COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A parole board decided Wednesday that Susan Smith should remain in prison 30 years after she killed her sons by rolling her car into a South Carolina lake while they were strapped in their car seats.

It was the first parole hearing for Smith, 53, who is serving a life sentence after a jury convicted her of murder but decided not to sentence her to death. Under state law at the time, she is eligible for a parole hearing every two years now that she has spent 30 years behind bars.

Smith got to make her case to the parole board by video link from her women’s prison. Then she went offline, and her ex-husband and father of the children she killed, along with the prosecutor at her 1995 trial, asked that she remain incarcerated.

Smith killed 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alex because a man she was having an affair with suggested the boys were the reason they didn’t have a future together, prosecutors said.

Parole in South Carolina is granted only about 8% of the time and is less likely with an inmate’s first appearance before the board, in notorious cases or when prosecutors and the families of victims are opposed.