Pamela Smart – “To Die For” – underthemystery.com

**It’s one of the most sensational cases in recent public memory. The media frenzy over the Pamela**

Smart case was unprecedented, and the story inspired numerous books and movies.

The case inspired the hit movie “To die for”, starring Nicole Kidman.

There were more people from the media in the courtroom than there were citizens from the state of New Hampshire. It was the first in the U.S. history to allow TV cameras in the courtroom.

**On May 1, 1990, Derry, New Hampshire, Greg Smart, an insurance salesman was shot to death as he enters his condominium.**

Arrested for the crime was 16-year-old, Winnacunnet High School student, Billy Flynn and three accomplices. Police learned that Flynn had an affair with Greg Smart’s wife, 22-year- old, Pamela Smart, a media coordinator at the school. “I meet Pame Smart and she’s beautiful, she’s intelligent, you know, she’s an adult…and she likes me,” Flynn told police. “She said the way she sees it, the only alternative…is to kill him.” Flynn told police she would bring up the plan to kill her husband “almost every day… She said she hated him.”

Pamela Smart was also arrested and accused of seducing 15-year-old Flynn and threatening to withhold sex from him unless he killed her husband, so that she could avoid an expensive divorce and benefit from a $140,000 life insurance policy.

Cecelia Pierce, Flynn’s friend, testified at trial that Smart and Flynn were originally just friends. Smart confessed to her that she “loved Bill.” Flynn testified at trial that he was a virgin before he had sex with Pamela Smart. Flynn claimed he had fallen in love with Smart when he first met her.

In July 1990, Pierce wore a police-monitored body wire that recorded Pamela Smart’s apparently telling Pierce to lie to investigators. Smart argues, however, she was only pretending to be involved, hoping it would make Pierce give her information about what police knew.

“All I wanted to know was did [Flynn] really kill my husband,” she said. “More than anything I wanted this not to be true…because I felt responsible.”

“I thought there was no way, because the person I knew, I never saw him violent, or anything like that,” Smart said of Flynn.

When Cecelia Pierce said she was going to police, Pamela Smart was trying to convince her not to go, and to refuse lie detector.

“I’m just telling you, you know, if you tell the truth, you’re gonna be an accessory to murder,” Smart said to Pierce in the recording. “Now, you know you’re gonna be on the witness stand…and then he’ll say, ‘Did you know?’ And you’re gonna say ‘no.’ ‘Did Pame do it?’ ‘No.’”

Prosecutor – You told them you didn’t have to make any financing arrangements, because you were going to pay cash (referring to buying a car). – I don’t know. Maybe. – And at that time you’d already gotten insurance money to some extent in this case, correct? – Some. Yes. – 90,000? – Yes. – And you were still waiting for the $50,000 policy to come in? – Yes. – Now, yesterday we talked a little bit about divorce. You were asked by Mr. Twomey that if you were to get divorced what actually would you lose. If you said, you shared furniture, $4 to $6,000 in savings, correct? – Approximately. Yes. – And you each had your own car, correct? – Yes, we did. – Now, if in the spring of 1990 you had gotten a divorce from Greg Smart, the affair might have become public, right? – If I had gotten a divorce? – Yeah. – If I made it public, I suppose. – Or if Greg made it public? – Yeah. – And if the affair had become public, what do you think would have happened if it would’ve come to High school, or, I’m sorry, at SAU 21 where you were? – I would assume that I wouldn’t be working there anymore. – You lost your job, right? – Probably. – And how do you think it would have affected your opportunity to look for additional jobs in school districts, knowing that you had an affair with the 15, 16-year-old boy? – I doubt that I would apply to another school district, but that wouldn’t mean that I couldn’t get a job anywhere else ever. – Do you think this would have helped or hurt your professional reputation at that time? – Hurt. – How do you think your family and friends would think about you essentially taking part and ruining the marriage that you had for less than a year, by having a sexual affair with a 15, 16-year-old boy? – I don’t know how my family and friends would feel. – Do you think your family and friends would prove? – Probably not. – You seem unsure. – I mean, I don’t think that they would stop being my friends and never talk to me again but… – No, but the question was whether or not they approve and you say ‘probably not’. Do you have any doubt in your mind that they would look upon this as quite inappropriate behavior for you? – Well, I’m not the first person in America that ever had an affair. – But that wasn’t my question. My question was: Don’t you think they would look at you and say this is quite inappropriate behavior? – Yes. – But if Greg was dead, you wouldn’t have to expose the affair, would you? – No. …

**“I didn’t want to kill Gregg. You know, I wanted to be with Pame. And that’s what I had to do to be with Pame,” Billy Flynn said on the stand.**

After a two-week televised trial, she was found guilty of witness tampering, conspiracy to commit murder and being an accomplice to first-degree murder. Pamela Smart was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Billy Flynn and his accomplices were given lighter sentences, after they cop a plea deal to cooperate with investigators. Flynn was sentenced to 28 years to life in prison, Patrick “Pete” Randall was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison. Lattime Jr. was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison. Raymond Fowler was sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison.

By 2015, Billy Flynn, Patrick “Pete” Randall, Lattime Jr. and Raymond Fowler are all released from prison.

Meanwhile, Pamela Smart remains confined for life.

Pamela Smart was born in 1967. Pamela was a cheerleader, and graduated from Florida State University (FSU) with a degree in communications, in the track entitled “Media Performance.” At FSU, she was the host of a college radio program, where she called herself the “Maiden of Metal.”

**Pamela met Greggory Smart while she visited New Hampshire over Christmas break in 1986. Seven months into their marriage, the couple began having difficulties in their relationship.**

Pamela took a job as a media coordinator at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton, New Hampshire, where she met sophomore student William “Billy” Flynn at Project Self-Esteem, a school drug awareness program where both were volunteers. Pamela also met another intern named Cecelia Pierce, who was friends with Flynn.

Having exhausted her judicial appeal options, Smart returned for a third time to an elected state council, seeking a sentence reduction hearing in 2022. The five-member Executive Council, which approves state contracts and appointees to the courts and state agencies, rejected her latest request in less than three minutes, prompting another appeal to state Supreme Court.

The justices dismissed the petition, saying it would violate the separation of powers to order the council to reconsider a “political” question.

“This ruling by the New Hampshire Supreme Court is a continuing disappointment that devastates our hopes for Pamela Smart finally receiving reasonable and fair process in the State of New Hampshire,” Smart’s spokeswoman, Eleanor Pam, said in an email.

– My name is Pamela Smart. I’ve been incarcerated since 1990.
Pamela Smart is one of the longest serving female inmates in New York. Nearly 34 years for conspiring to have her 16-year-old lover and his friends kill her husband Greg.
– I found myself responsible for something I desperately didn’t want to be responsible for – my husband’s murder.
For the first time on camera, Smart accepting full responsibility for the 1990 shooting death in her latest plea for freedom.
– I had to acknowledge for the first time in my own, you know, mind and my own heart how responsible I was. Because I had deflected blame all the time.
For three decades she’s denied her involvement in the crime, never saying that she orchestrated or even knew about
Greg’s murder. Her longtime lawyer today going a bit further. Attorney Mark Sisti – During the course of the trial the state actually presented evidence that we would probably embrace. Wherein she was the ultimate cheerleader. Pam would not disagree. She was just feeding and feeding and feeding throughout the course of not just a day or two, but weeks, that led up to the death of her husband.
Paul Maggiotto prosecuted Smart’s case. – She’s just like the Mafioso boss who isn’t there necessarily when the hit occurs, but who’s ordered the killing.
I interviewed her for the first time face to face in 2019. – Did you mastermind the murder against… – Absolutely not. No.
Her lawyer now – She honestly was involved right up to her neck in the murder of Greg. And she willingly and honestly has confronted that and has admitted that.
Before the trials of OJ Simpson and the Menendez brothers, there was Pamela Smart. Her televised murder trial in the early ’90s captivating the nation… Pam instantly becoming a true crime celebrity.
Chief Legal Analyst, Dan Abrams – It was this sort of novel concept of being able to watch a trial unfold on camera. Pam smart was basically a household name. When you were talking about high-profile villains.
Viewers were glued, helping usher in the era of Court TV with a sensational tale of forbidden love and a brutal crime. Her teenage lover testifying against her at trial: “I never would have done it, if Pam didn’t tell me to. She was the first girl I ever loved. I pulled the trigger. God forgive me.” Prosecutor – You made a lot of mistakes so far in this case? Pamela Smart – I sure have. Yes, I have. – Was killing your husband one of those mistakes? – No, it wasn’t.
The saga inspiring movies like ‘To Die for’ and the True Crime TV movie ‘Murder in New Hampshire,’ starring Helen Hunt as Smart. Smart now 56 pleading for a hearing with New Hampshire governor, Chris Sununu. Hoping to have her sentence of life without parole commuted. – I’m respectfully asking for the opportunity to come before you, the New Hampshire executive Council, and have an honest conversation with you.

Pamela Smart – “To Die For”

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