UNION, SC (FOX Carolina) – The small town of south Union changed forever in October 1994 when a wave of reporters came to cover the biggest story the area had seen in years.

The first story was terrifying: A mother was pulled over by a carjacker who took her vehicle with her two boys still strapped into their car seats inside.

The truth was even worse.

“My initial thought was, ‘This is a terrible thing. I hope they find them soon and bring them back to their families. Bring them back safely,’” said Charles Warner, a longtime Union County resident who worked at The Union Times as a reporter in 1994.

For nine days, Susan Smith told the media and law enforcement the story of the car thief and her stolen children.

Eventually, the whole country would search for the Smith boys: Michael, 3, and Alex, 14 months.

After the story broke, Bob Dotson, an NBC correspondent, made Union his home.

“From October 1994 until the end of July 1995, I lived in a house here in Union and it was a full-time job,” Dotson said. “This was even before we had MSNBC or any of those places.”

Dotson said she felt something about Smith’s story from the start.

Smith said the attacker forced his way into her vehicle when she was stopped at a red light.

“If a freeway goes through a small town and there’s a traffic light, generally that traffic light is always green unless there’s another car in the opposite lane,” Dotson said. “I was sitting in that location and I was like, ‘OK, wait a minute. If it happened the way she said it happened, then there must have been a witness. But that witness never came forward.”

Dotson took his hunch to the source: his brother-in-law who had just retired as special agent in charge of the ATF and happened to be playing golf with the lead investigators in the Smith case.

Dotson’s brother-in-law nodded.

“I was the one who broke the story of what really happened,” Dotson said. “So that night I went on the news and said, ‘Well, folks, it probably didn’t happen, according to law enforcement.’ I’m actually quoting my brother-in-law, and as it turns out, it was absolutely true.”

Nine days after Smith first told her lie, she told the truth.

He was no car thief and he knew where the boys were: the bottom of John D. Long Lake.

On October 25, 1994, Smith put Michael and Alex in their car seats and let the vehicle roll into the water.

When then-Union County Sheriff Howard Wells announced he was charging Smith with the murders of Michael and Alex, there were gasps from the crowd at the news conference.

Warner said there was also shock at his home in Union County.

“My wife, Melanie, and daughter, Elise … were having dinner when he showed up,” Warner said. “Elise asked my wife, ‘Did he kill me?’ and my wife replied, “Yes, she had a baby. Yes, he did.”

Warner said The Union Times had never published a weekday morning edition, but that night his editor called to say everyone was needed in the newsroom immediately.

They would put out a morning edition the next day.

When the case went to trial, the state argued that Smith committed the murders after being rejected by her boyfriend at the time.

Smith and her husband David had separated before October 1994. Smith was seeing someone else in the weeks leading up to Michael and Alex’s death.

But eight days before the murders, Smith’s boyfriend wrote her a letter saying their relationship wasn’t going to work: he didn’t want children.

“For so many people, for a mother to kill her children, they couldn’t wrap their brains around it,” Warner said. “I mean it’s not too strong a word to say it was an act of evil. That’s how I’ve always seen it: an act of evil.”

A jury found Smith guilty of the murders of Michael and Alex, but chose to sentence Smith to life behind bars instead of the death penalty.

Now, 30 years later, she is up for parole on November 20.

This is the first story we’ve ever told where evil is a lot like us,” Dotson said. “Here is a woman, 23 years old, with two children, whom anyone in the country would have taken, and she did the unthinkable.”

Warner said he thinks Smith is the same as he was 30 years ago.

“I know people can change, but I honestly think he needs to spend the rest of his life behind bars. It should never come out again. I never got a chance to be around the kids again,” Warner said. “I could be wrong. It could have changed dramatically. But I’d rather err on the side of caution, just put her behind bars.”

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