Pamela Smart

Pamela Ann Smart (born August 16, 1967) is an American convicted of murder. She is serving a life sentence for accomplice to first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and witness tampering in New Hampshire. Smart was convicted for conspiring with her 15-year-old lover, William "Billy" Flynn, and three friends of Flynn's to kill her 24-year-old husband, Greggory Smart in Derry, New Hampshire in 1990.

Early life

Pamela Ann Wojas was born in Coral Gables, Florida. She was the second of three children, with her sister Elizabeth, six years older, and her brother John, three years younger. Her father worked as a commercial airline pilot, while her mother worked part-time as a legal secretary.

When she was in elementary school, she moved with her family to Windham, New Hampshire. Smart went to high school at Pinkerton Academy in Derry, where she was a cheerleader. After high school she went to college at Florida State University and graduated with honors with a communications degree in 1988 in a little more than three years, with an accomplished 3.85 grade point average. During her college radio career, Smart combined her passion for heavy metal music with her career aspirations. She hosted a one-night-a-week radio show at WVFS that she called “Metal Madness", using the alias "Maiden of Metal".

Pamela Wojas met Greggory Smart at a 1986 New Year's Eve party. They formed a serious relationship in February 1987 and married two years later.^[1] They shared a passion for heavy metal music. Greg bought her a Shih Tzu and she named it "Halen" after her favorite rock group Van Halen. Seven months into the marriage, the Smarts began having serious problems in their relationship. She took a job as a media coordinator at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton, New Hampshire.^[2]

Smart met Winnacunnet High School student Billy Flynn at "Project Self-Esteem," a local drug awareness program at the school, in which both were volunteers. She was able to impress him with her interest in heavy metal music. Flynn, a sophomore, was always going out of his way to be helpful during the sessions and also visited Smart every day in her office. Smart also met another intern named Cecilia Pierce, who was friends with Flynn.

Murder of Gregg Smart

On May 1, 1990, Smart came home from a work meeting to find her condominium ransacked and her husband murdered. Police officials say the crime scene looked like a disrupted burglary. Smart was later accused of seducing 15-year-old William "Billy" Flynn and threatening to stop having sex with him unless he killed her husband. Flynn did so with the help of friends Patrick "Pete" Randall, Vance "J.R." Lattime Jr., and Raymond Fowler.^[3][4][5] Flynn shot Greggory Smart as Randall held him down, while Lattime, the driver, waited in the getaway car outside with Fowler.^[5]

During the investigation, J.R. Lattime's father brought a .38 caliber pistol he had found in his house to the police, believing it might have been the murder weapon. An anonymous tip also indicated that a teenager named Cecilia Pierce was aware of the plan. Police talked to Cecilia, and she then agreed to wear a wire and record some conversations with Smart, in hopes that she would say something incriminating, which she did. On August 1, 1990, at 1:05 p.m., Detective Daniel Pelletier entered Smart’s office unannounced. Smart recognized him, having spoken to him on at least six other occasions. Taken by surprise, she asked, “What’s up?” “Well, Pam,” Pelletier said in the recording, “I have some good news and I have some bad news. The good news is that we’ve solved the murder of your husband. The bad news is, you’re under arrest.” “What for?” Smart asked. “First-degree murder. Stand up and face the wall.” Smart was then handcuffed and arraigned into the Derry District Court and taken to the Rockingham County Jail.

Trial

Smart's trial was widely watched and garnered considerable media attention; she faced life in prison if convicted. When oral argument commenced March 4, 1991, Assistant Attorney General Diane Nicolosi portrayed the teenagers as naive victims of an "evil woman bent on murder." The prosecution portrayed Pamela Smart as the cold-blooded mastermind who controlled her young lover. Nicolosi claimed that Smart seduced Flynn to get him to murder her husband, so that she could avoid an expensive divorce and benefit from a $140,000 life insurance policy. In her testimony, Smart acknowledged that she had had an affair with the teenager, but claimed that the murder of her husband was solely the doing of Flynn and his friends, born as a reaction to her telling Flynn that she wished to end their relationship and repair her marriage. She insisted that she neither participated in the murder plot nor had any foreknowledge of it. Though Flynn claimed he had fallen in love with Smart when he first met her,^[6] Cecilia Pierce was to testify at trial that Smart and Flynn were originally just friends. She first noticed a change around February, when Smart confessed to Pierce that she "loved Bill." Flynn claims that he was a virgin before he had sex with Pamela Smart.

Smart was found guilty on March 22, 1991 in the Rockingham County Superior Court after a 14-day trial, of "being an accomplice to first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and witness tampering".^[7] This was largely as a result of the testimony of her co-conspirators and secretly taped conversations in which Smart appeared to contradict her claims of having wanted to reconcile with her husband and of having no knowledge of the boys' plot.^[8] Smart argued that the media had influenced her trial and conviction.^[7] She could have been charged with capital murder, but the prosecution decided against it. Later that day she was given a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility for parole.^[7]

Imprisonment

Smart is incarcerated at the maximum-security Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, Westchester County, New York, where she is serving a life sentence. Smart was transferred there from the New Hampshire State Prison for Women in Goffstown, New Hampshire in 1993 after state officials stated that New Hampshire did not have a secure enough facility to house her, the higher security necessary due to the high-profile nature of her case..^[9] Although she has not admitted responsibility for her crimes, Smart has conceded that if she had not had an affair with Flynn, Gregg Smart would still be alive.^[10][11] In prison, Smart has spent her time tutoring other inmates and has completed two master's degrees, in literature and legal studies,^[12] which were paid for with private funds from Mercy College. Smart became a member of the National Organization for Women, campaigning for rights for women in prison.^[13] Smart's co-defendants, William Flynn and Patrick Randall, were also transferred to prisons out of New Hampshire and are serving their sentences at the Maine State Prison in Warren, Maine.

In October 1996, Smart was severely beaten by inmates M. Graves and G. Miller, resulting in a metal plate being placed in the left side of her face. The two inmates beat her after accusing her of snitching on them about their prison relationship. Convicted of second-degree assault in an attack at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, the two inmates were transferred to separate prisons.^[14] In 2003, after pictures of a scantily clad Smart were published in the National Enquirer; she was placed in solitary confinement. Smart sued, claiming the punishment was unfair treatment, but her lawsuit was dismissed.^[15] In 2004, Smart and fellow inmate Carolyn Warmus sued officials of Bedford Hills, claiming sexual harassment, and also sexual assault by a corrections officer, whom they claimed coerced them into posing for the suggestive pictures published in 2003.^[16]

Pamela Smart is allowed among other items a radio, a typewriter, and 25 books in her jail cell. In her spare time, she says that she likes to read books and watch television with the other inmates, including Prison Break, which was a popular show among the inmates. The inmates like to prepare food, but Smart claims that she only has one meal a day because she has such a small appetite. Ever since she was severely beaten, she takes medication for chronic pain and sometimes thinks of suicide. Her counselor, Dr. Eleanor Pam, says that "she has many, many, many dark days." Smart says she still keeps track of Flynn because she regards him as being the key to her freedom. "He is one of the few people that could actually get me out of here, by coming forward and telling the truth, but he's never gonna do that," said Smart.

During her sentence, Smart took part in a writer’s workshop, facilitated by playwright Eve Ensler. The workshop and Smart’s writing were exhibited in the 2003 PBS documentary What I Want My Words to Do to You.^[17]

Albert Johnson, Smart's attorney from Boston, Massachusetts, is nationally known for his high-profile clients, such as Patty Hearst and F. Lee Bailey. In April 2004, the First U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a 2002 ruling by a federal judge who rejected her federal habeas petition. Previous to her federal appeal, Smart had exhausted all judicial appeals at the state level. In July 2005, the New Hampshire Executive Council unanimously denied a pardon request for "any conditions the governor may seek to impose."

Smart is seeking a financial settlement from the state of New York. The New York attorney general's office is considering a settlement of Smart's 2006 lawsuit that accused prison officials of unfair treatment after the scantily clad photos of her in a jail cell appeared in a 2003 issue of the National Enquirer. According to court documents, Assistant Attorney General Maria Barous Hartofilis asked federal court Judge Robert W. Sweet for a two-month delay while the state considers the settlement offer for Smart that includes legal fees. The offer was made by Smart's attorney Nicholas Brook. In the lawsuit, Smart claims that, after the photos appeared in the tabloid, she was forced to spend two months in a 23-hour-a-day lockdown for filing the complaint. Smart also spends her time pondering the loss of a life outside of prison and still maintains hope of having children.^[18] On November 5, 2009, a U.S. District Court Judge countenanced $23,875 to Smart from the state of New York.^[19]

Aftermath

William Flynn and Patrick Randall are serving their sentences at the Maine State Prison in Warren, Maine. Raymond Fowler was paroled in 2003^[20] but was sent back to prison for violating his parole terms in 2004.^[21] He was paroled again in June 2005.^[22] Vance Lattime had his 30-year sentence reduced by 12 years. In 2005, his sentence was reduced by three years, and he was paroled.

Cecilia Pierce, who was one of Pamela Smart's interns at the time of the murder, signed a $100,000 option for the screen rights to her story.

Recent events

In an interview with ABC News, Smart indicated she is afraid of growing old and dying in prison and would rather have had the death penalty than life.^[23]

William Flynn is incarcerated at the Maine State Prison in Warren, where he earned his GED, has been active in charity work and worked as an electrician at the prison. In 2007, Flynn sought a sentence reduction after serving 16 years, stating that he had vowed not to do so until he had spent as many years behind bars as he had spent free. He also apologized to Gregg Smart's family for murdering him. The Smart family opposed the request.^[24] On February 12, 2008, the request was denied, although Flynn's parole eligibility date was reduced by three years to 25 years, making him eligible for parole in 2015.^[25]

In March 2009, a judge reduced Patrick Randall's minimum sentence by three years, making him eligible for release in June 2015.^[26]

In media

• The case was the basis for the Law & Order Season Two episode "Renunciation".

• Scorned: Love Kills, a series on the Investigation Discovery channel, dedicated an episode to the story on February 11, 2012.

• Dean J. Smart, brother of murder victim Gregg Smart, released Skylights and Screendoors (ISBN13: 978-1-936680-02-3), his memoir, on April 7, 2011.

• Smart appeared on Oprah on October 22, 2010. On the show, Smart claimed she was innocent and believes that her sentence for life in prison is too harsh.

• The trial was the basis of the television movie Murder in New Hampshire: The Pamela Wojas Smart Story, starring Helen Hunt and Chad Allen.

• Joyce Maynard drew several elements from the case for her 1992 novel To Die For (ISBN 978-0451186072).

• Maynard's novel was adapted by Buck Henry for Gus Van Sant's 1995 movie To Die For, starring Nicole Kidman and Matt Dillon as the fictional wife and husband, and Joaquin Phoenix as the wife's teenaged lover.

• The case was also the subject of several best-selling true crime books, including Teach Me To Kill (ISBN 978-0380766499) and Deadly Lessons (ISBN 978-0312927615).

• The character of Becky Burgess in feminist writer Marge Piercy's novel The Longings of Women (ISBN 978-1570420443) was inspired by Pamela Smart and the conspiracy to kill Gregory Smart.^[27]

• The crime series American Justice played an episode on the case "Crime of Passion: The Pamela Smart Story."

• Incident parodied in an episode of Family Guy, "Fast Times at Buddy Cianci Jr. High".

• Snapped, an American true crime television series, dedicated its 13th episode^[28] in the second season to the case.

Notes

To Die For 1995 with Nicole Kidman This case was shown on the new TV series ("Scorned:Love Kills" on Saturday February 11,2012

External links

• Official website
• Pam Smart links from the website of the Lane Memorial Library
• Greggory Smart Obituary
• Greggory Smart Memorial at Find A Grave
• Smart Homicide Investigation