No One At Wheel In Truck’s Fatal Roll Into Lake

Officials investigating seven deaths last month at the lake where Susan Smith drowned her sons concluded that no one was behind the wheel when the truck rolled into the water.

Investigators initially said Tim Phillips, 26, had been driving the GMC Suburban on Aug. 31. But his body was discovered outside the vehicle, which was upside down in 20 feet of water, Sheriff Howard Wells said Thursday.

The mystery had been why Phillips didn’t use the steering wheel or brakes, since an autopsy showed he was not drunk or ill. But it now appears he wasn’t in the truck, Wells said.

The truck’s transmission was in park, and Wells said the drownings were best ruled accidental “because of inferred mechanical failure.”