By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
Pamela Smart is launching a new bid for freedom, claiming dodgy transcripts doomed her to prison for her husband’s murder.
Last year, as part of her quest for freedom, Pamela Smart, 58, was finally ready to take responsibility for the notorious 1990 murder of her husband, Gregg Smart.
But, after that effort failed, Smart decided to shift blame to prosecutors. According to a habeas petition filed in federal court, Smart now claims the inaccurate transcripts used by the jury is why she’s in prison serving a life sentence for the murder of Gregg Smart.
Jurors heard audio recordings of Pamela Smart during the trial, and prosecutors gave the jury printed transcripts of those recordings during deliberations. But, those transcripts attributed words to Pamela Smart that she now challenges.
Lawyers with Pamela Smart’s legal team argue in the petition that the added words were for supposedly unclear parts of the recording. Those words helped steer “jurors toward a predetermined and biased interpretation and conclusion.”
“When people read a transcript while listening to unclear audio, they almost always ‘hear’ the words they are shown — even when those words are not actually present in the recording,” attorneys for the law firm Zernhelt Law LLC said in a news release.
Smart isn’t relying solely on the transcripts in her habeas petition, though. Her lawyers also argue the verdict was tainted by the extensive media coverage, that Smart was forced to accept guilt on one charge through her trial attorney’s defense strategy, that jurors received faulty instructions from the trial judge, and that Smart’s life-without-parole sentence is illegal since she, herself, was just the accomplice in Gregg Smart’s murder.
Smart was 22 when she was the media coordinator at Winnacunnet High School and had an affair with 15-year-old student Billy Flynn. The lurid true crime inspired a best selling novel that was later turned into the movie, To Die For, starring Nicole Kidman.
Flynn, under the thrall of Pamela Smart, went to the Smart’s Derry apartment and shot Gregg Smart in the head. He ended up testifying against Pamela Smart during the trial. Pamela Smart blamed Flynn for the murder, and denied any responsibility for decades. Flynn was released in 2015 after serving 25 years in prison. The two other teens who went with Flynn into the Derry apartment have also since been released from prison.
In a video sent to members of the Executive Council, Pamela Smart claimed in 2024 that she finally took responsibility for Gregg Smart’s murder. As part of her application to be released from prison, Smart spoke in the video about coming to terms with her guilt while taking part in a writing class led by Vagina Monologues author Eve Ensler.
“She pressured us and encouraged us to go beyond and into spaces we didn’t want to be in,” Pamela Smart said. “It’s in those spaces where I found myself responsible for something I desperately didn’t want to be responsible for, my husband’s murder.”
Gov. Kelly Ayotte rejected Pamela Smart’s application for a commutation hearing last year, saying the convicted murderer needs to do her time.
“People who commit violent crimes must be held accountable to the law,” Ayotte said.