The South Carolina woman convicted of drowning her two young sons 30 years ago, in a racially charged case that made her the object of international pity and then scorn, has a chance to regain her freedom.

Susan Smith, who rolled her auto into a lake with her toddlers strapped to car seats as she sought to preserve an extramarital affair, is scheduled for her first parole hearing Wednesday morning.

At a time of racial tensions when the country was captivated by the O.J. Simpson murder case, and in a highly conservative part of the Deep South, Smith initially said an armed Black man carjacked her and kidnapped her sons Michael, 3, and Alex, 14 months.

Law enforcement agents and volunteers searched for them amid intense media attention as Smith pleaded for their return on national TV. After nine days she confessed to killing the boys, setting off shockwaves. It was later revealed Smith, 23 at the time, was separated from her husband and was having a romance with a wealthy man, Tom Findlay, who wanted to end the relationship because she had children.

“It's the ultimate betrayal,’’ Tommy Pope, the lead prosecutor at the time, told the Greenville News in South Carolina. “We thought that maybe a bad guy or a criminal could do something horrible like this. … We just don't expect that coming from a mother.’’

Pope pursued the death penalty, but Smith was sentenced in July 1995 to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years. She became eligible Nov. 4.

Pope, now the Republican Speaker Pro Tem of the South Carolina House, said he and Smith’s former husband, David Smith, will oppose the parole application.

That figures to diminish Susan Smith’s chances, which are not great to begin with. Only 7% of South Carolina parole requests were granted in 2023, and the number has been trending down for years, the advocacy group Prison Policy Initiative said.

David Smith told Court TV in September he will attend the parole hearing, which will be conducted remotely as his ex-wife joins from the Leath Correctional Institute in Greenwood, South Carolina. Smith said he will address the board “to let them know that her only doing 30 years would be an injustice to Mike and Alex.’’

Black community was 'really on edge'

Smith’s trial began in July 1995, six months into Simpson’s “Trial of the Century’’ and three years after parts of Los Angeles burned during riots following the acquittal of the white police officers who beat Black driver Rodney King.

“The Black community was on edge. I mean, they were really on edge,” reporter Gary Henderson, who covered the case for the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, recently told the newspaper. “I think they were afraid that the White community was going to turn on them. It was a very touchy time for that.”

Pope acknowledged Smith had previously encountered serious hardships in her life but said he believes her actions were motivated by a desire to maintain the relationship with Findlay, and he often thinks about what would have happened if an innocent Black man had paid for her crimes.

“If we would've convicted the wrong person,’’ Pope said, “everybody involved would have to live with themselves knowing a man was in prison or died because of us.’’

Smith impacted by early hardships but not exemplary prisoner

The trial revealed the adversities Smith grappled with in her formative years, from her father’s suicide when she was a young girl to her stepfather Beverley Russel – a leader in the Christian Coalition – starting to molest her when she was 15. Smith herself attempted suicide more than once.

But as she seeks the five votes she needs from the seven-member parole board to gain her release, Smith comes in with a history of being far from a model prisoner.

She was disciplined twice in 2000 for having sex with prison guards and later sanctioned for several instances of drug use and self-mutilation. More recently, Smith drew the ire of prison officials for violating a policy by communicating with a documentarian who reportedly paid her.

“She's not focused on remorse for the lives she took,’’ Pope said. “I think she needs to continue to serve her sentence and serve it out forward.’’

Contributing: Terry Benjamin II, Greenville News