THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 6, 1994 TAG: 9411050011
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 45 lines
Before police reported that she had confessed to murdering her two young sons, 23-year-old Susan Smith of Union, S.C., for nine days deceived her family and neighbors - and who knows how many others? - with a chilling tale of a carjacking by an armed man who drove off with her terrified offspring.
Some - probably many - were skeptical of the story from the outset. As Mrs. Smith told it, a stranger - a black male - had leaped into her automobile, compelled her at gunpoint to drive for several miles and then refused to let her free her small sons from their safety seats after ordering her out onto a lonely road.
Law-enforcement officers in Union were among the skeptics, noting inconsistencies and implausibilities in her account. But Mrs. Smith appeared to be beside herself, pleading tearfully for the return of sons. Her seeming distress kept doubt at bay.
Union residents rallied behind her, exhibiting yellow ribbons of remembrance and hope for a happy outcome to the search, which scores had joined, for the ``kidnapped'' boys. They reacted with shock, anger and bitterness upon learning that Mrs. Smith had been lying all along. Countless ordinary men and women whose hearts had ached for Mrs. Smith, and who perhaps saw on their TVs videotape of the Smith boys at play, registered similar emotions.
That's not unadmirable: Despite the pervasiveness of the mass-communications media, which drown us in an endless succession of horrors real and fictional, we still retain the capacity for empathy and sympathy for others' pain.
The market for sensation is insatiable, yes, but more than curiosity or the void filled by excitement draws us to tragedies, even at a distance. This speaks well for the human capacity of caring.
We will eventually learn much more about why Susan Smith drowned her two sons in Lake John D. Long near Union. Meanwhile, we, like you, are saddened and sickened by yet another atrocity. by CNB