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Susan Smith's Childhood Case Study

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Susan Smith was never lucky in relationships. She had countless boyfriends and had an off and on relationship with her husband David. By many accounts, she was a loving mother to her two children. But, that all changed one October night when she took the lives of her two boys by submerging her car into a lake.
Susan Leigh Vaughan was born on September 26, 1971 in Union, South Carolina. She was the youngest of three children and her parent’s only daughter. After her parents’ divorce, when Susan was seven, her father committed suicide and her mother remarried just weeks later. When Susan was sixteen, her stepfather started to molest her and Susan reported this to her mother, but unfortunately nothing of consequence resulted from the report. …show more content…

On March 15, 1991, the couple married and moved into David’s great-grand-mother’s house. On October 10, 1991, Michael Daniel Smith was born and both parents showered him with love and attention. Unfortunately the couple began to fight due to Linda, Susan’s mother, being intrusive and controlling on how her grandchild should be raised (Montaldo, 2014). By March 1992, the Smith’s separated and for the next seven months they tried to mend their marriage. In November 1992, Susan announced she was pregnant again and the couple borrowed money from Susan’s mother to put a down payment on a house of their own believing that would fix their troubles. During this pregnancy Susan would constantly complain and grew more distant, while David, who felt lonely and isolated, began a relationship with a co-worker. On August 5, 1993 Alexander Tyler Smith was born, and three weeks afterward David moved out and the two decided the marriage was over (Montaldo, …show more content…

Sheriff Howard Wells, lead investigator on the case, had David and Susan polygraphed. David passed, but Susan’s results were inconclusive. Throughout the nine days of the investigation, Susan was given numerous polygraphs and questioned about the inconsistencies in her carjacking story (Montaldo, 2014). Ron Laney, director of the Justice Department’s missing and exploited children’s programs, called the police handling of the Susan Smith case “a model response” (Healy,

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