The Susan Smith Trial

By MOLLY McDONOUGH
Stafff Writer

UNION -- Susan Smith's life was dominated by depression and thoughts of suicide, witnesses testified in her double-murder trial Thursday.

The first witness was Pete Logan, a State Law Enforcement Division agent who spent 16 hours with Smith learning about her sexual relationships and troubled life.

Smith told Logan during the week leading up to the Oct. 25 drownings she became distressed that David Smith was going to release information about her intimate relationships with her boss and his son, Tom Findlay.

Smith told Logan she was intimate with her estranged husband on Oct. 21, four days before her sons died in John D. Long Lake.

It was during that encounter that Smith claims David Smith told her he had her phones tapped and knew about the affair she was having with Cary Findlay, the owner of Conso Products Co.

Logan, who was gathering the information to gain clues about what Smith might have done with her children, detailed the young mother's troubled relationships and prior suicide attempts.

Logan said Smith told him that in 1989, before she worked at Conso, she was involved with her married boss and another man she was working with. When one of the men found out about the other, Smith, then 18, tried to kill herself, Logan testified.

Asked if Smith showed remorse during her Nov. 3 confession, Logan said he had no doubt.

"Probably the greatest I've seen in 35 years," Logan replied, describing Smith's heaving sobs after she told of letting her car roll into a lake with her sons strapped inside.

"She said she wanted to commit suicide and that she wanted to go down in the car herself," the defense witness said. "She told me she couldn't understand why she didn't."

As he testified, Smith was attentive, repeatedly flipping on and off the cap of a small object in her hand.

Logan, whose career in working high-profile cases began in 1963 when he investigated the John F. Kennedy assassination in Dallas, described his gentle techniques in soliciting a confession.

Logan was called to interview Smith after a harsh, confrontational approach failed.

Testimony earlier this week revealed that when agents from SLED and the FBI told Smith they knew she was lying, she ended the interviews, leaving them without any clues about what really happened to her children. "In my 35 years, I have never hollered at anyone or raised my voice," he said. "That's my approach."

Logan said he tried to gain Smith's respect and confidence before finally tripping her up with a plan devised by him and Sheriff Howard Wells.

Logan and another prosecution witness were called by the defense Thursday because the prosecution decided not to use their testimony in front of the jury. The prosecution had called them both to the stand Monday in a hearing to determine the admissibility of statements Smith made to them during the nine-day investigation.

The prosecution rested its case at 9:55 a.m. Thursday, after calling on Charleston pathologist Sandra Conradi to say Michael and Alex Smith did indeed drown.

Her testimony, which lasted only 15 minutes, was hastened when Smith's lawyers stipulated to the identity of the boys and the fact that drowning was the cause of death. Defense lawyer David Bruck objected to any mention about the level of decomposition or graphic descriptions of the bodies.

Defense lawyers were surprised the prosecution rested so soon and had to take a 30-minute break to regroup.

The defense, which called six witnesses Thursday, is also expected to end its case fairly quickly. Bruck said after court that he anticipated his case lasting at least one more day, possibly two.

Social worker Arlene Andrews was the last witness called Thursday. She was hired by the defense to research the mental history of Smith's blood relatives.

Andrews guided the jury through a color-coded family tree, designed to highlight family members who attempted suicide or suffered from some form of depression.

Those marked as having attempted suicide included Smith, a grandmother, aunt and brother.

Defense lawyer David Bruck asked Andrews to explain the relevance of the information.

"That's a lot of depression to find in a family tree," Andrews replied.

Andrews began with Smith's father, Harry Vaughan, who was treated for depression by a pastoral counselor but shot himself to death when Smith was 6.

Andrews appeared to have done an exhaustive study of Smith's family, conducting 97 interviews of family members, friends, teachers, doctors and psychologists. Andrews also said she reviewed notes and some medical records about Smith's suicide attempts at 13 and 18.

However, during a lengthy cross examination, Solicitor Tommy Pope questioned the sincerity of Smith's teen-age suicide attempts. He asked Andrews if the chart differentiated between a real attempt to die and a suicide gesture to gain attention. She never answered the question, but said she believed family members who said the attempts were genuine.

After court, Pope said the prosecution's theory is that Smith "pretends to commit these acts to gain sympathy."

Earlier, Pope also tried to discredit Andrews' testimony by pointing out that she had not verified with medical records any of the information family members volunteered about themselves.

Also taking the stand Thursday were:

Wanda Palmer of Union and a supervisor in Conso's credit department. She said the wedding album found in Smith's submerged car was likely left over from one of the times she brought it in to show someone at work. Palmer said women in her department often bring in their albums to help other women get ideas about planning their own weddings. Under cross examination, Palmer looked at the white, water-logged book and said she had not seen it since last March.

Gail Hollis and Ernest Talley, both from Southern Bell. They said Smith did call Southern Bell out of concern her phone lines were being tapped by her then-estranged husband, David. Talley, a repairman, said he came by Smith's house on Oct. 24 but did not find anything suspicious.

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