The Susan Smith Trial

By MOLLY McDONOUGH
Staff Writer

SPARTANBURG, S.C. (7/15/95) -- A witness in the Susan Smith double-murder case says she was suicidal but gave no hints she wanted to harm her children.

Benjy Brown, a friend to Smith and her ex-boyfriend Tom Findlay, said she confided in him over an approximately eight-day period before Oct. 25, the night her sons drowned in an Union County lake.

Brown denied recent reports that Smith lamented having children.

"She always spoke in a very loving way when she was discussing her children," Brown said in a statement released Friday by Spartanburg lawyer Chuck Thompson.

Smith confessed to letting her car roll into John D. Long Lake with her sons still strapped in their safety seats.

Brown, who has consistently turned down paid and unpaid offers to speak to the media, became inflamed after he read that Smith told him she wondered what life would be like if she didn't have children.

"She never made any such remark to Benjy Brown about that," Thompson said.

Instead, Brown, a deacon and Sunday School teacher at Salem Baptist Church, claims Smith was depressed, acted despondent and was emotionally disturbed during their phone conversations. The phone calls began Oct. 15 and ended about two days before the boys died.

In hindsight, Brown, whose wife worked with Smith at Conso, says he wishes he could have done something that would have averted the death of 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alex.

"Looking back he knows that she was reaching out for help and needing help in a bad way," Thompson said.

Thompson would not go into details about the statements Brown made to prosecutors and defense lawyers. But he said Smith was, among other things, upset about breaking up with Findlay. A week before the boys' drownings, Findlay sent Smith a letter ending the relationship, in part because he was not ready to be a father.

Thompson said Brown knew the information would eventually come out in open court. But he was not prepared for the deluge of media inquiries since his statements were leaked and, according to Thompson, taken out of context.

Brown, 31, a lifelong resident of Union and assistant plant superintendent at Inman Mills, has been embarrassed by the media attention and probe into his personal life.

Thompson said it is obvious someone has access to documents that should have been confidential under the Jan. 27 gag order by presiding Judge William Howard.

The order prohibits the state, defense and any agents working for them from releasing any prejudicial information not already presented in court.

Thompson has spoken with Smith's lawyer Judy Clarke. He had not yet spoken with the prosecution but said Clarke was unaware of the media reports when he talked with her Friday.

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