For convicted child killer Susan Smith, fraught and unhealthy relationships with men have remained a defining thread throughout her troubled life.
Smith drowned her two young sons in a South Carolina lake in 1994 after the affluent man with whom she was having an affair ended their relationship, saying he did not want to be with a woman who had children.
That pattern did not end when she went to prison.
Now 54, Smith has been disciplined on two occasions for sexual relationships with male prison employees, including a married captain and a significantly older guard. She has also formed online connections with dozens of men outside prison, many of whom have sent her gifts and money.
Yet after spending decades behind bars, the Daily Mail has revealed that Smith also carried on a private romantic relationship with a woman.
“I had a romantic relationship with Susan,” said Tracey Thompson, who was incarcerated alongside Smith at Leath Correctional Institution in Greenwood County, South Carolina, between 2011 and 2015.
“We were an item.”
Over those four years, the women spent each day together in the prison’s communal spaces and recreation yard.
Susan Smith’s troubled history has repeatedly involved damaging relationships with men.
The Daily Mail reports that Susan Smith was also secretly involved romantically with Tracey Thompson.
The couple were an item for four years while sharing lockup at Leath Correctional Institution in Greenwood County, South Caroline
‘She approached me the first week I was there,’ said Thompson, who was known throughout the South Carolina prison system as a prolific bank robber.
‘Susan said, “Are you intimidated by me?” I said, “Nope. Are you intimidated by me?” And she said, “Yes ma’am, I am.” And we hit it off.’
Three jailhouse sources told the Daily Mail that Thompson and Smith were ‘inseparable’ during those four years and that they were known around the facility as a couple.
‘It was well known to everyone that if you mess with one of them, you mess with them both,’ according to a guard who has worked at Leath for more than two decades.
‘So people, both the other inmates and guards, pretty much left them alone. They were definitely a duo. And I think the other women were really afraid of them. No one started any s**t with either of them.’
Smith’s crime was notorious on the yard, the woman who killed her own children then blamed a fictitious black carjacker for their deaths. Thompson, serving out a federal bank robbery sentence and a physically imposing presence in the prison, was not a woman other inmates crossed.
But Thompson, now 60, insists the relationship was not about protection or intimidation, and says the two women cared deeply for each other.
She describes it as unusual because neither of them was naturally attracted to women.
‘I think when you get women together, relationships are going to form, because every woman needs connection,’ said Thompson, who joked that she was ‘gay for the stay.’
Thompson, now 60, insists the relationship was not about protection or intimidation and that the pair cared deeply about one another
The bank robber knew about Smith’s crimes but was taken aback by how attracted she was to the killer
Smith’s crime was notorious on the yard, the woman who killed her own children then blamed a fictitious black carjacker for their deaths
‘It is what’s going to happen when we are locked away. And that’s what happened with me and Susan.’
Thompson knew about Smith’s horrific crimes but admits she was charmed once she met the person behind the headlines – including, she claims, a grief she saw up close every day.
‘She cried every day, every day, for those boys. She always missed them. She regretted what she did,’ said Thompson.
‘She didn’t talk about what happened, but she did talk about how much she missed the kids every minute of every day. I got to know her in a way that other people didn’t know her.’
Asked what drew her to one of the most reviled women in South Carolina, Thompson said: ‘First of all, she’s very attractive. She really stands out.
‘But she’s also known around the jail for being kind. She will go up to another girl and ask if she’s doing OK, if she needs anything from the commissary. She’s very thoughtful like that. And that makes her attractive.’
During her interview with the Daily Mail, Thompson repeatedly attempted to explain the killings.
‘She had a lot of trauma in her life, and that made things go wrong. I think she’s a sociopath. You’d have to be a sociopath to do what she did.
‘She was dealing with a lot of s**t. She tried to mutilate herself in prison, she had a lot of time with people treating her bad, and that is probably why she did something as awful as what she did.’
Smith killed her sons Michael, three, and Alexander, 14-months-old, by strapping them into the backseats of her car and drowning them in a lake
Smith broke down in tears at her parole hearing in November 2024 as she claimed she had found religion, but the parole board rejected her request for freedom
She is due to be reconsidered for parole in a few weeks
Smith was a 22-year-old married mother living in Union, South Carolina, when her crimes made international headlines.
In the late hours of October 25, 1994, she let her burgundy Mazda roll down a boat ramp into John D Long Lake in Union County with her sons, Michael, three, and 14-month-old Alex, still strapped into their car seats. She stood at the water’s edge and watched the car sink.
Smith then told police that a black man had carjacked her at a stoplight, triggering a massive manhunt which saw officers go door to door among black residents in the area, interrogating hundreds of innocent men.
For nine days Smith and her husband David, who was not involved in the killings, made tearful appearances on television, begging the supposed kidnapper to return their boys.
Then her story fell apart. Investigators established that the traffic light where she claimed to have been stopped could not have been red with no other cars present. Under aggressive interrogation, Smith confessed. Her car was dragged from the lake with the boys’ bodies still strapped into their seats.
During the trial, Smith’s lawyers argued that she had suffered from postpartum depression at the time of the killings and had struggled with her mental health.
Her father killed himself when she was six. She attempted suicide as a teenager. And her stepfather Beverly Russell – once a local Republican official – took the stand and admitted molesting her as a teenager and continuing a sexual relationship with her into adulthood.
Ultimately, Smith was convicted of two counts of murder in July 1995. The jury rejected the death penalty and she was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole after 30 years.
Shortly before the killings, Smith had been in an affair with Tom Findlay, the wealthy son of the owner of Conso Products, a home décor trim company where she worked.
A memorial for the two boys sits just inland from the shoreline of John D. Long Lake where they perished
Toys and flowers were present at the well-kept memorials when the Daily Mail visited on Labor Day
But after Smith kissed and fondled another man at a naked hot tub party in 1994, Findlay dumped her – and spelled out why in a letter.
‘Susan, I could really fall for you,’ Findlay wrote. ‘You have so many endearing qualities about you, and I think that you are a terrific person.
‘But like I have told you before, there are some things about you that aren’t suited for me, and yes, I am speaking about your children.
‘I’m sure that your kids are good kids, but it really wouldn’t matter how good they may be… the fact is, I just don’t want children.’
Thompson disputes that the letter was the reason her sons died.
‘She had problems that were far beyond that,’ she said. ‘She had been molested; she had a lot of rough things happen to her.
‘It was an easy thing to say it happened because her boyfriend didn’t want kids, but that’s not what caused it.’
Thompson believes Smith should be caged for the rest of her life for the killings
Smith now corresponds with dozens of men on the outside
Thompson and Smith’s relationship faded when Thompson was released in 2015.
When told that Smith now corresponds with dozens of men online, some of whom send her money and gifts, Thompson is unsurprised. ‘That sounds like her,’ she said. ‘She always liked romantic attention from anyone.’
Smith went before the South Carolina parole board in November 2024, 30 years after the killings, but was denied after hearing from the boys’ father, David Smith, who vehemently opposed her release. She is next eligible for a hearing on November 19.
Thompson, too, opposed any leniency for her former girlfriend.
‘I cared for her a lot, and I still care about her,’ she said, ‘but I need to be clear: she is where she belongs.
‘She did something horrible. She belongs in jail for the rest of her life. She can be forgiven, but she still has to pay for what she did.
‘There are a lot of stories in prison, a lot of things that people do that are as bad as what Susan did, maybe worse. She’s just the one who got all the coverage in the news. But of course I will never condone what she did to her children.
‘I don’t want her to get out. I don’t think she should. She’s where she belongs. You can have empathy for her and still think she needs to spend the rest of her life in jail. And that’s what I want for her.’
