Monday will be a hard day for David Smith.“I’m starting to feel a lot of anxiety and some degree of depression,” Smith said last week, reflecting on the 10-year anniversary of his sons’ deaths. “I just can’t wipe it off the calendar.”

On that day, Smith lost what he said was his “reason for living.”

About 9 that night, his estranged wife Susan Smith — for reasons that may never be fully known — let their burgundy Mazda Protege quietly roll down a boat ramp into John D. Long Lake in Union County.

Strapped in child safety seats in the car’s back seat were the couple’s only children, Michael, 3, and Alex, 14 months. The car, with the boys’ bodies inside, was pulled from the murky lake waters nine days later after Susan Smith confessed to police.

Smith talked for nearly two hours with The State about the events that gripped the nation’s attention for months. He shared his thoughts about his ex-wife, who is serving a life sentence at a state women’s prison in Greenwood. He declined, though, to discuss certain details of his personal life, citing his desire for privacy.

A NEW LIFE

Smith, 34, lives in Spartanburg County and has two children —Savannah, 3, and Nicolas, 21 months.

His daughter lives with her mother, who, according to earlier news reports, was his girlfriend during the 1995 trial. The couple were married in April 2003.

Nicolas is the child of another relationship, he said.

“I never thought I would see the day when I would have more children,” Smith said.

The ages of his children — roughly the same as Michael and Alex when they died — hasn’t escaped him. He said Savannah reminds him of Michael — a quiet child whose feelings are easily hurt. Nicolas, on the other hand, is more like Alex — “stubborn, bull-headed but hilarious,” his father said.

Smith, who formerly worked at the Winn-Dixie in Union, is now an assistant manager at a Spartanburg Wal-Mart, where he has been for 4½ years.

He said he is easily recognized at the store and around town, noting that “it’s not uncommon to have it happen at least once a day.” Some come up to him; others point or stare.

Most people are well-meaning, Smith said, though he added it’s difficult at times dealing with people who tell him about their children’s deaths.

“They’re looking up to me on this pedestal,” he said. “But sometimes I just want to say, ‘I’m having a real bad day myself, and I really can’t help you,’ but I don’t say that to them because I don’t want them to stumble themselves.”

Smith said he has suffered from severe depression over the past 10 years but is doing better now.

‘NO WIND LEFT’

His world forever changed on Oct. 25, 1994, when his then-wife Susan Smith told authorities a black man abducted her at gunpoint at an intersection near Union and forced her to drive to John D. Long Lake, where he sped away with their children.

Smith said he “never doubted Susan for one second” and appeared with her — even though they were in the process of a divorce — on national television to plead for the return of their children. Then, on Nov. 3, 1994, authorities announced to the country his wife was under arrest for murdering their boys.

“My world came to an end at that moment,” Smith said. “There was no wind left in my sail.”

Smith said he had no idea that his wife could harm their children, noting she was “a very good mother up to that last minute .”

But he acknowledged their three-year marriage was rocky. Both accused the other in divorce papers of adultery.

LOOKING FOR ANSWERS

Smith said he talked to his wife only once after her arrest, about a month later while she was in a women’s prison in Columbia.

“I asked her why she did it, and all she said was she didn’t know,” he recalled. “She said she was sorry, but to this day, I don’t think she really meant it because she was so casual. Me, I would have been wrapped around her ankles begging her (for forgiveness).”

Smith believes she killed Michael and Alex “out of greed, out of wanting to be so badly with Tom Findlay.”Findlay, who could not be reached, was a wealthy bachelor who broke up with Susan a short time before the boys’ deaths, saying he wasn’t ready to be a father, according to testimony.

Her lawyers dispute that theory, saying she was suicidal for much of her life and was abused sexually by a relative.

David Smith said his wife, who filed for divorce about a month before their sons’ deaths, didn’t appear depressed to him in the days before the killings.

“I’m not trying to make light of Susan’s past,” he said. “It had to be hard, but there are a lot of women who have been through a lot worse than Susan, and they didn’t kill their children.”

‘AN EYE FOR AN EYE’

Smith said he has forgiven his ex-wife, whom he divorced before the 1995 trial, explaining that hating her “would just eat my up.” But he said he hasn’t changed his mind about her deserving the death penalty, though the jury decided against it.

“If I had to go through it all over again, I would ask for the death penalty,” he said. “I strongly believe in an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

He accused jurors of not having “the spine to stand up for Michael and Alex.” He said he believes they spared her life because they didn’t want to run into her relatives in the small city of Union “knowing they gave (her) death.”

Smith said there is “still some bad blood” between him and Union County Sheriff Howard Wells, who he said appeared to be sympathetic toward his ex-wife during the trial. He said Wells is the godfather of the children of his ex-brother-in-law, Scotty Vaughan.

Wells, through his chief deputy, declined comment for this story. Vaughan did not return messages left by The State.

Smith praised 16th Circuit Solicitor Tommy Pope, who he said was “a hero in my eyes.”

Smith said when Pope told him of his decision to seek the death penalty, he recalled replying, “You are the only one who could stand up for Michael and Alex.”

REMEMBERING HIS SONS

In his interview last week, Smith said he often visits the gravesite of his sons at Bogansville United Methodist Church outside Union, where they are buried in a single casket. Their 1994 funeral drew thousands; Smith was shown sobbing on live television.

Smith said he likely will be there again on Monday.

“I’ll probably take Savannah and Nicolas and just talk to Michael and Alex,” he said.

When Savannah, who has seen pictures of Michael and Alex, asks him about them, he said he tells her they are “two little boys who Dadaloves very much.”

But he knows his children will want to know more as they grow older. He noted Savannah for the first time this month asked him where Michael and Alex are.

“They went home to heaven with Jesus,” he told her.

“I won’t try to give her the whole story until she’s ready for it,” he said.

Smith said he hopes everyone will remember “who the real victims are — not Susan, but Michael and Alex. They’re the ones who paid the ultimate price.”

As for himself, Smith said, “My greatest hope right now is this wound, this hole in my heart that the wind still blows through, keeps closing up a little bit.”

Reach Brundrett at (803) 771-8484 or rbrundrett@thestate.com.