From Start, Agents Were Skeptical of Susan Smith

UNION, S.C. —  From the first hours after she claimed that her two young sons were abducted, Susan Smith came under increasingly strong suspicion herself, investigators testified Monday.

During the next nine days, before Smith confessed to drowning the boys, agents who questioned her said they made no secret of their doubts, even accusing her of the killings.

“I told her she was lying to me,” FBI agent David A. Espie III testified. He described an Oct. 27 interview with Smith, two days after she claimed that Michael Smith, 3, and his brother, Alex, 14 months, had been taken by an African American man who purportedly commandeered her car.

He said investigators were skeptical of Smith’s hesitation and vagueness when investigators tried to prepare a composite sketch of the suspect, and her unwillingness to look interrogators in the eye.

“She would make sounds of crying, but I would look at her eyes--no water, no tears,” Espie said.

Prosecutors want to portray Smith as a cool liar, not someone who is mentally disturbed, as her lawyers have said.

Espie testified at a hearing to determine whether jurors will be allowed to hear statements Smith made to investigators before she confessed to drowning the boys.

Judge William Howard ruled all the statements were admissible.

Howard also dismissed one juror--the only African American woman on the panel--and ordered her arrested on criminal contempt charges for failing to disclose that she had previously pleaded guilty to charges in federal court.

He replaced her with one of two alternates and said he would continue the trial with only one alternate juror. The 12 jurors and two alternates heard none of Monday’s testimony. They remained sequestered at a motel about 25 miles away. Opening arguments are expected today.

Another witness at the hearing, James Harris, a State Law Enforcement Division agent, said a comment by Smith on the day she later confessed struck him as odd.

“She said she was tired of the media being everywhere she went and felt like she would like to get away, maybe go to the beach,” Harris testified.