According to Mark Putnam, Susan was ok as far as looks go. In the movie Patricia Arquette, who portrayed Susan, was a blonde bombshell. But, in Mark's estimations Susan was not very nice looking, was not very well endowed, but she did have a nice smile. Though, her hometown viewed her as pretty . Susan was very conscious of her looks and never went out without her make-up on; putting it on whether she was going out or not. She was very poor and came from a poor background, which she started to resent as she became more acquainted with Mark and his wife Kathy. Another variation in the true story is that Kathy Putnam, Mark's wife, and Susan actually became friends, close friends. Though, Kathy would later say that she soon became very uncomfortable with Susan's friendship. She claimed that Susan started to really become interested in their family personally, Mark in particular. As Kathy shared information about Mark and what he liked, she began to see changes in Susan who was slowly evolving into the person she felt Mark desired. This is something I would have liked to see more of in the movie. The movie in no way hinted at a possible friendship between the two women. As Susan fell in love with Mark, she began to call the house at all hours of the night. This is when Kathy wanted to start stepping back from the situation. The movie also did not delve alot into Susan's use of drugs. According to Mark and Kathy, Susan was high most of the time. Even Susan's sister Shelby said that Susan used drugs, mostly pills. Susan began to buy Mark gifts and even cut her hair short in order to look more like his wife Kathy. Susan, who was known as a big liar and exaggerated tons, began to tell everyone she came into contact with about her affair with Mark. She went as far to say that the two were in love and that he would be leaving his wife very soon. In Mark's story he insists that there were only 5 encounters between them and always in his car, but evidence suggests other wise. There was documetation that Mark on frequent occasions rented a motel room for the two of them. She was also known to stay at Mark's home when his wife Kathy was away. After Susan began an affair with Mark, Kathy claimed that she noticed a change in her. She claimed that Susan was not the same unconfident woman. That all of a sudden whenever she called the house, which became more infrequent, she was straight to the point and she seemed more confident. Mark claimed that he could never tell that Susan was pregnant, but a photo taken of Susan right before her death contradicts this. In the movie Mark Putnam dumps Susan's body over the ravine, but Mark claims that he did not throw the body down the ravine, he claimed that he placed it on top of the hill because it was too heavy to take down the hill; almost as if he wanted to show her the dignity he never seemed to show her while she was living. Mark claims that he only choked her, but when her body was found she had two missing molars, which suggested trauma of another sort. I must say that even though there are some inconsistencies in his statements, it seems that his actions were indeed not premeditated. His wife would later say that his demeaner totally changed in the summer of 89. She claims tht Mark kept diarhea, couldn't eat, lost weight, stopped running every morning, and developed a nervous itch. At the time she did not relate it to anything dealing with Susan Daniels Smith. The state of Susan's body was in poor condition when they found her. Several of her body parts were scattered over the area, due to animals no doubt. A gold necklace was found, which belonged to her sister Shelby, and some brightly colored fingernails that were her own. Accroding to a report, her body had obviously rolled down the hill at some point, getting caught on something, where it rested until she was found. Mark stated that before dumping the body he removed her clothes, a pair of shorts which were his and too big for her, and a shirt that she borrowed from him. She was not wearing any undergarments at the time. In the movie Shelby went to visit Mark Putnam and begged him to give the location of her sister's body, but that did not really occur. In fact Shelby despised Mark so much one wonders if the gun she claimed she didn't know was in her purse at the trial was really meant to kill Putnam in the courtroom, Shelby denies such allegations. |
| Susan Daniels Smith Side Comments and Variations in the Movie |