Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake

Summary

Dateline NBC: Talking Dateline – Return to the Lake

Episode Release Date: February 19, 2025
Host: Josh Mankiewicz and Craig Melvin
Producer: Carol Gable

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Introduction

In the February 19, 2025 episode of Talking Dateline, hosts Josh Mankiewicz and Craig Melvin revisit one of the most harrowing true-crime cases covered by Dateline NBC: the tragic story of Susan Smith, who in 1994 murdered her two young sons. Titled "Return to the Lake," this episode delves deep into the case's enduring impact, featuring exclusive interviews and previously unheard audio clips.

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Background of the Susan Smith Case

Josh Mankiewicz introduces the episode by recounting his personal connection to the Susan Smith case. As a 15-year-old in the early '90s, Mankiewicz witnessed the extensive media coverage that consumed much of South Carolina's attention.

[03:24] Craig Melvin: "Well, it was all consuming, man. It was all consuming... Ribbons had gone up all over cities and towns just remembering Michael and Alex."

Mankiewicz reflects on the widespread community mourning and the pervasive media presence that turned the small town of Union, South Carolina, into a focal point of national attention.

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Media Portrayal and Public Perception

The hosts discuss how Susan Smith's portrayal in the media garnered public sympathy, partly due to her appearance and demeanor, which contrasted sharply with her heinous actions.

[05:26] Craig Melvin: "She didn't look like someone who might kill their children. She just didn't look the part right...she immediately starts to garner justifiable sympathy."

Mankiewicz points out that initially, Susan seemed credible and cooperative, further misleading the public and investigators.

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Investigative Breakthrough and Confession

The conversation shifts to the police investigation, highlighting the pivotal moments that led to Susan Smith's confession. Craig Melvin emphasizes the role of polygraph expert Pete Logan and Sheriff Wells in extracting a confession from Susan.

[07:31] Craig Melvin: "They bring him in, and he decides to work with Sheriff Wells to extract this confession. And it works beautifully."

Mankiewicz notes the lack of modern surveillance technology, which made Susan's deceit more plausible at the time.

[08:35] Craig Melvin: "I found her voice on those tapes chilling."

The hosts reveal newly uncovered audio recordings that provide deeper insight into Susan's state of mind during the investigation.

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Impact on David Smith and His Family

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to interviewing Susan Smith's ex-husband, David Smith. Craig Melvin shares poignant moments from the interview, detailing David's profound grief and ongoing battle to keep Susan behind bars.

[17:17] Craig Melvin: "He talked about the two times that he nearly killed himself. He talked about not being able to get out of bed for months and just going to work."

David Smith discusses the relentless public scrutiny and the emotional toll of the case, including unsolicited well-wishes from strangers that forced him to relocate to Florida to find peace.

[20:53] Josh Mankiewicz: "This is not something you get over. It's why I hate the word closure so much."

Smith expresses his fear of Susan's potential release, despite the passage of time, highlighting the perpetual anxiety faced by victims' families.

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Law Enforcement's Role and Reflections

The episode features reflections from Mark Keel, Chief of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), who was involved in the search and investigation.

[14:39] Craig Melvin: "When they hoisted that car from John D. Long Lake, they were still strapped in, and they'd been strapped in for nine days."

Keel recounts the emotional strain on law enforcement officers who encountered the lifeless bodies of the children, underscoring the profound human cost of such cases.

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Producer Carol Gable’s Involvement and Exclusive Insights

Carol Gable, the Dateline producer who maintained correspondence with Susan Smith for over two decades, joins the conversation to answer listener questions and provide exclusive insights.

[25:46] Carol Gable: "Total remorse, consistent remorse. It's not an excuse, but it's more information."

Gable discusses Susan's letters, revealing a complex psychological profile marked by detachment and lack of empathy, which complicates the narrative of remorse.

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Audience Q&A and Social Media Interaction

The hosts address questions from listeners, facilitated by Carol Gable. Topics include the specifics of the 911 call location and the post-trial life of Susan's family.

[27:43] Carol Gable: "Her son is the one who actually called 911. But everything happened near that lake."

Addressing emotional responses from the community and the personal impacts on David Smith's new family life, the discussion highlights the ongoing ripple effects of such tragedies.

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Reflections on Long-Term Effects and Lack of Closure

The episode poignantly explores the concept of closure, or the lack thereof, for those left behind. David Smith's struggle with fading memories of his children and the continual threat of Susan's parole hearings illustrate the enduring trauma.

[20:56] Josh Mankiewicz: "It's why I hate the word closure so much. She's locked up and she didn't get parole, but there's no closure here."

Smith's poignant remark about his fading memories underscores the deep psychological scars carried by victims' families.

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Conclusion

Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake serves as a comprehensive exploration of the Susan Smith case, examining not only the crime itself but also its lasting impact on the individuals involved and the community at large. Through candid interviews, exclusive audio clips, and thoughtful discussion, the episode offers a profound understanding of the complexities surrounding one of America's most disturbing true-crime stories.

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Notable Quotes

• Craig Melvin (05:26): "She didn't look like someone who might kill their children. She just didn't look the part right."
• Craig Melvin (07:31): "They bring him in, and he decides to work with Sheriff Wells to extract this confession. And it works beautifully."
• Craig Melvin (14:39): "When they hoisted that car from John D. Long Lake, they were still strapped in, and they'd been strapped in for nine days."
• Carol Gable (25:46): "Total remorse, consistent remorse. It's not an excuse, but it's more information."
• Josh Mankiewicz (20:56): "It's why I hate the word closure so much. She's locked up and she didn't get parole, but there's no closure here."

---

Final Thoughts

Return to the Lake not only revisits a painful chapter in true-crime history but also underscores the enduring human spirit in the face of unimaginable loss. By giving voice to those left behind and shedding light on the intricate details of the case, Dateline NBC continues to honor the memories of Michael and Alex while providing a platform for healing and understanding.

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For listeners seeking a deeper dive into this and other true-crime stories, subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free episodes and exclusive content at DatelinePremium.com.

Transcript

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[Josh Mankiewicz]

Hi everybody, it's Josh Mankiewicz and we're talking DATELINE today with Craig Melvin. Hi, Craig.

[Craig Melvin]

Josh. How are you?

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Mank Good. And congratulations on that, that new non DATELINE job that you have. I see you trying to fit in around your DATELINE responsibilities.

[Craig Melvin]

Well, you know, my primary obligation remains to dateline. This DATELINE thing. This is correct.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Yeah. So this episode is called Return to the Lake and it is about a horrifying case that everybody of a certain age, that being me, will remember. It's from 1994. It's the story of Susan Smith, who murdered her two young children. Now for this episode, Craig spoke with her ex husband, David in a very rare, very revealing interview about how this case, this loss, how it impacted him and how he is fighting to keep the woman that he once loved behind bars. Now, if you've not listened to this episode yet, it is the episode right below this one on the list of podcasts that you just chose from. So you can go there and you can listen to it and come back here or you can go to Peacock and stream it. Now, when you come back, Craig and I will talk about the episode. Craig also has an extra clip that he wants to play for us from the chief of sledding, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, Mark Keel. And then later, we're going to be joined by a special guest, and that is DATELINE producer Carol Gable, who exchanged letters with Susan Smith for 20 years. And she's going to talk about that and also answer some of your questions about the broadcast from social media. So stick around for that. And now let's talk Dateline. You were a small child when this happened. I know that it's not.

[Craig Melvin]

Not a small child.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

No, you were like. You saw this. I'm thinking through the bars of.

[Craig Melvin]

No, I was 15. I was 15.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Okay. All right. Because I was, I think, 65 then. I remember. I remember this story. I was actually. Not only was I a TV reporter at this. At this stage, I was not working. I had not come to Dateline yet. And I was working for a show that had stopped producing episodes. And we were all just kind of getting paid, waiting for them to figure out what they were going to do next, which turned out to be nothing. So I had a lot of time to watch coverage of this, and I did. I remember watching a lot of it.

[Craig Melvin]

Well, it was all consuming, man. It was all consuming. In Columbia, South Carolina, where I'm from, wis, Television was the big station There still is. And it was one of those stories for two weeks, multiple stories, every newscast. And this little town, Union, South Carolina, where it happened, it was about an hour from where I grew up. Things like this didn't happen to Union. I mean, Union was. Was like Mayberry, you know, everyone knew everybody. You know, half the town's related to the other half. I mean, that's just kind of. There's just small town, South Carolina. You know, I grew up a good Baptist, Good Baptist boy. Even in. I remember on church on Sunday, you know, we were praying for these boys. We were praying for their safe return. Like, it was just that there were ribbons that had gone up. I can't remember the collab, but I remember they had these ribbons all over cities and towns just remembering Michael and Alex. So, yeah, it was. It was top of mind for a long time.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

And. And I'm presuming that even when the TV wasn't on, everybody was talking about it.

[Craig Melvin]

It's all anybody could talk about, you.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Know, the detail of her story. I remembered this when I saw it in your. In your broadcast. The guy jumps in the car, supposedly, and says, you know, he's got a gun, and he's like, just drive. And she said, and the boys were crying. And I remember thinking, like, man, they must have been terrified. Like, they could tell something was wrong. They knew how frightened she was. That was the moment where I thought, oh, my God, how awful that must be. And of course, all made up. None of that happened.

[Craig Melvin]

You got the benefit of the doubt back then. Certainly more often than not, you had this young white woman, and I hate even saying this now, 30 years later, she didn't look like someone who might kill their children. She just didn't look the part right. And so from jumping, she immediately starts to garner justifiable sympathy, you know, and so it triggers this manhunt, and you've got.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Well, I mean, she sold this really well. It wasn't like she was refusing to talk to anybody or wouldn't speak afterwards. I mean, she speaked.

[Craig Melvin]

She absolutely played her part, and that obviously helped tremendously. And then when they put out the pictures first and then the video of these little boys, it was really sort of the. The perfect storm. She would see the searches, she would see the helicopters in the air, the bloodhounds on the ground, all of these investigators, these volunteers, and she still kept it up. And it wasn't just the telling of the lie, the telling of the lie, the initial lie, and then there were other lies, obviously, because when you lie once, you got to keep lying to cover up the lie. She did it for nine days. A good friend of mine is from Union, and we've talked about it many times since then. People didn't carjack in Union back in the 90s. First of all, there were only two intersections, and you only had, like, 30 cars. So much of it didn't make sense. And granted, we're looking at it now through the lens of today. And we talked to two of the journalists who covered the story closely at the time, and they both brought it up separately. I asked them about regrets, and they did say, looking back on it, they wish now that there had been more journalists asking tougher questions about the story itself and not immediately giving her a pass.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Yeah, I mean, I don't want to say it was a simpler or more innocent time, but it may have been a less suspicious time, because without social media and the Internet, the impulse was to believe her story. She's telling the truth, and people did believe it. And then clearly, I mean, at some point, law enforcement starts doing what I think was a pretty good job, like, figuring out, like, her story about the stoplight couldn't have been true. That's pretty good police work in a time when there weren't cameras at every intersection.

[Craig Melvin]

That's one of my favorite parts of the episode, is the police start working together, and they give her the polygraph. We know how it turns out. Then you got Pete Logan, who, by the way, fun fact, worked on the Kennedy assassination back in the day. But Pete Logan is this renowned polygraph expert. They bring him in, and he decides to work with Sheriff Wells to extract this confession. And it works beautifully. It really does to your point, though, man, you're right. I mean, this was before we lived in a time of ubiquitous surveillance. There's no social media, no phone record. Like, there's no cell phone towers that we can chase.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

I can't track her. Nothing.

[Craig Melvin]

Yeah, no, no. Old school, right?

[Josh Mankiewicz]

I mean, today, that story wouldn't stand up because of technology back then. You know, you told it and you sold it, and she did. You guys got some conversations, some audio from those conversations. Now, those have not been played before, and they're chilling.

[Craig Melvin]

I thought, hey, how you doing? You doing okay? Hanging in there. Well, that's good. I'm concerned about you. Just want to know how you were doing.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Well, I appreciate you calling that. That means a lot.

[Craig Melvin]

Yeah, I. I would agree with you. And it was interesting to me just hearing. Just hearing her voice on. On those tapes.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Yeah. So, you know, Susan Smith initially said. I mean, after she eventually told the truth, she first said that she sort of tried to drown herself along with her sons. Anybody believe that?

[Craig Melvin]

Funny you should bring that up. I put that question to Tommy Pope, who was the chief prosecutor in the case at the time. And Tommy said that of all the lies she told, that was one that stood out the most. Because when she showed up at the front door of that woman's house, she was knocking on the door. She was bone dry. If she had been in the water, there would be some. Even at that point, there would be some evidence that she was in the water. And for him, that made it even more appalling.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

You know, over the years, Carol Gable, our producer, sort of kept in touch with Susan Smith and wrote her all these letters, I think, knowing that this story was going to come back one day.

[Craig Melvin]

Yeah.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

And you included some of those. Is Susan Smith still selling a story, you think?

[Craig Melvin]

Oh, no question, no question. These letters have never been shared. And you get a unique insight into what she was thinking then, what she thinks now. And I know you find this to be true. With a lot of killers, there is this clear detachment from reality that still very much exists in the letters. And I found that strange.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Right. When we come back, we will have an extra clip from the interview with the chief of Sled, Mark Keel, who remembers where he was when Susan Smith confessed to killing her two sons.

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[Josh Mankiewicz]

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[Craig Melvin]

They tune in because they are curious.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

They care about their world and they.

[Craig Melvin]

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[Josh Mankiewicz]

You know, when I saw Mark Keel in your episode, I realized that I had interviewed him before. I immediately recognized him and his name. And I have been racking my brain, unsuccessfully, as it turns out, to try to remember what story it was that I interviewed him for. I can't remember. Now. He has not really talked about this case.

[Craig Melvin]

No. In part because of like not wanting to give air to Susan Smith. No. In fact, this was the first time he talked about it on national television. I mean, he runs SLED now, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. We actually talked about it to him during the Murdoch trial, which he had also not talked about before. But during this particular case, Chief Keel, he was in law school at the time, but he was also an amateur pilot and he was part of the search team. So he would go to class. In fact, he talked about at one point he skipped some class to go search for these two little boys or that black guy from the sketch. And this is for him as well. This is one of those stories that really has always stayed with him. And he was there at the parole hearing in November, which he, which he never does.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

This is full circle for him. I mean, he went from being like part time and a pilot and now he's running sled and he's still on this story.

[Craig Melvin]

Yep. Yep.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

We have a little bit more of Craig's interview with the chief of sled, Mark Keel. And he remembers very well, what was going on back then and in the days after. Let's. Let's listen to that.

[Craig Melvin]

What do you remember about the emotions of members of law enforcement back then after we found out that she had infected.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

It was very emotional. And I can remember seeing our agents and other law enforcement personnel as well, but specifically some of our agents that were standing in the back hallway at a courthouse and were just sobbing. And they were agents that had been to the scene when the car was pulled out of the water. And I know that there were some that said, you know, I wish I had not been there. I mean, you saw. I saw emotions from agents that had been working homicide cases for years and years that, you know, you never saw emotion out of, you know, tough, tough guys. But you saw a lot of motion.

[Craig Melvin]

That day, I think, to the chief's point. Like, even these guys who had, you know, I mean, you've. You've been at sled for a while. You've seen a murder. You know, you've seen probably a double murder, car accidents. You've seen some stuff. But to see two little boys who were still. When they hoisted that car from John D. Long Lake, they were still strapped in, and they'd been strapped in for nine days. So you can only imagine what these officers saw. And by the way, and this is, I think, one of the other reasons that this case has resonated with so many for so long now, it wasn't just the killing of the children. It was the way that she did it.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

I completely agree.

[Craig Melvin]

Odd as that may sound.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

No, I completely agree. Because there's no way that that was quick or painless.

[Craig Melvin]

Correct. And anyone who's had small children, you know, my kids are 10 and 8 now, and I remember the car seat phase. And I mean, the car seat is sacrosanct. You gotta make sure they're buckled in the car seat. You gotta have the car seat. Gotta make sure the car. You become obsessed with the car seat. And to think that these two little boys, they get strapped in their car seats by their mother and they die this slow death submerged in this lake that they. And I think that's for a lot of people. It's not what she did, it's not why she did it, it's the way that she did it. Even now, 30 years later, that's the part that I think pisses me off the most. But, you know, David Smith, Mank. He is. And this is of the takeaways for me of the episode. I'd never met David before. Obviously, I knew who he was. And he doesn't do a lot of interviews at all. No. And he decided to sit down with us exclusively because he wanted to make sure that even though times have changed and the way we view abuse and depression, even though a lot of that has changed for us as a society, he did not want anyone using that lens to view what happened to his two boys in a sympathetic light back in 1994. So begrudgingly, he decided to make sure that we remembered what she did and what his boys were like.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

That had to be tough.

[Craig Melvin]

It was. And it's one of those things where you and I, we've had some interviews that are hard and we've seen a lot, we've heard a lot. Quite frankly, we've probably become a little desensitized to a lot. I did not fully appreciate the depth of his despair. 30 years later. He talked about the two times that he nearly killed himself. He talked about not being able to get out of bed for months and just going to work. And you don't really think about this part of it, but for a very long time, anytime anyone saw. I mean, he was on TV every day for a long time, everyone knew how the guy looked. And so he would have these strangers, well meaning strangers, who would come up to him at the grocery store, the bank. I've been praying for you. I prayed for those boys. I prayed for Susan. And he had to leave town. He moved for a long time down to Florida just to get away from it.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

This is one of the things we've. We've talked about before on previous episodes of Talking Dateline and elsewhere, which is there's this ripple effect to murder. It's not just the person, it's not just the immediate family. It doesn't go away because the person gets convicted or locked up. And those people that. That approach you in the supermarket like they're. They're, well meaning, yes, but they're not letting you move on from. Right.

[Craig Melvin]

It also defines your life.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Right. Whether you. And you probably don't wish that. I mean, when you don't want it to, but it will anyway.

[Craig Melvin]

You know, he said to me, I think it was off camera, it's not in the episode. But he said to me, he's like, when I die in my obit, this will be included. It'll be the husband of the ex husband of. And that's. I mean, and think about it. I mean, that's just a. You know, and his new wife, God bless her, you know, Tiffany has been there. They got married in 2003. But she was there with him during all of this, during the search, during the trial. They went on. They had a child together, Savannah. She's 24 now. But she spent a fair amount of time talking about how for a very long time, she could not pull him out of what had to be the darkest of days. She talks about this period where he didn't really trust her, you know, because if this woman that he had known for all these years and had gotten married to, if she would do something.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

So unspeakable, someone he completely trusted.

[Craig Melvin]

Correct. I really. There are a couple times he gets choked up. I get choked up. What moved me the most mank was he said to me. And it was one of those things where I don't know if he meant to say it, but after he said, stayed with me, he said, one of the biggest problems now is 30 years later, he has a hard time remembering the boys. And when he talked about it with his therapist early on, the therapist explained it away. The mind, in an attempt to protect itself, will guard you from certain memories because that'll just prolong the trauma. And the therapist was basically like, you'll get the memories back. You'll get the memories back. And he said, craig, the memories haven't come back. That saddened him to his soul. And you could tell that of all of the things that he wishes he could change, I think he just wishes that he had more memories of the boys.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

This is not something you get over.

[Craig Melvin]

Nope.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

It's why I hate the word closure so much. I mean, she's locked up and she didn't get parole, but there's no closure here.

[Craig Melvin]

No.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Pretty clearly.

[Craig Melvin]

And that's the thing he points out. Every two years, this could happen. Every two years she comes up for parole, and she'll make her case Every.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Two years and at the next one. I mean, increasingly, jurisdictions around the country are releasing older prisoners so they can stop paying for the cost of their healthcare. Assuming that Susan does not cause more problems behind bars, the odds go up just for that that she's going to be released or that a parole board will want to release her.

[Craig Melvin]

And he knows that, and that's why he told me and his new wife they'll be there every two years. The parole board, by the way. Parole board in south Carolina, you'd be hard pressed to find a more conservative parole board. You commit a crime like this in south carolina, good luck ever getting out. We sat down with her lawyer, David.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Brock, and he's never talked about this.

[Craig Melvin]

No. No, no, he never has. And by the way, David Brock also, you know, represents the Charleston church shooter. I mean, he's spent a lot of his time representing extremely unpopular defendants. Yes, that was a very diplomatic way of saying what I was thinking. But yes. And he sees it as a duty. And I said, David, should she be pro? He said, well, yeah. I said, well, has she been rehabilitated? And he maintains it that she has. But his larger point was she's not going to get out of prison at 60 years old and go find two more kids to kill. He maintains that she's paid her debt for the murders and she doesn't pose a threat to society.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

And the parole board sort of didn't buy it 30 years later. I mean, did that surprise anybody? Was there anybody who thought that was going through?

[Craig Melvin]

No surprise. You know what? It didn't surprise anyone that I talked to any of the legal experts. You know, the vote was unanimous. No, it did not. It didn't surprise.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

After the break, we will be back with DATELINE producer Carol Gable and we will answer some of your questions from social media. Now, they had the final answer or did they?

[Craig Melvin]

Nothing has more suspense than a DATELINE mystery, and no one wants to wait to find out what happens next. That's why everyone needs DATELINE Premium, where listening is always ad free. You get the whole story and nothing but the story.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Or do you? Yes, actually, you do.

[Craig Melvin]

Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or dateline premium.com it was late past midnight.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

When they broke into the farmhouse.

[Craig Melvin]

Never in a million years would you think that you'd see your parents house.

[Carol Gable]

Taped off by that yellow tape.

[Craig Melvin]

And they said, you remember, you end up being killed. They left behind a wall of blood and a clue that took a case of double murder on a long, strange trip. She looked at me and she said, I'm screwed.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Murder in the Moonlight, a new podcast from Dateline.

[Craig Melvin]

Listen to Murder in the moonlight for free each week or unlock new episodes early by subscribing to DATELINE Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Dateline premium.com hey, everybody, I'm Al Roker from the Today Show. Let's kickstart your wellness journey with the all new Start Today app. Everything you need for a healthier you all in one place. Fitness challenges for all levels, meal plans that are easy and delicious and so much more. It's built to fit your lifestyle and our experts will guide you every step of the way. Come on, let's do this. To subscribe download. Start today from the App Store on your Apple device. Now terms apply. Cancel anytime through Apple under Profile settings.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

We are now joined by producer Carol Gable. Hi. Nice to see you.

[Carol Gable]

Good to see you, Josh.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

You started working on this episode for dateline back in 1994, which was actually even before I joined Dateline, which is what you and many other people refer to as the good old days. Tell me a little bit about your journey with this case. Like what sort of kept you working on it for so long?

[Carol Gable]

It was obvious that once she was arrested, Susan Smith did not have an opportunity to talk about what had happened. As time went on, I really wanted to interview her. I thought that she was the center of one of the biggest stories in America, but we didn't know a lot about her.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

So when you write her, did you expect to hear back?

[Carol Gable]

No. I mean, I didn't have any expectations at all. But I wrote her and explained that I had actually been in Union the entire week the boys were missing. And I had covered the trial and I was surprised she wrote back.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

The thing that everybody asks about is remorse. What do you detect from Susan Smith under that category?

[Carol Gable]

Total remorse, Consistent remorse. People ask me this question a lot. And it's almost like once you say and you show your remorseful, why, you know, what else can you say?

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Let me ask you a question that is not among the social media questions that we're going to be answering today. But it is one that I know is out there. Why are you Dateline and Carol Gable and Craig Melvin giving this woman a platform to whine about her problems? She's a terrible person. She committed a horrible crime. She's right where she belongs. Why are you giving her any airtime?

[Carol Gable]

I think what we're giving is understanding, context, depth and a bit more meaning.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Not an excuse.

[Carol Gable]

It's not an excuse, but it's more information.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Now we're going to listen to some audio questions which were sent to us on social media.

[Carol Gable]

Okay.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

This is from Marion Marshall Hardy on Facebook.

[Craig Melvin]

Hello, my name is Marian Marshall. My husband and I just finished watching Return to the Lake. And my question is, we were wondering where the 911 call was placed from. Was it in Union or was it in Carlisle? Because if she wouldn't have had a car, wouldn't it make a difference to know where the call was placed from?

[Carol Gable]

The Carlisle story was a made up story that Susan told investigators before she confessed. After Sheriff Wells said we, you couldn't have been in Monarch, which is a part of Union, because the traffic light situation you report can't happen.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

That's when they realize, okay, this person's lying. There was no question about where the call was placed from at the time the call was placed because it was from that woman's house that she ran to.

[Carol Gable]

Yes, it was. Yes, it was. And her son is the one who actually called 911. But everything happened near that lake.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Here's another audio question, this one from Gail Panis on Facebook.

[Craig Melvin]

Hi, my name is Gail.

[Carol Gable]

I've got a question about tonight's episode. Beverly Russell was Susan Smith's stepfather. Did the mother stay married to Beverly Russell after all this came out in court? They did get divorced. I don't know the time frame, but fairly soon after they did get divorced.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

That's it for the audio questions today. Now we're going to go to other questions from social media. Southern beach girl says, I'm sure David or other family members would have been happy to take those babies in and she could still have run off with the other guy.

[Carol Gable]

Of course, anyone in that town would have taken those boys. In her mind, and she has said this to me, in her mind at that moment, she could not leave her boys like her dad left her when he committed suicide.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

8 Lawanna says, I can't believe it's been 30 years. Those little boys would have went to college and had lives of their own if not for Susan's selfishness. And that is something I always think about when kids are involved, which is the life that went unlived.

[Carol Gable]

Well, you can't help but think about that, you know, what, what might have been. And it's, it's really hard. And that's why this is a very searing, searing story.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Carol, thank you very much and thanks everybody for listening. Now remember, if you have any questions for us about our stories or any case that you think we should be covering, you can reach out to us on social at, at Dateline NBC or you can send us an audio message for a chance to be featured in our next talking DATELINE episode. Also, do not forget about Keith's all new podcast called Murder in the Moonlight. It's very, very good and I know that because Keith told me that personally. So you can listen to the first two episodes of Murder in the moonlight right now for free, for early access to future episodes and to listen to all DATELINE podcasts ad free, which I know you want to do. Subscribe to Dateline Premium on Apple, Spotify or@dateline premium.com. see you next Friday for an all new DATELINE on NBC.

[Craig Melvin]

A true crime story never really ends. Even when a case is closed, the journey for those left behind is just beginning.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Since our Dateline story aired, Tracy has harnessed her outrage into a mission.

[Craig Melvin]

I had no other option. I had to do something, catch up with families, friends and investigators on our bonus series, after the Verdict. Ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances with strength and courage. It does just change your life. But speaking up for these issues helps me keep going. To listen to after the Verdict, subscribe to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or@dateline premium.com.