Case Files 14: Susan Smith and the Impact of False Accusations with Celisia Stanton

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, Celicia 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.

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Well, hello, Celicia.

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 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 just 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 like 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 stolen over $2 million 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, with this thing that, you know, I'd never kind of seen coming.

And

then sort of, you know, just constantly pausing those shows and complaining to my husband about things I felt like were missing from a lot of true crime narratives.

You know, obviously I found that this sort of like listening to them, you know, 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 of crime and so i you know kind of just started having so many conversations my husband about that that he was eventually like why don't you start your own podcast um and i was like yeah like i love that idea let me see if i can do it give it a try um and so that's how truer crime came to be um and i just produced that first season kind of independently put it out in the spring of 2021 um and it really grew from there.

And I found out a lot of people also resonated with like wanting to hear true crime, you know, 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 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.

um 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 um

so yeah so this story that we're going to talk about today you know 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 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 25th, 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, Celicia, did you get a chance to watch any of that video of Susan and David Smith?

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 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 just like gets at such a visceral fear that like you can see why this had,

why this had such a big reaction.

So as this is going on, as this massive manhunt is going on, investigators are talking to both of the parents.

And, you know, like, 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, Celicia, but I was born in the early, 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 like 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, it 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 Benet Ramsey 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, you know, and that this, this happened before, before the 90s, but, you know, it was just like a time where I feel like it was like, oh my gosh, like something could happen to your kids.

Like a stranger could come out of nowhere and just take them.

And I think that created, you know, a lot of, a lot of panic.

Yeah, absolutely.

And yeah, so basically, you know, as this, as these like pleas to the media are happening and she's doing, you know, Susan Smith does a number of interviews,

the investigators are looking closely at the parents, right, 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 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, you know, having, 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, you know, 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, 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, um, but she did seem like next to her husband in particular, like her husband looks genuinely shattered 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 cartwheel and it was like made this big thing.

And, you know, she was acting like 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 in 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 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 also think about like Darlie Rudiere, 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 Truer 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, you know, for example, she, her son, one of her sons who had been killed's birthday was like 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 like had, you know, had, I think, cake and balloons and things like that and like had sang happy birthday and like had kind of like put some confetti and things like that.

And the media had gotten some of that on film and it was just everywhere.

It's like, oh, wow, you know, woman dances on her son's grave.

That was the, you know, the headline, which to me, I was like, oh, that's so odd because not only did I not, you know, think it was that weird, but I'm like, it, 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 want to try to celebrate the life of, 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 going to react.

I don't know how to interpret it.

I'm certainly not an expert on that.

I I have undergrad degree in psychology.

And

so, you know, I can 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, I don't know.

Like, I'm sure there is something to how she was reacting because we know that she, you know, 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, uh, if that woman is a mom, because I know this as, as a mom in the world, uh, 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, right?

Yeah, it's like you wouldn't want to parse too much just based on facial expression or just seems like she's off, you know, like I would be off too if I had, if my children were missing, like, I don't know what, I don't know how I would read on camera, you know?

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 like a lot of types of offenders, but, you know, it is that deception piece, right?

Of like how

you can go on camera and say those things while simultaneously knowing the reality, right?

And, you know, I was talking to actually a psychologist colleague about this yesterday, about why it seems like, you know, some of the offenders that we deal with.

are telling the truth when they're not, right?

Where it just doesn't necessarily read like they're lying when they are lying.

And she talked about how,

you know, 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 are, you know, 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 um a really adept liar or perhaps has some kind of like personality disorder or whatever that like you know is it is somehow related to this crime that they've committed or these actions they've taken you would almost think that like they would be able to like sort of if they compartmentalize so well deceive people like pretty well and um versus it being something that we can like 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'm, you know, 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 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 would 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, you know, we would like talk about, you know, our pets or you'd ask about my, my husband, or, you know, we, I remember the election, one of the elect the, you know, 2020 election was happening at the time.

So we would be talking about that.

And all the, all the while, he knows what he's doing.

He's no, 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 like meet a good number of them just through that whole criminal legal process.

And, you know, I think obviously everybody trusted him or they wouldn't have invested their money with him.

And it's just so interesting to think, like, 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.

Like, it'll work out.

Like, I think he was delusional enough to believe that this was all going to be okay.

And so, yeah, just kind of an interesting, an interesting connection there.

Yeah.

And like the, the rationalization and justification of like oh i'll find a way to like you know make good on all this and i'm not actually screwing over these people and i'm just you know whatever whatever it is he was sort of telling himself about what he was doing right

um so susan smith ends up um 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 sort of forensics on how long it would have taken and this is a really heartbreaking detail um 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 and that would have taken like a full because it was not like speeding into the lake that it would have taken a full six minutes for the car to sink.

And so I think that is,

that definitely paints a picture of someone who is not,

you know, 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 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, 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.

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 going to 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.

Um, 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, you know, what her intentions were.

You know, maybe she's hoping to garner some sympathy or something something like that.

But, you know, it's just, it's really upsetting because you would hope that at the point that, all right, I've done it, she could at least, you know, be honest about why.

Yeah.

And I mean, it, it definitely strikes me as like, um, uh, and not delusional in the sense that she's suffering from like actual delusions or psychosis, but sort of a, yeah, like 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, um,

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, um, in that situation.

Um, so she is 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 like 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 then there's this additional element of her blaming a fictional black perpetrator.

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.

And, you know, when there was like no such person even sort of on the scene.

And yeah, I mean, that really like 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 like 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, 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 the, in his 30s or 40s, 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, you know, so many black folks, black men in that area who are potentially being, you know, called in about or accused or, you know, kind of are on, you know, on high alert because they might be accused of having executed this crime.

And police actually said that they received thousands of tips, you know, 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 got to 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 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 there are 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 mean, I don't, I don't think that's implausible.

I mean, 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 like young female offenders,

they very easily, I think, could have sort of looked 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 even 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, you know, one case I'd covered this season on truer 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 Siebold was actually attacked.

She just misidentified her perpetrator.

But like, I think there were 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 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 um so red flag number one right that maybe she's she's misidentified anthony um and there's a number of sort of other things like that but you know it goes to trial she she sits up on the witness stand she points him out when she's asked to like you know point to the 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 um 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, delivered.

They could be the one that we 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 true and even if it's obviously not true.

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So she's arrested, and you know, this goes to trial.

Susan Smith's main defense, you know, at this point, there's no question of who did what, right?

It's pretty clear-cut.

So, her main defense is

her mental health, and there becomes a lot of focus on her mental 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,

that's not really how I would describe a relationship even with an adult person and their stepfather.

So that obviously is very, is very upsetting and a very, you know, sad thing that that had happened to her.

And

also,

that is not a reason to murder your children.

And I think like it gets very tricky with these conversations around mental health and culpability, which is, you know, 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, 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, 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 like kind of allowed them to make this decision.

But that's separate, of course, from accountability for the things that you've done.

And you, and, you know, 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 experienced, 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 and in our communities.

So it's like, for me, I think it is an important conversation to have about, you know, her mental health, her experiences with her stepfather, you know, 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 Smith was experiencing?

And so I think it is an important conversation, but definitely it sometimes gets conflated with like, okay, well, now, you know, what are we supposed to do?

Just kind of like let them off.

And of course not.

So.

Yeah.

And it's, it's an interesting question with like, you know, both the nature and nurture of people who go on to do violent things.

And then, you know, and then the matter 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, you know, there is,

there is some correlation between like the ACE score, you know, the adverse childhood experience.

There certainly can be like a cycle of abuse, right?

Where people are abused when they're children and then they go on to be violent to their own children.

However, it's very like 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 ACE 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 sort of media leaned into this sort of salacious,

you know, kind of like evil sex pot trope that they got going with her.

But, you know, she does, she does have these things that are very, you know, common with like the female offenders that I look at.

So, you know, the female offenders I look at, they have all kinds of different childhoods.

So they have, you know, 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.

Um, and then there are people that have really nice childhoods that come from upper middle class backgrounds that have, you know, and again, and 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, what is, what is the cause?

And I understand the pitfalls pitfalls of sort of thinking like, 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 it is.

Like you have to kind of like 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 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, to, 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 abandon her kids instead of murdering them?

Then it's sort of like, where does someone get sort of 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 going to 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 of like the specific disorders or conditions that like would lead someone to not have empathy.

Um, this is very anecdotal, but I follow this one girl on TikTok who like self-identifies as a psychopath.

And um, she like talks about, you know, how she doesn't feel empathy, you know, for her friends and all of this, and sort of just answers all the questions about like what her experience is like.

I think there's also like a few books too that folks have written who, you know, from that perspective and experience.

Um, I think it's interesting because I think, you know, know, like most people in general do not go on to murder anybody.

Um, 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 not to harm, you know, somebody if she ever felt like extremely angry or something like 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, you know, that could be treated.

Like she kind of talks about how she, you know, has specific therapy.

I think there's also another, another creator too, who's a kind of does similar work, kind of educating folks on his experience, you know.

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 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, cause she'll be like, oh, you know, I come on here, I tell you all I'm a psychopath and then I'm like crying and you're like, oh, 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, 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 like 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.

I mean, I think, and I've watched this creator's videos as well, and they are, they are fascinating.

And I admire, you know, that creator and that they seek treatment and that they know that they have to, you know, that they know that they need that help in order to not, you know, 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, you know, a lot of the cases that I unravel, because certainly like 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 menchasm by proxy perpetrators, where they are smothering their children, poisoning their children, like, you know, really torturing them, like 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 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.

And then, but even, you know, for people who don't have children, right?

Like our connections with other people.

to me, like, that's what makes life worth living, right?

Like, that's, that's what makes it like connection with other people, connection with your community, connections with your friends, your family, you know, coworkers, just human basics of human interaction and feeling like a 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, definitely.

Do we know if Susan Smith, like if they had her like 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 the 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, you know, 30 years ago.

But, but yeah, I mean, I think that really sort of does away with a mental health reasoning that would lessen her culpability because it's worth saying, you know, 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.

You know, these, those are things that happen.

And, you know, I remember after having both of my kids, everywhere you go in every checkup, you know, they ask you about your, 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 of, 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.

And it's an interesting, like, 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.

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 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 the child in the vulnerable position when you're talking about, you know, her, her stepdad assaulting her.

So I not to say, oh, yeah, like had that not happened, then this wouldn't have happened, but I imagine like 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 if we're if it seems like based on her psychological assessment that she, um, 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 um 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 step parent who's supposed to be, you know, a safe and guiding like figure in your life

would would maybe impact some of that.

So I kind of wonder if, you know, things could have been different.

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The big question, I think,

in this case was, was she going to be given the death penalty?

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 like 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, how do you think?

Like, what do you think about this?

Um, 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.

Um, 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 re-enter 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.

You know, we, there are instances, there are realities where that's true.

There are also times where people

are wrongfully convicted.

Like the Alice Siebold Anthony Broadwater case I was talking about earlier, you know, 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.

Eventually, when he did get out, it wasn't because he was exonerated.

It was because they were like, okay, you've, 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,

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 hope that if she's up for parole and she's not actually able to re-enter society, that she's not going to be granted the option to re-enter society.

But, you know, 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, right?

Even a murder,

because, you know, 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, like when I think about what sort of accountability could look like in a case like this, right?

Of someone harming, you know, 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 that we, whose case we covered in the first season of the show.

And you know, 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,

you know, in this interview, what with me was tearful and crying and saying saying how much she loved her children, saying how much she never meant to hurt them and etc.

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 tack, 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.

You know, we talk a lot about, yeah, like what accountability would look like, right?

Be like, I wasn't thinking of my children when I was doing this.

I was acting selfishly and it was wrong.

And I didn't, 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 to sort of hear about how her talk about how much she loved her children, I'm like, no, but you did not.

You, 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 in a 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.

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 sort of 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 X, Y, Z coping mechanisms to prevent myself from harming people in the future.

That to me would be what accountability looks like.

I totally agree

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 a, like, as an incarcerated person, the, 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 insofar 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 um 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 um and you know that's just kind of furthered by those statements that she's making yeah and i i really think about you know and uh david smith her you know former husband who's the father of those boys um did did a couple 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 and he did testify at her parole hearing and against her being paroled.

And I just think about like, you know, with the accountability piece, right?

Cause 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, you know, 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, it's so false.

And like, that I do think for, you know, for people who are harmed by, who are victimized by, um, by abusers, right?

And who are, and I think he's a, you know, David is a victim of Susan.

Like, 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 it's, 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.

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, um, 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, the, I was thinking about like the 30 years and then eligible for parole, not so much the like frequency

that she gets to kind of like 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 sort of live that experience and trauma.

That's one of the things I've been kind of 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, prison, 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.

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.

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, right?

Was to lean into this image of what we think a mother is.

And, you know, 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 you know,

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.

Odd, very odd thing to say.

Yeah.

And I just thought That is such an extraordinary framing

to put on this case.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, I don't, I don't, that, that doesn't fit with any framework with 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 the dock has a hundred percent 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, you know, like her intent was to get rid of her children.

So her intent was malice.

I don't, I don't understand.

Right.

Yeah.

I mean, I, that, that seems bananas that you would say there was no malice in her actions.

And I think what they were leaning into was like, 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, you know, there's another statement from her attorney that struck me where, you know, yeah, 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.

And I was like, well, you know, 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 sort of care that she didn't get it, but I think this was a really interesting,

this was a really interesting take and said, I just felt strongly that had a black man with the, 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, 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.

Um, yeah, so it kind of, it makes me think about, um, the case of Joanne Little, which I covered in season one of, of my show, Truer Crime.

You know, and this is 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 rally 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 be great if that could be extended to, you know, all types of people.

Yeah, absolutely.

One thing I was thinking about in

sort of response to that quote from Pope is like, if this had been a black male carjacker and he, 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, it's heinous either way, but it's sort of, I think it's sort of less disturbing.

I think, 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 like sometimes you know 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 and therefore that's like proof that you did commit a crime or something like that like i think of the darlie um 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 um empathy or understanding, it's like, oh, well, you know, this actually proves that she's like 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 like, yeah, if someone is having a genuine psychotic episode or genuinely suffering from delusional disorder.

It is complicated.

Well, thank you so much, Celicia, for doing this with me.

I think this was such a fascinating, thoughtful discussion.

And

I

really urge everyone to check out your show, Truer Crime, for more of these kind of 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.

Nobody Should Believe Me case files is produced and hosted by me, Andrea Duma.

Our editor is Greta Stromquist, and our senior producer is Mariah Gossett.

Administrative support from NOLA Carmouche.

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