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Susan Smith

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Submitted By fburga
Words 612
Pages 3
Fernando Burga
Criminology
Doctor Watts
September 18, 2015
It’s crazy to think that such a violent and horrible crime could occur in a small town such as Union, South Carolina. In matter of hours, the world was informed of Susan Smith’s tragic loss of her two beautiful boys. On October 25, 1994, Susan Smith reported to police that she was carjacked by a black man who drove off with both of her sons still in the back seat. For nine days, Susan stuck by her story and also made several TV appearances pleading for the rescue and return of her sons. Throughout those nine days, police started to question Smith’s story and started to see several flaws in it. She quickly became the main suspect. After a few days Susan Smith confessed to the hideous crime that committed, leaving the nation shocked and in disgust. One can only imagine what could have caused a mother to purposefully murder her two baby boys. How could you possibly sit there and watch your children drown. What was her motive, why did she do this? To me, the motive is clear, Susan Smith’s boyfriend, who is fairly wealthy, did not want children at all. They broke up a couple of days before the incident occurred. She told one of her friends “she wondered how life would be like without her kids”. This is a quick trigger that Smith only thought about herself. Few said she was suicidal during this time, and in one of her statements she said she wanted to roll down the hill with her children but decided to get out. I strongly believe that Smith had a countless deal of role conflict between being a mother and a girlfriend. The social conflict theory plays a role here.
I feel like Smith was someone who felt that she couldn’t do anything on her own and always needed attention, affection, and is terrified to be alone. Once, her boyfriend left her, she left hopeless and thought by killing her children she would be

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