of sympathy and sort of like can just sort of paper over the things that they don't want to believe, you know, are red flags in order to kind of like, get to justice. And I think a lot of times, too, it's not always an instance of like, just in general, whenever there's misconduct with

policing or anything like that, I don't think it's always or even often that there's like a willful intent to railroad somebody. Oftentimes, it's like just feeding into whatever biases you already have. It is, you know, not taking the time to actually do things properly. And so when you have this feeling of like, okay, well, my job is to get justice. Here we go. We have somebody who looks like they could be the perpetrator. Sure, let's, you know, sign, seal, deliver. They could be the one that we can convict and send to prison. And I think that that's kind of interesting, that it's like we do have to kind of consider these biases when we're examining these cases,

because it can allow for innocent people to sort of be wrapped up in, you know, just a narrative that feels familiar to us, even if it's not us, even if it's not true and even if it's obviously not true. I'm a mom on the go in my 40s. I'm writing books, I'm making this show, I'm going down internet rabbit holes. And given the fact that mornings with a six and a two-year-old are a complete opera of chaos, I do not have a lot of time to think about what to wear.

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health and also a past history of abuse. And so this is a really disturbing part of the story. Susan Smith was abused by her stepfather. I have to say, listening to the news coverage of this from the 90s, I was very struck by some of the language they used around that, you know, that they said this relationship had started off as abusive and then become consensual when she came of age. And I was like, yeah, that's not really how I would describe a relationship even with an adult person and their stepfather.

So that obviously is very upsetting and a very sad thing that had happened to her. And also, that is not a reason to murder your children. And I think it gets very tricky with these conversations around mental health and culpability, which is very central topics of what we talk about on my show. And I think it was interesting the way that they sort of positioned her as, you know, being

suicidal, being, you know, not in a right state of mind. And I think, you know, and having, you know, major, like major depression. And there's a lot of danger actually talking about those things in the context of a crime without proper context, because then you're like, well, a lot of people are depressed, a lot of people are suicidal, a lot of people have trauma histories, and they're not dangerous to other people. Yeah, I think, you know, in general, everyone has to be held accountable for the actions that they take in life, right? And one of the things that I always, a quote that always kind of comes to mind for me is that no one ever enters violence for the first time having committed it, meaning that,

you know, we often experience it before we are going to be the perpetrator of it. And I think that's sort of what you're seeing here, right? She has these sort of traumas. And you would expect anybody who would do something this horrendous probably has some sort of trauma or experiences that have shaped, you know, their lives to this point that have kind of allowed them to make this decision. But that's separate, of course, from accountability for the things that you've done.

And just wanting to be invested in kind of growing from those things. Because yeah, like you said, not everybody goes on to commit horrendous acts of violence towards people, you know, you love and care about too. But I think that, like, what is interesting about the trauma that she experiences, that anybody experiences, any sort of, like, perpetrator has experiences,

I think it's in those spaces, like, when we take the time to kind of learn, okay, what led to this, that we can kind of think more broadly about prevention in our society, in our communities. So it's like, for me, I think it is an important conversation to have about her mental health, her experiences with her stepfather, the assault that she had experienced, and to analyze how the media was covering it,

kind of like you were saying, that's sort of problematic as well, but not necessarily to give her leniency so much as to be like, how do we create a safer society where less people do this sort of thing, right? How can we create a more safe environment for children and young women, you know, who might be experiencing something similar to what Susan Senth is experiencing? And so I think it is an important conversation, but definitely it sometimes gets conflated with like,

OK, well now, what are we supposed to do? Just kind of let them off, and of course not. Yeah, and it's an interesting question with both the nature and nurture of people who go on to do violent things and then the matter of culpability. And it's just interesting to sort of tease out. I think people do have this lens,

and this is something I get asked about a lot, right? Like, do these perpetrators, like the perpetrators we cover on my show, all have histories of abuse? Do they have, like, I think people have this archetype in their head of, like, people who go on to do, you know, really horrendous acts must have been, you know, abused themselves and kept in a box and, you know, whatever it is and sort of experience,

had all these horrifying experiences as children. And there is some correlation between the ACE score, the Adverse Childhood Experience. There certainly can be a cycle of abuse where people are abused when they're children and then they go on to be violent to their own children. However, there's a lot of, like, really kind of complex interplay of different things there. And also it's true that people

who are, you know, who have high A scores, one of the things we know for sure is that they are much more likely to go on to be the victim of crimes, right? And I think, like, the reason Susan Smith feels like such a sort of familiar offender to me, I think is this element of, you know, when you when you look at sort of like her her past that she has, you know, a lot of deception, a lot of apparently like pretty compulsive behaviors, you know, she's having affairs with several men. And I think the way they framed her sexuality is like a whole other conversation that we can also have because I think that was part of the reason that the media leaned

into this sort of salacious, kind of like evil sex pot trope that they got going with her. But she does have these things that are very common with the female offenders that I look at. So the female offenders I look at, they have all kinds of different childhoods. So they have, some of them have abusive backgrounds. It's just unfortunately child abuse is pretty common.

So that like is, you know, that shows up in that population. There are people that just had kind of like medium shitty parents, you know, just like kind of stressed out absent parents, just, but like, but like nothing like, you know, super notable. And then there are people that have really nice childhoods that come from upper middle class backgrounds that have,

you know, and again, we don't know, you know, different people can experience different things different ways and different things can be sort of traumatic that might not appear that way, or you don't know everything that's happened to a person. But with all that said, nothing obvious, right? Like no obvious history of trauma, you know, no obvious history of like distress as a child.

And so then that sort of leads me to, well, then what is the cause? And I understand the pitfalls of thinking, oh, some people are just born bad. But I do think that some people are born and develop no empathy. And I think that makes someone dangerous. And I think when you look at someone who could commit this type of crime, you have to sort of put yourself as uncomfortable as it is. You have to kind of put yourself in her shoes and just be like, like, think of all the things and the ways and the reasons that you would stop yourself

from committing something like that. And I really think, like, in terms terms of like, is Susan Smith dangerous? Because that was part of kind of what her, you know, her trial team, understandable, right? And everyone's entitled to their, to a defense in court and a fair trial and all of that. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't have those things, but I think there was this effort to present her and even then we can talk about sort of throughout the appeal process as like not a danger to society. And so I think somebody who's not

able to empathize with their children, I can't think of a more dangerous person. And then it's sort of like, well, could she have sort of been that person, but just abandoned her kids instead of murdering them? Then it's sort of like, where does someone get pushed into the line of being capable of that kind of violence

rather than just like, you know, I don't really feel like being a mom anymore, like I'm gonna get out of here, you know? Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I don't know like too much about like the actual, you know, like science side of this in terms of like the specific disorders or conditions that like would lead someone to not have empathy.

This is very anecdotal, but I follow this one girl on TikTok who self-identifies as a psychopath. And she talks about how she doesn't feel empathy for her friends and all of this, and sort of just answers a lot of questions about what her experience is like. I think there's also a few books too that folks have written from that perspective and experience. I think it's interesting because I think, you know,

like most people in general do not go on to murder anybody. You know, it's extremely hard to kill somebody regardless, even if you don't have empathy for your children. It's like you have self-preservation and in fact, like at least this one girl kind of talks about how, you know, a lot of what would motivate her of talks about how you know a lot of what would motivate her not to harm you know somebody if she would ever felt like extremely angry or something that would be like her own self-preservation which is its own safeguard in a way. So I don't know if I'm like okay like inherently it always is going to be like you know dangerous because I do think that there are ways in which that could be treated. She talks about how she has specific therapy.

I think there's also another creator too who does similar work, educating folks on his experience. He calls himself a psychopath. I think there's a technical term for it. Yeah, I think it's antisocial personality disorder is the DSM diagnosis. Yeah. And what's interesting too about this one woman who I was talking about, she says that Antisocial personality disorder is the DSM diagnosis. Yeah. Okay. And what's interesting too about this one woman who I was talking about, she kind of

says that most of her friends wouldn't really know unless she had told them. She talks about like how one of the things that makes her really sad, like, because she'll be like, oh, you know, I come in here, I tell you all I'm a psychopath, and then I'm like crying and you're like, well, I thought you couldn't feel emotions. Why are you crying? Like, what is it about? And she's kind of saying, you know, she feels sad for herself that she doesn't get to experience some of these emotions that, you know, she gets to see on TV or her friends and family are experiencing,

like love and care and all of that. And that that's a really difficult experience. And so that's why the risk taking behavior is to try to be like, okay, maybe then I can feel something or what if I never end up falling in love? Like, well, that's a big existential fear that she has. And so it kind of just makes me think about how, yeah, certainly, there's like maybe like a dangerous element to these things. But these are also people like needing support in some way. And it's like, that's why these conversations are important, because it's like, we don't really

have the popular sort of knowledge and also just the supports in our society to make sure that those folks are kind of taken care of. So it doesn't escalate to a point like what you're seeing happening in the Susan Smith case, for example. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's all really valid. And I, I think, and I've watched this creator's videos

as well, and they are fascinating. And I admire that creator and that they seek treatment and that they know that they have to, that they know that they need that help in order to not act on impulses that are going to be harmful to others. And I think I have thought a lot about this as I've looked at a lot of the cases that I unraveled because certainly the people that not every person who commits this abuse I think would fall into

this category, but certainly the people who are on the extreme end of munch hasm by proxy perpetrators where they are smothering their children, poisoning their children, really torturing them, putting their life constantly at risk. That is not a person who's feeling a bond to their child. And that's not a person who's empathizing with their child, right? Like that's, that's obviously an incredibly destructive behavior. And I do think actually about how lonely it is because they're creating, you know, a fake world that they have everyone else sort of like on the hook and manipulated. And I think there's evidence that, you know, Susan Smith had some of that going on, right? When you have like multiple affairs and you're sort of keeping this like, you know, kind

of whole whole facade going. And I just think like, you know, I have two children and like my bond with them is the most special thing in the entire world. And like I would, I would, you know, I would do do anything to protect them. And that's a very rewarding bond. But even for people who don't have children, our connections with other people, to me, that's what makes life worth living.

That's what makes a connection with other people, connection with your community, connections with your friends, your family, coworkers, just human basics for human interaction and feeling bonded to other people. I can't imagine a life without that. And if you weren't capable of feeling that that is deeply, deeply sad. And I think it makes sense that tie to the risk taking behaviors and you could see like if you're not capable of like recognizing that another person is a person and like feeling that two way bond and you feel like you have to lie

about everything, then it would be really hard to get your emotional needs met, right? Yeah, no, definitely. Do we know if Susan Smith, if they had her assessed or anything like that for the trial? So yeah, so this was in February of 1995. So this is in the lead up to her trial, Susan Smith's defense attorneys

hired a team of psychiatrists led by a guy called Seymour Halleck to conduct a psychiatric evaluation of her. So she was interviewed by him for 15 hours over the course of four sessions. This is according to WYFF News 4, who was a local station in Union that covered this case. And the opinion given by that psychiatrist was that Susan Smith did not suffer from a deep depression and he diagnosed her as having a dependent personality disorder. The quote from him they include here is, she constantly needs affection and becomes terrified she will be left alone.

And he found that Susan Smith was only depressed when she was alone. So it sounds like the prosecution also ordered a psychiatric evaluation, but it doesn't say anything about their results. But I think the fact that the defense did not find her to be suffering from major depressive disorder is telling, right, because they were sort of the team that

was hired to, I'd imagine, the goal there was to give some kind of justification for her actions, some kind of defense. I mean, that was really all they had to work with was her mental health. I don't know anything about a dependent personality disorder. It's also possible that it's called something different because this was 30 years ago. But yeah, I mean, I think that really does away

with a mental health reasoning that would lessen her culpability. Because it's worth saying, and this is something we talk about on the show, that parents do harm their children sometimes because they are having a psychotic episode or because they are suffering from delusions, or in the midst of something like a postpartum psychosis. Those are things that happen.

I remember after having both of my kids, everywhere you go in every checkup, they ask you about your mental state, and they really tell you to keep an eye on that. Now, with that said, right, do we as a culture provide any institutional support for any of that? No. And I think that's a huge problem, right? Because people can, under duress, under stress, under the influence, you know, under substance abuse, because of extreme stress due to poverty,

like these are all reasons that people harm their children that can be mitigated, that can be prevented. I'm not totally sure what the preventative measure could have been taken for someone like Susan Smith. It's an interesting open question. Was she always going to do this? Was she always going to go on to commit an act of violence or was there something about

this specific set of circumstances where there could have been some kind of intervention? But it's hard to know what that might have looked like. Yeah, I mean, insofar as she was assaulted by her stepfather and, you know, like, just it doesn't sound like that ever was resolved in a way that, you know, would have been healing for her. I imagine that, you know, her whole life probably would have been different had that not happened or had she received the proper support. And then you got to imagine that she's life probably would have been different had that not happened or had she received the proper support. And then you got to imagine that she's the child in the vulnerable position when you're talking about her stepped out assaulting her. So not to say, oh yeah, had that not happened, then this wouldn't have happened.

But I imagine her whole life would have been different had that not happened. So I think in her case, it's like, certainly it doesn't mitigate her culpability. But like, I do wonder about that playing into things, especially for if it seems like, based on her psychological assessment that she, you know, had some sort of like would become extremely distressed if she was alone or whatever. And this sort of like, something is wrong about her attachment style or her, you know, clearly she's very attached to this guy that she's having this affair with, right, that she's going to go to these extreme lengths. And I imagine that her relationship with a stepparent who's supposed to be, you know, a safe and guiding like figure in your life would maybe impact some of that. So I kind of wonder if,

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So this is in July 26th of 1995, Susan is found guilty. And then they go on to, you know, so there's two phases of a trial like this. There's the guilt innocence phase, and then that same jury then weighs in on the sentencing. And so then she had the sentencing part of the trial. So she's convicted of murdering both of the boys. And I think the prosecution was hoping

to get like a lesser manslaughter charge, which feels totally inappropriate in this case to me. But she was convicted of murder. And under the South Carolina law at the time, she would be eligible for parole every two years after serving 30 years in prison. How do we feel about this sentence? And I always have like, I have quite complicated feelings about prison as a whole.

So I think it can be very hard for me to decide how I feel about someone's prison sentence. But yeah, like how do you think, like what do you think about this? Yeah, I mean, I don't, I'm not really an expert in like sentencing and like what the guidelines would have been and like what the alternatives were. I think that oftentimes somebody might get 30 years and then they become eligible for parole, but they still end up serving life for far longer when than that sort of minimum number of years because they're not granted parole over and over and over again, especially in cases that are particularly heinous or somebody isn't showing

remorse or when you haven't had, you know, you haven't actually shown that you are ready to reenter society. I don't necessarily have a problem with the idea that someone is eligible for parole even in heinous crimes, mostly because I, you know, I think that there are instances where maybe somebody could be rehabilitated. There are instances, there are realities where that's true. There are also times where people are wrongfully convicted. Like the Alice Sebold Anthony Broadwater case I was talking about earlier, Anthony was innocent.

He was up for parole many times and was denied parole over and over and over again. But had he gotten out on parole, that would have been, you know, one of his only ways to sort of, like, free himself. Um, eventually when he did get out, it wasn't because he was exonerated, it was because they were like, okay, you've served the time that you need to serve, and now you got out.

He wasn't exonerated until years after he had spent, um, you know, plenty of time on the outside labeled as a sex offender. So all that to say that, like, I always tend to think when it comes to sentencing, it's like, what's the worst possible scenario this, which is, you know, an innocent person is in there, you want them to have whatever options possible. I feel similarly about the death penalty, where it's like, even if we could agree that some certain people might be deserving of the death penalty or might not be able to be rehabilitated, there's always going to be people who we are going to execute who were innocent. And so I'd

rather just not have the death penalty purely because those innocent people shouldn't be killed. So I kind of view that in a similar way. And I would hope that if she's up for parole and she's not actually able to reenter society, that she's not going to be granted the option to reenter society. But I think that it's fair for people to have an opportunity to prove that they've changed. Yeah, I agree with you. And also because I think there's such a variety of reasons

that people might end up committing even a heinous crime, even a murder, because it's very dependent on the circumstances. And so I think you do have to look at sort of the individual offender and how dangerous they might be. So in 2024, so just last year, she came up for her first parole hearing. And you know, basically, she, you know, her argument was that she's done her time, that she is deeply remorseful for what she did, and that she made a huge mistake, and that she, you know, never intended to harm her children, and that she loved her children

more than anything. You know, I have to say, say, when I think about what accountability could look like in a case like this, of someone grievously harming or killing their children, the thing that rankles me the most is when people say how much they love their children and how much they never meant to hurt their children. And this really took me back watching her in this interview

to when I interviewed Hope Yabara, which was the perpetrator whose case we covered in the first season of the show. She did 10 years in prison, fortunately, because of the interventions of the family members, the hospital, law enforcement, et cetera. Her child survived and is doing great, thriving.

But she certainly put her child's life at risk and certainly could have killed her. And she, in this interview with me, was tearful and crying and saying how much she loved her children, saying how much she never meant to hurt them, and et cetera. And I really think it really, there's something about that emphasis on how much they love their children, which Susan Smith kind of takes a similar attack, that really rubs me the wrong way.

Because that leads me to believe that they don't get it, that they're not being accountable, right? Because that's not love. That is completely the opposite. We talk a lot about, yeah, what accountability would look like. I wasn't thinking of my children when I was doing this. I was acting selfishly. And it was wrong. And I wasn't empathizing with my children.

I wasn't feeling what I should have been feeling towards them. Not sort of putting it under all these layers of like, trying to appeal to people's idea of what a mother should be. Like that part of her was obviously not active. And so just sort of hear about her talk about how much she loved her children. I'm like, no, but you did not. You committed this horrible, you know, murder.

And then you lied about it. You put other people at the community at risk. You, you know, put the, you know, law enforcement situation where they were dedicating all of these resources that are then taking away from other people who need those resources. And so that is like a really a crime against the community as well. who need those resources. And so that is like a really a crime against the community as well. And she just clearly didn't like have a grasp on any of those things. And she sort of it felt very much like she was saying what she thought she should say, just like a script, you know? Yeah, I think it's interesting that she is still not just kind of coming clean about her actual motive. Right? Because like after the crime, after she commits the crime and after she confesses to it, she

says, you know, this initial thing about the murder-suicide, we all know that's probably not true. I mean, it seems to be pretty clear what her motive was, which is to sort of get rid of her old life so that she could enter into this relationship with this man that she was having an affair with. I don't know why she's not admitting to that now 30 years later. You know, at this point, you would think that it would just kind of serve her to say, that's what I was trying to do.

I see now through therapy and whatever else that that was wrong, and I've developed XYZ coping mechanisms to prevent myself from harming people in the future. That, to me, would be what accountability looks like. I totally agree with what you're saying. It seems like it's more of a performance. And then also not to mention just like kind of what's been going on since she's been in prison.

Sort of interesting she's had all of these like inappropriate relationships with the different prison guards you said it was. And I think that that's, you know, it's sad because it seems like it's sort of mirroring some of the other, you know, things in her life, where she is perhaps she is sort of dependent on, you know, really needing a relationship,

particularly maybe a romantic one, and that these sort of, like, inappropriate relationships are kind of appealing to her in some way, like whether it be an affair or, you know, what happened when she was initially assaulted, you know, wrongly by her stepdad, and now, you know, and let's be clear, as an incarcerated person, the guards who were engaging in this, you know, sexual relationship with her

are the aggressors here because she's the vulnerable person in that, in so far as she's a prisoner. That's not to say that she's not involved, that she doesn't take any... She shouldn't have any accountability for, like, inappropriate relationships, but it's, like, kind of disturbing that these guards were even that there were multiple guards that were like entering into these relationships with her. And that's something that does happen in prison. And so anyways, all of that to say that like, I feel like all of those

behaviors since she's been in prison sort of indicate that maybe, you know, the necessary growth hasn't happened. And, you know, that's just kind of furthered by those statements that she's making. Yeah, and I really think about David Smith, her former husband, who is the father of those boys, did a couple of interviews around this. And he's generally, it's my understanding that he's generally been pretty reticent to talk to media.

This is obviously not a sort of fame that he wanted. And so he did give some interviews around this time. He did testify at her parole hearing against her being paroled. And I just think about with the accountability piece, right? Because there's obviously nothing that she can do or say that will make this go away.

The harm has been caused, the pain is real that will last for about throughout all of the lives of the people who cared about these boys. And it's just a huge tragedy. But I do think, and I wonder, like if it's frustrating for me to hear her talk about how much she loved her kids, I can't imagine what that's like for their father to hear her say that. because it's so false.

And I do think for people who are harmed by, who are victimized by abusers, and I think David is a victim of Susan, just to even have them acknowledge the truth, like can provide a great deal of relief to be able to kind of move forward, you know, not that you're going to necessarily forgive them, although I think that's kind of up to the person, you know, the person doing it, but like just to have her never take accountability and never just like acknowledge like, yeah, I did a selfish thing for selfish reasons. There's no excuse. Like, and I was not acting out of love. I was this was, you know, my boys deserved a mother that loved them and it wasn't me, you know, like just to really just say the thing. And I don't expect that he's probably ever going to get that. And

so in November of 2024, she was unanimously denied parole. And her ex-husband, David Smith, testified. And there were 14 other witnesses that came forward. Yeah. And I think this is, you know, I think the parole thing, I think it's really good that that exists. Because again, you can't assume that the system gets it right. And there are people that are either serving time for crimes they didn't commit or serving

too much time for crimes that, you know, they did commit. And I think there's a lot of reasons that that balance is in play and it should be there. But it's also kind of heartbreaking to think about the family having to like now relive this every two years for the rest of her life, you know? Yeah, that's interesting. I didn't think about the... I was thinking about the 30 years and then eligible for parole, not so much the frequency that she gets to kind of plead her case every two years. That's super frequent. And so, yeah, that is definitely one of those things

where, yeah, you have to re-live that experience in trauma. That's one of the things I've been thinking about. We did in season two, the two-part episode on the Manson murders. And, you know, the women who were... who had committed this murder alongside Manson, and were imprisoned, you know, like, have had these very widely talked about parole hearings over the years. And it's just been kind of interesting to hear what the family has had to say about that,

about how it's just so, you know, they have to, like, kind of go back into the spotlight every single time, especially in that case, because it's been covered so much. Um, and then they're sort of, like, fighting to essentially, you know, keep these folks behind bars, because they feel like that's, you know, justice for their family member. Um, and yeah, that's just definitely one of the like, the far reaching impacts of her initial, Susan's initial actions. You know, we think about the victims, like she killed her kids,

and that's so awful for even just those two boys, right, who were killed. But then the ripple effects go on and on and on. And the parole hearings is just one example of that. Yeah. Yeah. And again, it's like, I don't really have a solution. Like, what sort of punishment does someone deserve? Right? Like, what do they deserve to sort of pay for their crime? Is that even possible in a case like this? Is there any sort of like restitution that can be made in a case like this? And then how do you keep society safe from someone who is capable of this kind of thing? And I was very struck, like I do think in her defense, not me making her defense, her defense's strategy during her trial was to soften her,

was to lean into this image of what we think a mother is. And she's very young at the time, she's in her early 20s, and they really appealed to the jury for sympathy. And I was really struck by this statement about Susan Smith that her defense team made in the closing arguments. Susan Smith has never shown anything but quote, unconditional love for her children.

And her attorney Clark claimed it was not murder as there was no malice in Susan Smith's actions and added, this is not a case about evil, but a case about sadness and despair. A very odd thing to say. Yeah. And I just thought that is such an extraordinary framing to put on this case. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, that doesn't fit with any framework, which I view the world, so I don't even know where to start with that. I mean, you know, murder is murder is murder,

you know? And I think that like, there are differences, of course, in terms of the factors and why it happened and whether or not it could have been prevented and whether or not the person who, like, pulled the trigger, or in this case, drove the car off the dock, has 100% responsibility, or perhaps there are other people who also have responsibility, but, like, if you kill somebody, you killed somebody, it doesn't really matter what your intent was,

but I would say that her intent was to get rid of her children. So her intent was malice. I don't understand. Right, yeah. I mean, that seems bananas that you would say. There was no malice in her actions. And I think what they were leaning into

was that we could sort of see it as, oh, she was having a break with reality of some kind, but of course, there's no evidence of that. Yeah, and so there's another statement from her attorney that struck me where he said her situation was about the dangers of untreated mental health and noted that because she had no criminal history before her conviction, that made her a low risk to the public. I was like, well, it's not like this was her first offense and she, you know, robbed a liquor store. It's, you know, she went from zero to a million. So I don't, I don't know that that's

really like previous criminal history just doesn't really matter in this case, I don't think. And there was a quote from the prosecutor in the AP coverage of this case that I think really kind of hit the nail on the head when they were arguing for the death penalty. And again, I don't support the death penalty, so I don't care that she didn't get it. But I think this was a really interesting take and said, I just felt strongly that had a black man with the toboggan hat committed the crime, people would expect the death penalty. If David Smith had committed the crime,

people would have expected the death penalty." And I think that's right. Yeah, yeah, no, I definitely agree with that. I think that, um... And, you know, similar to your point, I don't necessarily think that she should have gotten the death penalty anyway, um, or that any of these people, you know, should they have committed the crime,

should have gotten the death penalty, but like, I do think it is worth acknowledging the differences and how people are treated. Yeah, so it kind of it makes me think about the case of Joanne Little, which I covered in season one of my show Truro Crime. You know, and this was also a case in South Carolina. And this was a young woman who was being held at a local jail. And she was attacked by the prison guard that was on duty and she ended up in defending herself, killing him. He was trying to assault her. And so then she was like on the run essentially because she was like, oh my gosh, here I am a black woman. I've just killed this guard. Like I'm toast, essentially. She takes off and it kind of is like hiding in the community and then she ends up kind

of like igniting this whole sort of movement because, you know, folks who had been working on civil rights, women's rights activists, prison rights activists, all kind of rallying behind her. But they were really trying to get her on the death penalty for killing this guard. And, you know, it's just shocking to think that, you know, there are some people we sort of think, you know, deserve death, and then other people who we think are, you know, worthy of more leniency. And, you know, I think empathy and also a belief

that we should try to rehabilitate people is important, but it's like, it'd be great if that could be extended to all types of people. Yeah, absolutely. One thing I was thinking about in response to that quote from Pope is like, if this had been a black male carjacker, and some harm had come to the children, or he had killed the children, which in many ways, to me, that is a

less heinous crime than killing your own children. I mean, heinous either way, but I think it's sort of less disturbing. I think a mother killing their own children is probably the most disturbing thing that people can sort of come up with. But nonetheless, if it had been a black male offender that had committed this crime, we would not be having a conversation about his mental health. No, definitely not. There would be no discussion of mental health.

But I do think it's interesting how the mental health conversation even happens both ways, because it's like, sometimes, in this case, we're talking about it as her defense of like, maybe she has less culpability. And then in some cases, it's sort of weaponized against women of like, you know, you're crazy. And therefore, that's like proof that you did commit a crime or something like that. Like I think of the Darlie Rudier case that I was talking about earlier, one of the big things that the prosecution was kind of pushing against her was this idea that she maybe she was suffering from

postpartum depression. And you know, that's why she had killed her kids. And it was sort of like, instead of that being sort of like a point of empathy or understanding, it's like, oh, well, this actually proves that she's an evil, terrible person. So it is interesting. Yeah, no, I mean, it definitely cuts both ways with women in particular.

And it is something where, yeah, if someone is having a genuine psychotic episode or genuinely suffering from delusional disorder, it is complicated. Well, thank you so much, Celysia, for doing this with me. I think this was such a fascinating, thoughtful discussion. And I really urge everyone to check out

your show, True Crime, for more of these insightful takes on cases. And now you have me wanting to go back and listen to your back catalog as well. So, thank you so much for doing this with me. Yeah, this is great. It was interesting to sort of dive into this case and hear how we kind of can intersect with our kind of different perspectives in the genre. And I really appreciate it. perspectives in the genre and I really appreciate it. Nobody Should Believe Me case files is produced and hosted by me, Andrea Dunlop. Our editor is Greta Stromquist and our senior producer is Mariah Gossett.

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