In Union, South Carolina, a town that last October earned its own pin on the map of American crime, the rage at Susan Smith's actions has gradually given way to more complex emotions. People are still appalled by the way she let her Mazda slide off a boat ramp into the waters of John D. Long Lake with her young sons Michael and Alex strapped into their car seats. They are still outraged at the ease with which she convinced the world that she was the grieving victim of a dark-skinned stranger. But the cries for the death penalty, if not entirely silenced, have quieted. And instead of remaining amazed that a 23-year-old woman, to all outward appearances a loving mother, could harbor such profound unhappiness or anger, the people of Union now marvel that their quiet town could have been the scene of so many tawdry and desperate entanglements.
Bit by bit over the past few months, local newspapers have chipped away at the veneer of normality on Susan Smith's life and uncovered beneath the National Honors Society membership and "friendliest girl'' yearbook title a morass of sexual exploits and personal losses. As the murder trial of Susan Smith begins this week in Union, Judge William L. Howard Jr., who is barring all cameras from the courtroom, has indicated that the proceedings will not come to resemble those under way in O.J. Simpson's double-murder case. But the 10-page, 74-item juror questionnaire indicates that both the defense and prosecution teams will be grappling with explosive emotional material. "There may be some testimony about extramarital affairs,'' begins one question. "Do you have any personal knowledge of a situation that involved incest?" inquires another.
Pleading that his client is either guilty but mentally ill or not guilty by reason of insanity, lead defense attorney David Bruck is expected to argue that Smith -- who wrote a detailed confession -- was psychologically destabilized by a lifetime of betrayals: a father who killed himself, a stepfather who molested her, a husband who cheated on her and a boyfriend who toyed with her affections. The prosecution, led by 16th Circuit solicitor Thomas Pope, is expected to portray Smith's murderous act as the culmination of a life of deceit and manipulation. In reality, both characterizations may contain elements of truth.
Certainly Smith was scarred by the suicide of her father Harry when she was six; in her bureau drawer she kept his coin collection and an audiotape of his voice. But she and her two elder brothers seemed close to their stepfather Beverly C. Russell Jr., the local businessman her mother Linda married in 1979. The divorced father of three, Russell eventually became prominent in both the state Republican Party and the Christian Coalition. Smith's brother Scotty said late last year that Russell was "the force that held the family together."