Sheriff Howard Wells
Appearances
Dateline NBC
Return to the Lake
After the sketch was drawn and it was distributed, the black people of our community were our greatest asset. They came forward and told us who they thought that looked like.
Dateline NBC
Return to the Lake
We asked him where he was during this time, but it's so easy to check out. We checked it, and he was where he said he was.
Dateline NBC
Return to the Lake
Someone gave a report of a child crying in a national forest in North Carolina. That was going on at the same time.
Dateline NBC
Return to the Lake
You start finding out an abduction case, a high percentage are family abductions. You have to look at family to find out what is the motivation here, why, or who would have been behind it. Investigators wondered whether Susan and David's pending divorce might have played a role. We had to look at all the possibilities of who may have been involved, of whom it would have benefited for an abduction.
Dateline NBC
Return to the Lake
Everyone was a suspect in this case until we could narrow it to a single individual or whatever. But anyone who may have had a motive, anyone who may have had contact with Susan, who may have been a participant or whatever, sure, we looked at everybody.
Dateline NBC
Return to the Lake
We're working on some very promising, exciting information right now, and that's all I'm going to be able to say.
Dateline NBC
Return to the Lake
Well, we've looked at any possible motivation for this case, and we have not developed anything concrete.
Dateline NBC
Return to the Lake
I'm not going to say he is any more or any less than he ever has been because we still do not have the information we need in this case.
Dateline NBC
Return to the Lake
They never saw those children dirty. They never saw her spank her children. We never found one detrimental remark towards Susan about those children.
Dateline NBC
Return to the Lake
It's a solid lead right now. If this turns out to be the lead we need, it might give us the direction we need in this case.
Dateline NBC
Return to the Lake
We're working on some very promising, exciting information right now, and that's all I'm going to be able to say.
Dateline NBC
Return to the Lake
Our hearts soared for a while that we were close to recovering the children in this case. That did not happen.
Dateline NBC
Return to the Lake
It's very hard once you get your hopes up to come back and then see them die.
Dateline NBC
Return to the Lake
There were questions about the traffic light. She stated she was stopped at a red light at an intersection in Monarch, and there were no other cars around.
Dateline NBC
Return to the Lake
That cannot be. A car has to be at the opposing light in the intersection to make the light change.
Dateline NBC
Return to the Lake
I told her that we had that intersection under surveillance, it was at a suspected drug drop site, and that it could not have happened there as she said. This was a bluff. There was no surveillance. And she says, why do you say that? And I told her, I said, there's no way, because we would have seen it. With that, Susan Smith completely lost it. She broke down and started sobbing. She cried.
Dateline NBC
Return to the Lake
She said she was so ashamed. And then she asked for my gun. And I said, why would you want to do that? And she wanted to kill herself. And I said, but why? And she said, you don't understand. My children are not all right. That was the first incriminating statement that she had made.
Dateline NBC
Return to the Lake
Susan Smith. has been arrested and will be charged with two counts of murder in connection with the deaths of her children, Michael, three, and Alexander, 14 months.
Dateline NBC
Return to the Lake
The vehicle, a 1990 Mazda driven by Smith, was located late Thursday afternoon in Lake John D. Long near Union. Two bodies were found in the vehicle's backseat.
Dateline NBC
Return to the Lake
And when I walked in, Susan was seated on the sofa there in the living room. He talked to Dateline in 1995. I knew time was of the essence, and so we went right directly into the informational stage of trying to find out what had happened.
Dateline NBC
Return to the Lake
We are hoping that he's going to be as good as his word, that he will not harm the children since he did not harm her.
Dateline NBC
Return to the Lake
She came in between 3 and 4 in the morning, met with a composite artist on day one,