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The children were still strapped in their child seats when divers found them and recovered their bodies about 45 minutes after being called to the scene. Duley was initially charged only with leaving the scene of an accident, but Williams said deputies knew there was more to the story than she was telling. There were no skid marks on the road leading to the water, and no obvious signs of a crash. "We felt that the story she was telling us wasn't factual," Williams said. Williams said Duley eventually admitted to a female deputy after hours of questioning that she killed the boys, citing the pressures both of parenthood and those she felt from her own mother. He said Duley expressed little remorse about the deaths. "I think that the opportunity presented itself and she reacted to whatever condition presented itself for her to get rid of the children," Williams said. Duley's mother declined to speak with reporters camped outside her home Tuesday. A woman who would not identify herself came outside and asked reporters to leave, saying, "We are grieving right now. We need our privacy." The state agency responsible for child welfare in South Carolina said it has had no involvement with Duley. Williams said the 5-year-old girl is now staying with Duley's mother. The boys' deaths stunned another young single mother who lived near the struggling family. "I can never imagine it getting that bad to where you just feel that that's the end of it," said Shannon Stamos, 22, who has two children about the same ages as Duley's sons. "There are so many other families that are willing to take on kids nowadays ... for somebody that feels they need freedom, or whatever the case may be." In the 1994 case, Smith left her 3-year-old and 14-month-old sons strapped in their car seats as she rolled her car into a lake in Union County. Smith, who is white, initially claimed a black man had carjacked her and drove off with the children.
[Associated
Press;
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