Susan Smith was a suicidal "nervous wreck" and almost went to a watery grave with her young boys but decided finally to get out of the car and let her children drown alone, according to her police confession.

"I wanted to end my life so bad and was in my car, ready to go down that ramp into the water and I did go part way, but I stopped," Susan Smith said in the written confession, CNN reported Sunday. "I went again and I stopped. Then I got out of the car a nervous wreck."I dropped to the lowest when I allowed my children to go down that ramp into the water without me. I took off running and screaming, `Oh God, oh God no. What have I done," the confession read.

David Bruck, Susan Smith's lawyer, denied a report that his client watched her 3-year-old son, Michael, struggle to get out of his safety-seat as the car rolled into the lake.

"They're home where they belong," the Rev. Bob Cato told the hundreds of people at their funeral Sunday. "They're home where there's no more pain, no more anguish, no more people screaming across the street trying to get in a word edgewise."

As the muffled cries of mourners grew louder at the small Buffalo United Methodist Church, "Away in a Manger" played over speakers.

View Comments

David Smith, his shoulders bowed and a handkerchief stifling his sobs, then followed his sons' single casket out of the church and into an overcast day. They were buried nearby.

Join the Conversation
Looking for comments?
Find comments in their new home! Click the buttons at the top or within the article to view them — or use the button below for quick access.