Smith Prosecution Rests After Former Lover Testifies -- Son Of Company President Describes Their Breakup

UNION, S.C. - The prosecution rested its case today in the Susan Smith double-murder trial a day after ex-boyfriend Tom Findlay took the stand to testify about their relationship.

Findlay painted a picture of Susan Smith as a good friend and caring mother who was also suicidal and unstable. He said they had sex. But more than the physical pleasure, he said, she loved feeling close, being held.

"That was more important to her than the actual act," Findlay told defense attorney David Bruck during cross-examination.

Findlay, 28, is the elusive ex-lover who told Smith he couldn't continue their relationship because of her children, the man whose Auburn University sweatshirt Smith was wearing the night her children were killed, the man the prosecution says is the motive for her crime.

"The Susan Smith I know is very caring, very loving, a good friend to everyone, not just me," he said. "She's very pleasant, very nonconfrontational, very upbeat, always trying to look on the bright side of things. . . . The Susan I knew was not a vindictive person."

Prosecutor Tommy Pope announced that the state's case was finished less than an hour into the morning session.

The action, which caught defense attorney David Bruck by surprise, followed testimony by a forensic pathologist who examined the bodies of the two drowned toddlers.

Findlay testified yesterday as a prosecution witness, but his sympathetic testimony may have helped the defense. While he was on the stand, jurors heard two intimate letters, one Smith wrote to Findlay and one he wrote in return.

Findlay told of an encounter with the defendant's husband, David Smith, in March 1994, when the couple were separated and she and Findlay were just starting to date. As Susan Smith and Findlay talked on the phone, David Smith jumped out of her closet. He got on the phone and screamed at Findlay: "Don't you talk with my wife, you son of a bitch. I'm gonna get you."

Findlay said he felt so threatened, he slept with a loaded handgun under his pillow.

And David Smith threatened to reveal her sexual "relationship" with her stepfather, Beverly Russell, she told Findlay two days before the children were killed.

"She told me David knew about a relationship she had had and was going to make it public," Findlay said. "She was very frightened."

Findlay was one of nine witnesses yesterday, the second day of testimony in a trial to decide whether Susan Smith receives life imprisonment or a death sentence.

Smith, 23, is charged with two counts of murder in the Oct. 25 killings of Michael, 3, and Alex, 14 months. She is accused of releasing the hand brake and letting her car roll into John D. Long Lake with her sons strapped inside.

For the first nine days the children were missing, she maintained that they were taken by a carjacker, but then she confessed.

In addition to Findlay, several other Conso Products employees testified. Both Smith and Findlay worked at Conso. Tom Findlay is the son of Cary Findlay, president of the company.

Williams testified about a conversation with Susan Smith on Oct. 17, eight days before the murders: "I have a problem," Smith said. "I'm in love with someone who doesn't love me." "Who?" Williams asked.

"Tom Findlay," Smith said. "But it can never be because of my children."

"Susan, I could really fall for you. . . . But like I have told you before, there are some things about you that aren't suited for me, and yes, I am speaking about your children," Findlay's letter to Smith said.

"I'm sure that your kids are good kids, but it really wouldn't matter how good they may be . . . the fact is, I just don't want children."

The typed letter was written Oct. 17 and given to Smith on Oct. 18.

"You will without a doubt make some lucky man a great wife," he wrote.

Toward the end of the letter, Findlay refers to a hot tub party at which, sources said, Smith kissed and fondled Bengy Brown, a friend of Findlay's and husband of a co-worker of Smith's. "I would hate for people to perceive you as an unreputable person," the letter said. "If you want to catch a nice guy like me one day, you have to act like a nice girl."

Findlay said that Smith later told him it "was one of the sweetest letters she'd ever gotten."

Findlay had already testified about several stressful and confusing encounters with Smith that day. In one, she told him she was having a sexual relationship with his father.

Smith later told him it was a joke.

State investigators described how they had found her car in the lake, stuffed with a life's possessions: her wedding album, her maternity clothes, a videocassette recorder, Findlay's letter.

As Sgt. Steve Morrow of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources told jurors how he had found her car upside down in 18 feet of water, she began to cry.

"I was able to see a small hand against the glass," Morrow said, his voice cracking. It was then that Susan Smith's shoulders caved. She buried her face in a tissue as she cradled herself in her own arms.