Recalling the Pamela Smart Case: The First Murder Trial Broadcast on TV in the U.S

It’s hard to remember a time before high-profile trials were broadcast on live television, and while O.J.’s may be the most memorable, it was not the first. That honor belongs to Pamela Smart, a young professional at a New Hampshire high school who had an affair with a student who would go on to murder her husband.

Pamela Wojas grew up in Miami, Florida, but her family moved to Derry, New Hampshire, while she was in the eighth grade. When it was time to go to college, Pamela moved back to Florida and attended Florida State University, where she graduated with a degree in communications. In 1986, Pamela met Greggory Smart during Christmas break while home in New Hampshire, and the two became inseparable. They officially began dating in February 1987, and Gregg eventually moved to Tallahassee to be with Pamela while she finished college.

The two were married in 1989 – Pamela was 21 and Gregg was 23 – and moved back to New Hampshire after Pamela graduated. Gregg began selling insurance at his father’s company, and Pamela took a job as a media coordinator at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton, New Hampshire.

On May 1, 1990, a week before their one-year wedding anniversary, Pamela arrived home around 10:00 p.m. to find the porch light hadn’t been turned on – something Gregg always did so she wouldn’t have to walk to the condo in the dark. It was a Tuesday evening, and when Pamela opened the front door she saw Gregg laying face down on the floor leading into the dining area. She immediately ran from the home and began screaming and knocking on neighbors’ doors, saying her husband was hurt and lying on the floor.

Neighbors called 911, and soon police were at the scene. They realized Gregg was dead and found the house had been ransacked, yet Gregg still had his wallet and wedding ring. Police also found the back door open and the bulkhead doors that led to the basement unlocked. There was no sign of forced entry, yet the crime scene had the appearance of a burglary gone wrong.

Police also wondered why anyone would risk a burglary on a weeknight, when people would be home and awake.

The case received local media attention, and Gregg’s funeral was televised, with Pamela appearing distraught and relying on her friends and family.

Police looking into the murder initially believed Gregg may have been gambling and heavily in debt, which could have resulted in his murder. Pamela, however, called local reporter Bill Spencer to say Gregg didn’t have a gambling problem, and agreed to do an interview with him. During that interview, Spencer said in the documentary “Pamela Smart: An American Murder Mystery,” that while filming the segment, Pamela suggested showing the top of the couple’s wedding cake, which he thought odd. Pamela was dressed up with her makeup done perfectly, and making suggestions to the film crew about how to improve the segment. She didn’t cry, and Spencer found it strange that she didn’t ask for help solving the murder, as victims usually did.

Police were stumped about who could have wanted Gregg dead, but on May 14, they received a call saying Pamela planned the murder. The caller worked with a teenager named Cecelia Pierce, who attended Winnacunnet High School and interned for Pamela. The caller said Cecelia, 15, had been talking about how Pamela planned the murder.

Police questioned Cecelia, who claimed to know nothing about the murder. During that initial interview, Cecelia did say she had stayed at the Smart home one week before the murder. This detail interested police, since Pamela had provided a list of everyone who had stayed at the home for the month prior to the murder – and didn’t include Cecelia. Pamela did, however, make sure to emphasize that a water salesman had come to the house prior to Gregg’s murder.

Police again were left with little to go on, until six weeks after the murder, when Vance Lattime walked into the police station and handed over a .38 caliber pistol he believed was the murder weapon. Vance told police that his son’s friend had suggested the gun was used in the murder. At first, Vance said he didn’t believe the teen, but he checked the gun in question and realized it had been cleaned – which isn’t how he had stored it previously. Worried, he turned the gun over to investigators.

Ralph Welch, the friend of Vance’s son, was brought in for questioning and said his friend Billy Flynn had been bragging about the murder. Welch said that Flynn had pulled the trigger while his other friend, Patrick “Pete” Randall, held Gregg’s head.

Welch also provided a connection to the boys and Pamela Smart – Flynn, Vance’s son J.R. Lattime Jr., and Cecelia were all part of the high school’s Project Self-Esteem, where Pamela was a mentor. When asked why Pamela would want her husband of less than a year dead, Welch said that she wanted the life insurance on him and that he loved the dog more than her.

Flynn, Randall, and Lattime Jr. were all arrested, but because they are all juveniles, their names weren’t released to the media.

Pamela desperately tried to learn the names of the teens arrested for her husband’s murder, and learned the truth when she called Flynn’s house and spoke to his mother. Spencer, the local reporter, went to Pamela’s house after the arrests to get her response, but she barely opened the door and said she was “devastated” about the arrests. Spencer also found this odd, wondering why she would be “devastated” when the people who had murdered her husband had just been caught.

Following the arrests, police again questioned Cecelia, Pamela’s intern, about what she knew regarding the alleged murder plot. Cecelia, whose mother was present during the questioning, continued to say she didn’t know anything, but after leaving the police station, she learned on the news that the police were considering arresting another student. Believing she would be arrested, Cecelia returned to the police station the next day to say that Pamela told her that she loved Flynn and that Cecelia had walked in on the two having sex. Cecelia also said Pamela was “front and center” in the plot to kill Greg, according to recordings of her police interviews.

Cecelia agreed to wear a wire and talk to Pamela, since Pamela wouldn’t speak over the phone because she believed it was being tapped. Cecelia went to Pamela’s office and the two spoke about the crime, with Pamela suggesting Cecelia lie to police so that the boys and Pamela wouldn’t spend the rest of their lives in prison. She also suggested Cecelia would go to prison as well.

Pamela, in the “American Murder Mystery” documentary series, said that she kept hearing about developments in the case from Cecelia, and she was lying about knowing more about the murders and trying to get information from Cecelia during the recorded conversation.

After the conversation with Cecelia, police arrested Pamela at the high school and charged her for her role in the murder of her husband.

Meanwhile, the teens charged with the actual killing refused to speak to police – until the court agreed to try them as adults. No longer facing a few years in juvenile detention, but life in prison or even the death penalty, the boys started talking.

Flynn said Pamela planned the murder, and the other boys back up his story. The teens were all given plea deals in exchange for testifying against Pamela, in a trial that would become America’s first nationally broadcast trial.

Pamela’s defense attorney tried to get the trial moved from Derry, New Hampshire, arguing that the jury pool was tainted by local media coverage of the crime. The judge denied the attempt.

The prosecution argued that Pamela didn’t just want to divorce Gregg because her affair with a 15-year-old would be exposed, damaging her reputation. She also collected on three life insurance policies for Gregg, totaling about $140,000.

On the stand, J.R., one of the teens involved in Gregg’s killing, said Pamela had told them not to use a knife because it would result in too much blood, which could get on her white furniture. He also said he believed Flynn would pay him $500 for helping with the murder – and that the money was supposed to come from Gregg’s life insurance payout.

The defense noted that J.R. and Flynn’s cells were right next to each other, suggesting they could have corroborated their stories prior to testifying.

Flynn teared up as he was on the stand, saying that the day after he and Pamela first had sex, she mentioned murdering her husband. He testified that Pamela said she couldn’t divorce Gregg because she would get nothing. He said that he believed Pamela would stop having sex with him if he didn’t murder Gregg, and that he was a virgin before her.

He also said that Pamela told him she would leave the bulkhead open and asked Flynn to put her dog in the basement during the murder so it wouldn’t be traumatized. He said that on the night of the murder, the boys entered the home through the unlocked door, ransacked the house to make it look like a burglary, and then waited until Gregg came home to kill him.

Pamela took the stand in her own defense, denying the boys’ allegations and saying she was susceptible to the affair with the teenage boy because Gregg had recently confessed he had cheated on her. She said she broke off the affair with Flynn because she loved Gregg and wanted to make the marriage work, and suggested Flynn and his friends killed Gregg out of jealousy and revenge. She never cried on the stand.

The jury was not sequestered during the trial, and Pamela’s defense said that newspapers were found in the jury room, suggesting their conviction could have been tainted.

The jury found Pamela Smart guilty on all counts, and she was sentenced to life in prison without parole. The judge denied the defense’s request for a new trial based on jury bias, and Pamela exhausted all of her legal appeals.

While Flynn and the other boys who committed the actual murder have all been released from prison, Pamela remains behind bars. She’s also requested that her sentence be reduced, but New Hampshire’s Executive Council denied her request and the state Supreme Court dismissed her petition.

More than 34 years after the murder of her husband, Pamela acknowledged her own responsibility in Gregg’s murder, but didn’t admit to plotting his death and never mentioned his name. As recently as 2018, in the “American Murder Mystery” documentary, Smart denied any involvement in her husband’s death.

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases