30 years later, man pain has never faded after ex-wife drowned his two young sons and said she don’t know why she killed them but she’s sorry

“She just casually, like you and I sitting here, said ‘I’m sorry.’ And that was about as far as it went,” David tells NBC News’ Craig Melvin in an upcoming Dateline episode airing at 9 p.m. ET on Friday, Feb. 14.

David goes on to explain that if he had “done what she did,” he would have asked for forgiveness.

“I asked her ‘Why did you do this? Why?’ And she said, ‘I don’t know why, but I’m sorry,’” David tells Melvin.

On Oct. 25, 1994, Susan, then 23, told police that a Black man had stolen her car with her and David’s two sons, Michael, 3, and Alex, 14 months, inside. She spent the following nine days making emotional pleas on national television for her children to be returned home safely.

As her story began to unravel, Smith admitted that there was no carjacker, and that she had let her car roll into a lake with her children still strapped into their car seats. Authorities said she committed the murders because she was secretly dating a man who didn’t want children.

The story became international news and was featured on the cover of PEOPLE.

Susan was ultimately convicted of two counts of murder and is serving a life sentence in Leath Correctional Institution in Greenwood, S.C. She was denied parole in November 2024 after serving 30 years of her sentence.

“I know that what I did was horrible,” Susan told the parole board at the time, according to CNN. She added, “I am a Christian and God is a big part of my life and I know he has forgiven me and I know that is by his grace and mercy … And I just ask that you show that same kind of mercy as well.”

Prior to the decision, David spoke about the possibility of Susan being released, telling the Today show, “I don’t think she’ll ever be rehabilitated.”

He added: “I don’t think she’s, even to me, she’s never been really sorry for what she did.”

Speaking with Melvin in the Dateline episode, David shares why he wishes Susan had been sentenced to death instead of life in prison.

“For myself, yes, because I wouldn’t have to be dealing with what’s coming up now,” he says. “I mean, Craig, I know that they said she had a tough life growing up and I’ve never tried to make light of that, but you don’t kill your children for what happened to you. I wanted an eye for an eye, but the jury saw different, so.”

David told Court TV in September 2024 that he has forgiven Susan, but said the pain of losing his sons is still fresh.

“Yes, I have forgiven her, but again, that goes to my faith in God and that’s the way I was raised. That we have to forgive,” David said at the time. “But it sure doesn’t take away the act of what she did. It doesn’t make it any less, it doesn’t make it any easier. But I have forgiven her for what she did.”