(CNN) – “I want to tell my babies that your mother loves you so much…” Susan Smith, then 23, tearfully told the scrum of news cameras.

It was early November 1994, and Smith had recently told police that her three-year-old son Michael and fourteen-month-old son Alex had been taken when she was carjacked by a black man in the town of Union, South Carolina, in late October. , which sparked a manhunt and a barrage of media attention on the young mother.

“You guys have to be strong… I just know, I just feel in my heart that you guys are going to be okay,” she said.

But it would turn out that Smith’s young children were already dead — strapped into their car seats at the bottom of nearby John D. Long Lake, authorities said.

Investigators were skeptical of Smith’s story from the start, and she eventually confessed, under questioning, that she had driven her car into the lake and killed her sons. The story made international headlines and her 1995 murder case was closely followed around the world.

The prosecutor pointed to reports that Smith was having an affair with her boss’s wealthy son, who had just broken up with him because he didn’t want children. Her lawyers argued that she was suicidal and depressed and planned to stay in the car with her children.

Smit was convicted of murder. Now 53, she has served 30 years of her life sentence, making her eligible for parole under state law at the time of her trial.

Smith will have the opportunity to make her parole plea on Wednesday, according to the South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services. Paroles are granted only about 8% of the time for violent offenders, the department said said.

As of the first week of November, the Office of Victim Services had received at least 360 letters, emails and messages about Smith’s parole hearing, with all but six expressing opposition to granting her parole, the department said .

The parole board makes decisions at its discretion, and parole may be granted within moments of the hearing’s conclusion Wednesday, or the board may wait until a later time or date, the department said.

Smith’s attorney, Tommy A. Thomas, did not respond to a request for comment.

The three decades Smith spent in prison were not without problems. She has faced a number of internal disciplinary charges.

Just months before her scheduled parole hearing on Aug. 16, Smith was charged with “communicating with a victim and/or witness” through telephone conversations with a documentary filmmaker, according to the South Carolina Department of Corrections.

Inmates in South Carolina are allowed to receive and send letters, but cannot legally communicate with journalists in person or by telephone. CNN sent a letter to Smith in jail seeking comment but has not received a response.

Smith and the filmmaker discussed shooting the documentary after the parole hearing and how she would be paid for her participation, according to an incident report.

“They also discussed in depth the crime and the events leading up to and after it actually occurred,” the report said. “Including details of what was in the boot of the car when it fell into the water and her plans to jump off a bridge while holding the boys, but one woke up.”

The department said Smith agreed to provide the filmmaker with contact information for friends, family and her former husband, David Smith. Money was then deposited into her jail account, the department said. As a result, Smith lost her phone, tablet and cafeteria privileges for 90 days, according to the department.

Smith may apply for parole because the jury at her 1995 trial refused to hand down the death penalty requested by prosecutors.

“I thought the most severe sentence we had would be the most appropriate sentence,” said Tommy Pope, a former 16th Judicial Circuit attorney and the lead prosecutor in Smith’s case.

Some jurors he heard from after the trial believed a harsher punishment for Smith would be to serve a lifetime in prison, thinking of her sons, Pope said.

But this has not been the case, Pope said.

“For 30 years, Susan has focused on Susan, not Michael and Alex,” he said.

Pope opposes Smith’s parole and said he will speak before the parole board at Wednesday’s hearing. He said he has been in contact with Smith’s ex-husband – the children’s father – who will also attend the hearing to oppose the parole. “He just wants to make sure Michael and Alex are not forgotten,” Pope said.

In 2004, David Smith told Larry King on CNN that he believed his ex-wife deserved the death penalty. CNN did not receive a response to attempts to contact David Smith, but he did speak to Court TV last month.

He said he had forgiven Susan Smith but wanted justice to be done. He said he planned to remind the parole board “what Susan did” and “who the victims were in this case — certainly not her.”

David Smith said the fact that his ex-wife would only serve 30 years would be an injustice to Michael and Alex. “She doesn’t deserve to ever be free again,” he said.