The pilgrims began arriving in Union, South Carolina, almost immediately, pouring in from Florida and Pennsylvania and Alaska. They show up on Main Street, ask directions to the lake and then head out State Highway 49 to the popular fishing area once known as Black Bottom. There they gather near the boat ramp where Susan Smith stood on the night of Oct. 25 and gaze into the perilous depths of John D. Long Lake, speaking in hushed voices and adding their offerings of flowers and toys to the shrines standing at the water's edge. Glen Outlaw Jr., a sheriff's deputy from Jacksonville, Florida, arranged the planting of a 14-ft. Christmas tree at lakeside. Then he made the six-hour trip from his home, decorated the tree, and turned around and drove back. "Every child deserves a Christmas," he said. Outlaw plans to return each year to ensure that the tree -- and the two little boys, Michael and Alexander, who lost their lives in this lake -- are not forgotten.
Of course, no one will soon forget the terrible drama that unfolded there last month, when after convincing the community that she had been carjacked and her children abducted, Susan Smith confessed that she had, in truth, murdered her babies. But even those who pray simply that this small textile town of 9,800 can return to its familiar rhythms understand that the Susan Smith story is just beginning. On the courthouse steps and in the popular Palmetto restaurant and on front porches shaded by magnolia trees, the talk is of Smith's long-held secrets: her suicide attempts, her allegations that her stepfather molested her as a teenager, all the hidden troubles of a blandly pretty young woman from a good family whom friends routinely recall as "nice" and "happy." "Now it's coming out," says Thomas H. White IV, the lawyer who represented Susan in her divorce from David Smith. "Susan had a right rough time of it."
These revelations about Smith are the backdrop to the legal maneuvering that begins this week, as a grand jury convenes to decide whether to indict Smith, 23, on two counts of murder. Though the charges are a foregone conclusion, the defense strategy remains a subject of intense speculation. Smith's attorney, David Bruck, who is one of the top death-penalty lawyers in the country, has brought a psychiatrist into prison to examine his client and successfully delayed the prosecution's evaluation of her, but he says an insanity plea in the trial, which is expected to begin mid-1995, is "just one option among many."
Also hanging in the balance is whether the state will seek the death penalty, a decision that 16th Circuit solicitor Tommy Pope will announce on Jan. 16. This is an issue that has Unionites -- for the most part a conservative, churchgoing bunch -- passionately divided. Says one local waitress: "I'd pull the switch tomorrow. Wouldn't bother me at all." To others, however, even those who thought they supported the death penalty, the matter now hits uncomfortably close to home. "We know her. We just can't see something like that happening to her," says Patsy McNeace, a teacher. Pope, 32, who was elected solicitor two years ago, intends to listen carefully to both sides. "I will be doing a lot of soul-searching," he says. "I will talk to the family, but I also need to remember who the victims are -- Michael and Alex. This is as much about them as it is about Susan."