Susan Smith Prison Guard Fired

Friday, September 1st 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) â€” A prison guard has been fired for allegedly having sex with Susan Smith, who is serving a life sentence for drowning her two sons in a lake, corrections officials said.

During an investigation of a tabloid report that Smith was beaten in prison, she told investigators about four sexual encounters with a guard earlier this year, Corrections Department spokesman John Barkley said.

Lt. Houston Cagle, 50, was removed from the department's payroll Wednesday and fired Thursday, Barkley said. He had worked at the Women's Correctional Institution since 1996.

Having sex with an inmate is a felony with a possible 10-year prison sentence, and the department would pursue Cagle's prosecution, Corrections Director Doug Catoe said.

Cagle had not been charged as of late Thursday. His telephone number is unlisted and he could not be reached for comment.

Smith, 29, has a job assignment in the prison library and has free time on prison grounds. She could lose some of those privileges, Barkley said. Messages left with her attorney were not returned.

Smith's 3-year-old and 14-month-old sons drowned in 1994 after she let her car roll into a lake. She first claimed the boys had been taken in a carjacking. Nine days later she confessed, and the bodies were found.

Smith was convicted of murder in 1995. A jury spared her the death penalty.