Smith, who turned 46 on Sept 26, became South Carolina’s most infamous inmate more than two decades ago. In October 1994, she told police that she had been carjacked by a man who had taken off with her two young sons still in her car. For 9 days, she made tearful pleas for their safe return.
But it was all a lie.

Not to be slowed down Susan Smith’s life behind bars has been a tale of sex, drugs and Infractions

As her fable began to unravel, Smith admitted that there was no carjacker. She finally admitted to police that she had let her car roll into a lake with Michael, 3, and Alex, 14 months, still strapped in their car seats.
The real  motive was that she was secretly dating a man who didn’t want children.
Smith was convicted of two counts of murder and is serving a life sentence in Leath Correctional Institution in Greenwood, South Carolina.
One of the head scratchers  from the case was the fact that Smith mindlessly sent law enforcement on a wild goose chase by blaming the crime on a nonexistent, generic black man. The consequences of that significant lie led to police scrutiny, hardship and outrage among the black community.

Michael, 3, and 14-month Alex Smith were strapped in their car seats when their mother pushed it into a lake in 1994 and blamed their disappearance on an unknown black man

Just as she turned 46 behind bars, PEOPLE obtained her jailhouse records and found that her incarceration hasn’t been easy. This summer, she was demoted to landscape laborer, having previously served as a senior groundskeeper.
In the past seven years, she has been disciplined at least five times for various infractions, including self-mutilation and the use and possession of narcotics or marijuana. Each infraction has resulted in the loss of privileges, including loss of visitation, canteen and telephone privileges.
Twice in 2010 and once in 2015, she was disciplined on drug charges, losing privileges for more than a year.

 Child killer suspect Susan Smith, in her 1994 mugshots

Susan Smith is led into court during her trial in 1995 for drowning her boys

Susan Smith self-serving letter from jail attempts to rationalize her multiple homicide in pursuit of hedonistic pleasure

In 2000,a 28-year-old Smith was disciplined for having sex four times with 50-year-old prison guard Houston Cagle, who later pled guilty to the illegal fraternizStion and spent 3 months in jail.
The following year, a prison captain, Alfred Rowe, also pleaded guilty to having sex with Smith and was sentenced to five years probation.
The seemingly unrepentant former mother-of-two has  never fully accepted  responsibility for her heinous acts. She claims she has been misunderstood.
In 2015, Smith wrote a letter defending herself to The State, a local newspaper.  “Mr. Cahill, I am not the monster society thinks I am,” she wrote to reporter Harrison Cahill. “I am far from it.”

Memorial to Michael and Alex Smith whose lives was snuffed so early by a psychopathic, self-serving mother

Susan Smith, head in hand seems to grasp the enormity of her selfish act of self-gratification when the prosecutor asked for the death penalty during her 1995 trial

“Something went very wrong that night. I was not myself,” she wrote. “I was a good mother and I loved my boys. There was no motive as it was not even a planned event. I was not in my right mind.”
However, David her ex-husband and the father of the boys, in a 2010 interview said that he has never fully recovered from the pain: “There’s always this nagging and gnawing heartache,” David Smith said, “It’s there every day, even if I’m not always conscious of it.”
Will Susan Smith one day seek redemption and accept full responsibility for her reprehensible acts?
That remains to be seen.