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(spotlight clicks on)

(dial tone)

(dial tone)

(gears turning)

(dial tone)

- You have a VAC prepaid call from...

- Pamela Smart.

- an inmate at Bedford Hills,

New York State Correctional Facility.

If you wish to accept and pay for this call,

dial three now.

- (beep) - To hear the...

- (woman) Hello? - (Pamela) Now, I don't know

if you know or not, but I'm terrified of birds.

I hate birds. (wings fluttering)

Okay, the night that Gregg got killed,

in the middle of the night, I woke up screaming

at the top of my lungs

that there were birds all over the ceiling.

So I'm in the bed, blood-curdling screams...

I don't even remember.

I know that if I was screaming like that,

then I had to have been hallucinating because

there obviously were no birds all over the ceiling.

But then I sat up, and I was really awake

and everything, still screaming to get them off the ceiling.

That was night one.

(beep)

♪♪

(reporter) May 1, 1990.

24 year old Greggory Smart has been shot in the head.

♪♪

His wife, Pamela Smart, is accused of

plotting her husband's death.

♪♪

She plotted the murder of her husband

along with three teenage boys.

♪♪

All along, she has said she would welcome

the start of her trial so she could prove her innocence.

Well, Pamela Smart is about to get her wish.

♪♪

This is gonna be the first trial ever

covered live on television.

♪♪

(man) Ten years prior to "Survivor,"

a few years prior to "The Real World."

So no one had ever seen a television show where

you watched real life play out in real time.

♪♪

- There's no soap opera to this.

It's real stuff.

(man) Nothing happens,

and it's totally fascinating.

♪♪

(man 2) Litigation as entertainment was

just exploding, and it exploded through this trial.

♪♪

(reporter) From Boston, from New Hampshire,

from all over New England, and then it's national news,

in fact, around the world is trying to cover the story.

It is gigantic.

(man 3) ...that all of New Hampshire,

if not the nation,

is inflamed at the appearance of Pamela Smart.

(director) So light back on.

(lights clicking)

♪♪

(animals chirping)

(Paul Maggiotto) All murders in New Hampshire are big cases,

but this one certainly had some interesting features to it.

(typewriter clicking)

(Tami Plyler) Uh, well, I was covering Derry in 1990,

and I got a call early in the morning

that there had been a murder.

I believe it was in May, it was a very sunny day.

I had to go to the condo complex where the Smarts lived

and where the crime had been committed.

The word was it was probably a botched robbery or something.

And there was really no reason at the time to think

it was it was anything else.

And a few days after the crime,

I called Pam at her mother's house,

and she invited me over to interview her.

I remember she was sitting there on the couch,

and the windows had big lights and behind her,

she was surrounded by the flowers.

- Some other things that made this case very interesting

to the press that early on,

Pam Smart did not shy away from press attention,

because there was some initial thoughts

that maybe this was a drug deal that went bad.

And she didn't hesitate to talk about how her husband

wasn't into drugs and how she was defending his honor.

And there was a feeling that she actually enjoyed the attention

she was getting being the widow on TV.

(TV reporter) It is now seven days since the murder.

This would've been their

one year wedding anniversary, she tells me.

Throughout the lengthy interview,

Pamela is composed.

- Sometimes I ask myself,

I can't figure out where the strength is coming from.

(reporter) As we sit talking, Pamela's dog, Halen,

named after the rock group Van Halen, smuggles up to her.

"Luckily, nothing happened to him," she says.

"He was locked in the basement when I found Gregg murdered."

(Bill Spencer) She's dressed beautifully, full-on makeup,

she looks hot, like she was going to a party.

She told me that she had wanted to be

a television news reporter.

She wanted to do what I did.

And she says, "You know, it's been just about one year

"exactly since Gregg and I were married.

"I've got the top layer of our wedding cake.

"Wouldn't it be good if you got a shot of me,

"like, looking at it?

Wouldn't that be a poignant moment in your story?"

I'm like, what?

She's attempting to produce

the story that I'm working on.

- I thought she was guilty.

When I watched on TV, I thought she was guilty.

I thought she was pretty conceited.

I remember she was sitting on the couch with her dog,

and I felt, boy, she's cold.

- People would start saying, well, don't you think it's

kind of suspicious, or people starting to hear things?

And I was like, no, I-I... no, I didn't get that.

And then it just starts snowballing from there.

♪♪

- The night of the murder, I had to work late because

I was going to a school board meeting,

maybe like 9:00 or 10:00.

When I was going up the condo steps,

I noticed that the door looked like it was open a little bit.

And then I opened the door, and when I turned on the light,

I saw Gregg.

And the house was ransacked.

I thought that it was an interrupted burglary.

I mean, everyone had all these theories that

were going around at the time,

and that was just the general consensus.

But apparently I was a suspect.

So I was in the dark, and I was finding out

what was going on in my life every day by watching the news.

(static)

It was a month after my husband was killed,

I found out that they were arrested.

- Have you got anything to say this morning?

Are you involved in this murder?

- (boy) No, sir. - (Bill) June 12th,

three Seabrook teenagers from

a ramshackle working class neighborhood

are hustled into a juvenile courtroom.

Prosecutors promise the state will seek to try

each of the boys as adults.

Who pulled the trigger in this case?

Can you tell us?

(Bill) Three teenage boys who killed Gregg Smart live

on the other side of town in a place called Seabrook.

And it is a very, very poor neighborhood.

And these boys are rough.

Pete Randall, very tough looking.

You can tell this kid is mean by looking at him.

You know, he's got a hateful look in his eyes

all of the time.

Then you've got Vance Lattime.

He's got these thick Coke bottle glasses,

and frizzy hair.

And then you got Billy Flynn, this good-looking,

big, brown puppy dog eyes.

He's a musician. He's a rock musician,

like Gregg was.

The only possible connection is...

(exhales) is that Pam Smart works

at a high school, Winnacunnet High School.

Every day, I'm talking to dozens

of teenage friends of these three boys.

Starting to find out that Pam was seen with Billy Flynn a lot.

Billy had talked about Pam, how hot looking she was,

how gorgeous she was, how he wanted to play

his guitar for her.

(Pamela) Gregg's father is calling me on the phone.

My friends are calling me.

My family is asking me, "Who is this person?

Why in the world would this person murder Gregg?"

And we're all grieving, okay,

over the fact that Gregg is dead.

And I'm supposed to say, "Oh, by the way, everybody,

I had sex with this person"?

I so badly wanted this not to be true.

I just wanted somebody to tell me that this was not true,

that this did not... that it was really not him,

because I felt horrible.

- Pam, what's wrong? How you doing?

(Pam) Nothing, but I can't comment, Bill.

I really can't. - Well...

- I'm totally devastated by this.

I can't comment.

- She had the opportunity to tell us that she was having

an affair with Bill Flynn, and she never did.

It was troubling.

- The big thing about this case was trying to connect

Pam Smart to the murder, and what we had was the tapes.

♪♪

- Pamela Smart's personal student intern

at Winnacunnet High School agreed to help

police investigators by wearing a body wire.

By doing so, police were able to record a conversation

with Pam Smart in which they allege Smart admitted

trying to help three Seabrook teenagers kill her husband.

(indistinct chatter)

- The tapes removed any possible doubt,

let alone reasonable doubt.

(Pamela) August 1, 1990.

I woke up at about 7:00 a.m.,

and then I put on a green dress.

Out of all the colors I could've chosen,

it still strikes me as strange

that on my last day of freedom,

I chose a dress of the very same olive green

colored prison uniform that I must wear

for the rest of my life.

I was in my office when the phone rang.

I said, "Media center," and the person hung up.

And few minutes later, two Derry police detectives

walked into my office.

The lead detective Pelletier said,

"We have some good news and some bad news."

(Pelletier) It's the shining moment for us.

The line that came to mind on the way over was, "The good news

"is we solved the murder of your husband,

and the bad news is you're under arrest."

Let me go back and just... a little more emotion.

"I've got good news and I've got bad news.

(dramatic music sting)

"The good news is we've finally solved

"the murder of your husband.

And the bad news is you're under arrest."

(Joyce Maynard) I picked up the newspaper, and there she was

on the cover, I think with handcuffs on,

this... the cheerleader with handcuffs on,

and that's when I knew.

I had decided I'm going to write a novel.

It was very much the fact of having seen her on television

before in this other role...

the grieving widow role, very pretty, young blonde,

former cheerleader, the kind of girl that

I would have really been...

hated, but secretly envied.

And the recognition that in fact, it was rotten,

something very ugly behind it

that bore no relationship to the image in front.

- As we ride one wave of imagery to the next, we need to ask,

A, what are we looking at, really?

And B, how are we looking?

What happens when you introduce electronic media,

when you put a 50-inch screen in front of people?

♪♪

- The archetype of the beautiful woman brought down

is a very powerful one.

(reporter) According to police, Pamela Smart convinced

her teenage lover to murder her husband.

(reporter 2) Pamela Smart offering to pay each teenager

$1,000 for the murder of her husband.

(camera shutters clicking)

(Joyce) She was with very little affect.

She showed almost no emotion.

You can impose anything you want onto that face.

(Erin Joyce) It's the classic tale of the seductress

who seduces these innocent young boys,

and that's just the tale for the ages.

- Schoolteacher, you know, molested this boy

and had an affair with him, and had her husband bumped off.

- Sex, murder, teenage kids, a teacher.

- A-ha, I know the black widow story.

I know the ice princess story.

I know what that character is like.

Once we've internalized our understanding

of who this character is, then we search

for details that confirm that understanding.

(TV reporter) Daughter of an ambitious airline pilot,

she was determined to succeed.

(woman) She's very domineering.

She seemed to want to be the focal point.

She wanted attention.

(Erin) She was ready for her close-up

and ready for the cameras. - (Paul) I don't think

she really thought it was wrong to kill him,

I don't think she has any desire to ever accept responsibility.

I think she's convinced herself

she had nothing to do with it.

(Erin) Especially to Billy,

Pam must have looked like a princess.

I mean, she was this attractive, accomplished to their mind...

she must have had a huge hold on this boy.

- Well, that was a long perp walk.

Can't help but wonder if they had her come in the side way

to give the press...

to feed the frenzy a little bit, to feed the beast.

Here we are outside the courthouse.

And, yes, Bill Spencer.

- Already this case has attracted a barrage

of media attention from all over the world.

(Pelletier) Bill Spencer was pretty dogged

through this whole thing.

He got quite a bit of publicity for himself as well,

and he ended up on "The Phil Donahue Show."

- The Geraldo Show. - Sally Jessy Raphael.

- "Hard Copy", "Inside Edition",

everybody wants to talk to me

because I've been leading the coverage in this case.

- When marriage turns to murder.

Fatal marriages are the focus

of this edition of "Geraldo".

- Now, the police have a recording that Cecelia,

the 16-year-old confidante, made.

She wore a wireless mic, a hidden microphone.

Pamela told this 16-year-old girl

many incriminating things.

- Did you hear the tape, Mr. Spencer?

- The Attorney General... - Did you hear it?

- No, of course I didn't... - And you've made a judgment on

my daughter based on not hearing that tape.

(Pelletier) Getting into arguments with Pamela's family,

which I thought might have been a little bit out of place

for a reporter that's supposed to remain neutral and detached.

- Any chance that the media is on a runaway stampede

with this case and this woman's not getting a fair hearing?

- (exhales) No, I don't think so.

I think the real evidence is astronomical.

- It's months and months of reports of Pam doing this,

Pam doing that, and there hadn't even been a trial yet.

- The way it usually goes is, you know,

you cover a murder case, and you try to dig and dig

and find out as much as you can, but nobody really ever knows

the whole story until a case goes to trial

and people under oath start telling what happens.

In this case, I've managed to tell everybody everything about

this case before it even goes to trial.

I mean, the whole thing is out there.

(announcer) WMURTV presents The Greggory Smart Murder Case.

(man) WMUR in New Hampshire produced a movie called

"The Anatomy of a Murder".

And that movie detailed what William Spencer thought

resulted in the murder of Greggory Smart.

- and captured the attention of the entire nation...

(Bill) We publicize the heck out of it.

The full page ads in the New Hampshire newspapers.

Did she tell you her husband was gonna get killed that night?

- Yeah.

(Bill) Ratings are huge.

- All I want is the people who did this sent to jail forever.

- This was broadcast two days before the jurors were selected.

(seagulls cawing)

(Bill) And now the court is looking for twelve people

who can put all of that aside

and look at this case open mindedly.

(reporter) A record 300 potential jurors

have been summoned... - Half of

the 147 prospective jurors summoned today said they

had heard about the case, so they were excused...

(Bill) In the afternoon, 150 more jurors

will be brought in... - Search for objective jurors

continues at the Rockingham County Superior Courthouse.

(Alec Beckett) I was in China, and I called home

just to let them know I was gonna be home

in the next few weeks. And my mom all excitedly said,

"You've been called to the Pam Smart jury."

And I said, what's that?

Then she said, "Don't read any papers.

Don't do anything," and so obviously remained willfully

ignorant of what was going on.

(reporter) The trial had higher ratings

than the afternoon soap operas.

- So you came up here and got a hotel room just

to watch the trial? - Right.

- How come?

- Well, I'm kind of fascinated by these trials.

(Alec) The story is just so intoxicating.

You can see how important it is to try to find jurors

who haven't had that seed planted in it,

because once that seed is in your head,

you can see how irresistible that is

not to fill in that narrative in your own head.

- I don't feel that I could sit there saying,

yes, she did it, or no, she didn't do it

without... because I've read so much about it.

- I read too much about it,

and I read the whole article

and the whole "National Telegraph" on it.

I said, no.

(Linda) How do you dismiss what you've read

and what you've been poisoned with for the past six months?

I don't know, maybe people are capable of doing that.

I hope to God that they are.

- Nonsense. Nonsense.

You can't unring the bell.

The Supreme Court has said over and over again, a juror who

denies the fact that he was affected by pretrial prejudicial

publicity is not to be believed.

- We were hoping to place the trial in a county

much like Grafton County.

It was not exposed to Boston media.

(cameras clicking)

And Judge Grey denied our attempt.

Certainly Judge Grey didn't wanna

let go of this particular gem.

'Cause he's sensing that this is going to be the greatest case

he ever sits on, and is that going to affect his behavior

and his rulings throughout the course of the trial?

(announcer) Our regularly scheduled program

will not be seen tonight so that we may bring you

the following special presentation.

(Paul) WMUR TV station basically suspended all their programming,

9:00, 9:30 in the morning till 4:00 in the afternoon,

and just broadcasts the trial.

Also, the last two rows were nothing but photographers.

(Tami) The trial was five weeks long,

and I covered every minute of it.

This one, this one I took.

That's Pam at trial looking...

she's very demure, but she's in handcuffs.

But she's dressed up and made up and her hair is done.

And she always looked really good during the trial,

but she always had a bow in her hair,

and that was sort of her trademark thing.

♪♪

I know one of the newspapers had a daily story about

what she wore to the trial.

- It was newspapers, plus the TV every single day.

This is great.

- You've got passion, you've got lust, maybe greed,

depending upon who you believe, and you've got

some conflicting stories, and a real human drama.

- You've got the prosecutor that, I think,

reminds me of Groucho Marx.

I've got... you've got Pamela Smart's lawyer

that reminds me of Chevy Chase.

And you've got Billy Flynn that looks like Paul McCartney.

I think they already had a movie.

(Mark) In this type of a situation,

the potential for tainting a jury was very, very high

if you didn't have the protection

of being able to sequester the jury away.

- Sequestered means where the jurors basically

are locked up in hotel rooms

after the court during the day.

But the reality is the cost is extraordinary

to sequester jurors.

So I don't think they needed to be sequestered.

(man) We didn't pick twelve angels.

I mean, these people are human beings and they're susceptible

to being influenced just like anybody else is.

(reporter) This is the view from the air.

Not a single available parking space.

♪♪

(Pamela) I remember not being in a complete panic

because I knew I hadn't done anything.

And I was in my mind saying to myself,

this is going to get straightened out.

I haven't committed any crime.

This is a mistake.

I was 22 years old, I was very naive.

I had this relatively normal upbringing

and normal life.

I was pretty much an uneventful person,

I did what I was supposed to do.

I went to school, I went to college afterwards,

had a boyfriend, I got married.

Life was pretty simple.

I was under the belief that the only people that went to prison

were people that were guilty,

and that if you were innocent,

it would be proven in the court of law,

and that's the end of the story.

- On the very first day, official day

of the Pamela Smart accomplice to murder trial...

- Opening statements are scheduled for tomorrow morning.

- In fact, he testified that Pamela Smart even bought

the bullets... - Revealing more details

about his alleged love affair... - During the afternoon

after school to have sex in her car, in her house,

and even at a Seabrook ballfield.

- Went car shopping at a car dealership in Exeter.

She planned to buy either a Camaro or a TransAm.

♪♪

(Mark) It was the first trial in history

televised gavel to gavel.

We were guinea pigs.

♪♪

(Pelletier) People are watching big time.

Although I'm pretty confident

we're gonna get a guilty verdict,

I've gotta be there I've got to hear it live.

We sat in the front row that day.

(female reporter) Live, this is a live following

the verdict at the Rockingham County Courthouse

in Exeter, Pamela Smart was just found guilty.

- And God and the justice system works in this society,

and we are very, very happy.

- She got what she deserves. - She's getting... yes.

- I think justice was done.

- I thought that's where it was gonna come out.

- She deserves it.

- Do you feel it was a fair trial?

- Do you think it was fair?

From the beginning, it wasn't fair.

♪♪

(reporter) Defense attorneys are looking at

several avenues for a possible appeal.

Many people believe there is no way the jury could have avoided

contact with the media during the trial.

But in order to prove that, they're gonna have to find out

from a juror or from a juror's relatives,

or somebody that indeed their decision was tainted.

(recorder running)

(Juror 13) You know, the jury's taken a lot of rap,

and I can't speak for everybody on the jury,

but I can certainly speak for me.

They just didn't give her a defense.

I mean, I felt like when

they said that the defense rests its case,

I couldn't believe it. I was like, no way.

That's not fair,

because I don't believe she deserves that.

And I think that the circus of the media was ridiculous.

About ten billion cameras... (imitates clicking)

going off, and everybody's taking

billions of pictures, which I think rots.

I just think it rots.

♪♪

- Cameras, by looking at the courtroom environment,

changes the nature of that courtroom environment.

Werner Heisenberg, quantum physicist,

studied microscopic particles, and he realized

that those particles changed form in some sort of way

by injecting energy into that system.

And he comes up with this Heisenberg principle.

It was an observation that the act of observing

a physical entity changes by the act of that observation.

That people are different as a result of being observed.

There's a self consciousness, in other words,

that goes on by being part of a television event.

- It was not a trial, it was a spectacle.

But after the trial was over, state of New Hampshire wanted

to put her as far away as possible.

(reporter) This morning, they confirmed that

the convicted murder-conspirator was transferred to a prison

in New York State.

(Pamela) They woke me up at 4:00 in the morning

and told me to get out of the bed, and they just

whisked me away in a van

and took me to New York with no notice.

I was handcuffed, I was shackled.

It was like this big secret, and I was really afraid.

I actually thought they were going to kill me.

- They brought into effect, for the first time ever

in the history of the state of New Hampshire,

an interstate compact which they had with

the state of New York,

which allowed transfer of prisoners.

And for no reason whatsoever, except they could not stand

the circumspection people coming to the prison

and determining for their own minds who were

interested in whether or not she received a fair trial.

(Cherie Alzate) Pam had a high profile case,

so everyone knew that

this pretty little blonde girl was coming.

The sharks were waiting for her.

- Things that go on in there are not good.

They're not good, and the things that happened

to Pamela Smart are even worse.

(Cherie) From day one, Pam was a punching bag.

I remember one time,

they broke the eye socket on her.

(Pamela) Just started punching me in my face.

(Robin) She still has, like, a metal plate in there.

(Pamela) Another girl came and was kicking me in my face.

- Not only from the inmates, the officers, too.

(woman) Pam Smart was more vulnerable than most.

She was raped in prison by a guard,

who sold these pictures to the "National Enquirer."

He made up this entire pedigree

where she is the master manipulator

and head of a sex and dope ring

and controls the corrupt guards.

You know, the old story, Pamela the seducer.

And of course, he posed her in a way that was very similar

to the famous bikini picture.

This bikini shot turned up at the trial as something that

Pam had done to seduce Billy Flynn.

But the truth is, she and her friend Tracy were posing

for each other to enter it into a contest.

The bikini photo was part of the story.

The story is bogus,

but the consequences to Pam are real.

(Pamela) In about two weeks, I'm gonna have literally spent

half of my life in prison.

I have been trying to get back into court, and to this day,

I'm left to try to chip away at this avalanche

of negative image that hurts me.

♪♪

(Joyce) I only know Pamela Smart

as she's appeared on television.

I only know the media Pam Smart.

Seeing humanity on a screen, it loses humanity.

It's just these images.

(man) How do you find the defendant, Pamela Smart,

on the charge of accomplice to murder in the first degree?

(juror) Guilty, Your Honor.

(crowd cheers)

- I directed a film made for television for CBS.

- Pam...

- Could someone call my mother, please?

And would someone get the dog?

(Joyce C.) The film was shot in the summer of '91,

just a few months after Pamela Smart was convicted,

and it was broadcast by September.

And I think it was the first quote ripped from the headlines.

"TV movie: sex with a teenager and murder."

What an easy sale to television?

(gunshot)

- Nicole Kidman, my God, I was very lucky as people go

who get their books made into movies.

- You're not anybody in America unless you're on TV.

On TV is where we learn about who we really are.

(Joyce M.) I wanted to be Pamela Smart,

and I was writing her monologues.

Did I say Pamela Smart or did I say Suzanne Maretto?

Suzanne Maretto,

I'll speak of my, the character in my book,

is a sociopath who didn't have a soul,

who'd really lost her soul

somewhere along the line to television.

♪♪

(Pamela) "Pamela Smart is cold, flighty,

"an airhead and manipulative,

calculating, self centered, tantalizing."

People say, "Oh, that's you.

Oh, I saw your movie."

And it's like, this is not my movie.

Nothing in here is my story.

It's not, it's just their interpretation of what happened.

And these are the kinds of things

that help prevent me from getting back into court.

- You're a cold-blooded murderer, a non-caring...

(indistinct chatter)

- And I also hope that this is the absolute last time my family

and I have to look at your face.

- Superior Court Judge Douglas Grey says media coverage

of Smart's case did not deny her

a right to a fair trial last month.

- Without comment, the five justices unanimously

denied a defense request earlier this month.

- We can't make these high stakes decisions...

innocent, guilt... we can't make

these decisions on the basis of fantasy.

We have to be able to know

what the reality is as best we can.

- If you were the defendant in that case, would you think

you'd gotten a fair shake from the justice system?

And if you answer that question, "I don't know,"

then you should be saying to me,

"Well, let's hear it in more detail."

(recorder clicks)

Isn't it time to take another look

at the Pam Smart trial?

- Today was the first day of the Pam Smart trial

and there was media everywhere.

I felt like a bug in a glass jar.

And I'm not supposed to be talking about it to anybody,

and so I'm making a tape.

It's easier to talk to a tape, anyway.

Well, today started out,

the 15 jurors met in the jury room.

Then we got in the bus and off we went.

So we drove to Derry,

right into the condominium.

It was nasty and rainy and cold.

And half of us went into the Smart condominium.

Um, about Pamela Smart?

What'd I feel about her today?

She looked...

tiny, troubled.

I just can't even imagine what she must be feeling.

Hmm...

♪♪

- Good morning, everyone, I'm Nanette Hansen,

WMURTV's live coverage of the Pamela Smart

accomplice to murder trial is about to resume.

Court proceedings are about to get underway.

William Flynn, the self admitted trigger man

in the murder of Greggory Smart,

has entered the courtroom.

- We had Billy Flynn on the stand pretty early on

in the case because we thought he could explain everything

about Pam Smart, the murder,

the orchestration, so the jury could have a whole story.

- I didn't want to kill Gregg.

I wanted to be with Pam, and that's what I had to do

to be with Pam, but I didn't want to kill Gregg.

(Paul M.) Uh, Billy Flynn clearly came across as a kid

who had fallen for Pam Smart,

and without the influence of Pam Smart on him,

probably never would've pulled that trigger.

- Yeah, every time I talked to Pam,

and if she happened to say, you know, "Make sure

you use a gun, don't use anything else," I'd say yes.

(Billy) Well...

just, um...

(prosecutor) Now where did you go after school that day?

- Well, we drove up to Derry.

When we decided it was dark enough, Pete and myself taped

our fingertips up, then put the gloves...

started walking towards Pam's condo,

and we went down the bulkhead doors.

- What did you do next?

- Well, we went upstairs,

Pete and I, right into Pam's room.

We started dumping out the drawers and everything

so it'd look like a burglary.

(Pelletier) Then they wait.

Gregg Smart arrives home.

He gets punched and he gets ambushed.

He gets grabbed, and he gets forced to his knees

and he's saying,

"Take whatever you want, take whatever you want."

(Paul M.) Billy Flynn was kneeling in front of the jury

on the ground showing how helpless Gregg Smart was.

And you could hear a pin drop in the courtroom.

Gregg Smart never saw the gun.

All Gregg Smart knew was that Patrick Randall

was on the other side of him with a knife to his neck,

and the original plan was to kill him with the knife.

(prosecutor) Why weren't you able to cut his throat?

- I just couldn't do it.

- Well, when you felt you couldn't,

describe what happened next.

I motioned to Pete,

um, like this, because that where I had the gun.

- What happened after that?

- Um, Pete...

Uh, nodded his head yes.

- And after Pete nodded his head yes,

what did you do?

- I cocked the handle back, and, um...

I pointed the gun at his head.

- "And what did you next?" And he didn't really

wanna say it, you know, and he's tearing up and he's crying.

"Billy, what did you do next?"

- And, uh...

I said, um,

God forgive me...

- After you said, "God forgive me",

what happened?

- (crying)

I pulled the trigger.

(Paul M.) "I pulled the trigger."

You know? And then the judge immediately called a recess.

I mean, I couldn't have asked for a better recess.

To emphasize the dramatic part of the trial.

- We'll be back when the trial reconvenes.

(announcer) It is from Kodak.

The genius is in the details.

♪♪

(Joyce C.) I did have sympathy for Billy.

How they got into this crazy situation is understandable.

Billy was sexually obsessed with Pam.

(Alec) We can't forget that she's like a grown woman

and he is a child.

Manipulation is... easy.

(Joyce M.) That boy touches me.

Somebody who was once somebody's little boy

playing little league, who got terribly, horribly,

irretrievably lost.

- She worked within the school system

and the fact that all of this static from the school system

just says one thing to me,

that this could've been anybody's kid.

- I have two 16-year-old brothers,

and I think she should definitely go to jail.

I can't even imagine getting kids

involved in something like this.

- It teaches our school children

we don't need her around.

♪♪

Uh...

It's pretty tough sitting in that courtroom.

I have a wicked back... that chair I'm sitting in

is terrible, terrible, terrible.

Anyway, let's see.

Bill Flynn.

He has, like this really babyfaced,

innocent looking, sweet as pie.

And he's the masterpiece of this whole thing,

he's the actual trigger man.

He even pulled some tears in court.

Ha!

I wasn't impressed.

Here's this kid sitting up there admitting to first degree

premeditated murder,

and did a deal with the state to lower

his charges to a second degree murder charge.

Now, second degree murder, as I understand it,

is not premeditated.

He's saying they talked about it for weeks.

They had planned for weeks.

They discussed it over and over and over again.

They had it all planned out, admitted to everything.

♪♪

(Pamela) I know that when they were arraigned,

they pled not guilty.

Originally they were saying that they had nothing to do

with the case, my name was nowhere in it.

And they ended up taking plea bargains.

And those plea bargains were contingent upon them

testifying against me.

And they started to say, "Well, yeah, okay, we did this,

but she told us to do this."

(Erin) Once they were certified to be tried as adults

because of the seriousness of their crime,

that was the big turning point for them.

(Pamela) By taking these plea bargains

and blaming everything on me,

they avoided the capital murder charge

that would have carried the death penalty.

The first degree murder charge would have carried

life in prison and they were able to plea bargain down

to a second degree murder charge.

- Well, an old lawyer said to me once, "If a client's gonna sing,

you sing like a bird, and you cooperate."

- There's no halfway to do it.

You have to cooperate 100%.

- The Attorney General's office has not revealed exactly

how many years in prison William Flynn, Patrick Randall

and Vance Lattime have negotiated

as part of their plea bargains.

But sources close to the case tell News Nine each teen

has been promised 25 years to life, which could make them

eligible for parole after 25 years.

- The family is outraged.

The two men that went in the house and took my son away

from me, coming out of the courtroom, chewing gum,

slapping hands and smiling.

Who could do something like that and have no remorse?

- But isn't that strange that after that,

Bill pulled a bunch of tears?

I would say they're crocodile tears.

- I caught him in the morning,

him and Pete doing lines on a desk in the room.

I caught him one morning, I opened up the door

and they were banging lines

before they were gonna testify.

And he goes, "It makes me more emotional."

He goes, "It makes me more emotional on the stand."

He said, "Don't you know this? Don't you know this?

"Don't you notice?" Because I used to sit there

and watch the boys when they come back in.

They would watch themselves on TV, and I was with them,

and we would all sit around, we’d smoke a bone in the cell,

a joint, a reefer,

weed, marijuana, whatever you want to call it.

We were doing everything we were doing, especially marijuana,

morphine, Valiums, and the cocaine, of course.

I had one way where I th... I had someone throw

Nerf football over the fence.

And inside the Nerf football would be the drugs.

The funny thing was that there would be a different color

Nerf football out there every day

and the cops wouldn't even realize it.

I could've got a gun in if I wanted to,

but I'm not a gun person.

Billy told me straight out that, "Listen, Rick," he says,

"we gotta do what we gotta do, and I'm not taking my boys

"down with me for the rest of our lives.

We're not doing it."

♪♪

(Mark) Flynn was bragging about his testimony to inmates

that he put a show on.

"How did you like me crying?"

The trial was in play when we got that information.

Judge Grey denied our attempt at recalling Flynn.

(Pamela) It's not just one instance

that was precluded from being entered into evidence.

So the jury never really got the full picture,

of the witnesses or of the evidence.

♪♪

There was a fourth person,

he was actually the initial one

that came forward, Raymond Fowler,

and told the first account of what had happened.

He said that I had nothing to do with this.

We wanted to obviously call him to testify

but the state arrested him.

(Bill) Raymond Fowler has already admitted that

he waited in the car the night Greggory Smart was murdered,

but now police say three weeks before the murder,

Fowler drove here with Billy Flynn,

and he was armed with a knife

and had intended to kill Gregg Smart,

but at the last minute chickened out.

(Rob) Day of the plea bargain, same day as the day

they charged Raymond with the five offenses.

So he was a witness up to that point,

and they turned the three boys against Raymond just to have

enough information to put enough pressure on Raymond so that he'd

plea bargain too and be out of the picture.

If you ask the question, why would it be a problem?

When they took Raymond's deposition,

they probably realized that his story didn't match exactly

to the three boys'.

(reporter) If you're just joining us, this is

WMURTV's live coverage

of the Pamela Smart accomplice to murder trial.

Right now, the defense attorney, Mark Sisti, is preparing

to question the witness on the stand,

18-year-old Vance Lattime Jr.

- You not only talked about this case

at the Rockingham County Jail,

but you talked about this case while you were all locked up

over at the ADC, right? - Wrong.

- You talked to Bill and Pete all the time.

- Nope.

- Did anybody ever tell you we had letters

that you wrote to your girlfriend?

- No. - Do you recall telling

your girlfriend that Bill, or "him", actually, it says,

"him and Pete are the only things

"that remind me of how things were?

We are always talking."

Do you remember telling her that?

- Yes. I've talked...

Since I've been locked up,

I've talked about everything in the case.

- Basically, they discredited him.

He is Bill Flynn's cellmate,

and Pete Randall is two cells down,

open cells.

They had plenty of opportunities

to concoct a story and get their story straight.

Not only did they have plenty of opportunities,

the cross examination revealed that they did.

(Paul Twomey) I've been doing this for 30 years

and in every single case other than one,

there was an effort on the part of the prosecutors,

where there are codefendants and people that will be

telling the same story and they're incarcerated,

there's an effort to keep them apart.

I don't understand the decision to have those boys housed

in the same place and able to talk to each other.

(lawyer) Pete, Pam Smart didn't make you kill anybody, right?

- Right.

- Fact of the matter is that on over 20 occasions,

you and Flynn and Lattime

and Fowler, Daly

sat around brainstorming ways of killing Gregg Smart.

- I had never been with Daly,

but yes, that's true.

- Now, Pam wasn't there, right?

- Right. - Now, during this

same time period, you were ripping off

stereos from cars and stuff?

- Occasionally.

- Still stealing motorcycles?

- Occasionally, yes.

- He admitted that, oh, on occasion, yeah,

they rip off houses together, and on occasion, yeah,

they rip off motorbikes together,

and on occasion, they do drugs

and do cocaine and all kinds of things.

And he admitted that he is just a criminal,

I mean, an experienced criminal.

(Rob) Pete was one of those kinds of people that

if you pissed him off, you were gonna be in trouble.

He beat his stepdad with a baseball bat

when he was younger, but the state wouldn't

allow that in as evidence

because he was a juvenile at the time.

- Were you looking for a revolver?

Were you looking for a .45?

What were you looking for?

- Something, .45, 9 mm.

- Why? - Has a clip.

- Why? What's the difference to you?

- To me? - Yeah.

- Lighter gun, smaller gun usually.

- How do you know all that stuff?

- I've read magazines about guns.

(Juror 13) He was a sicko.

I mean, a sicko.

After him came on the forensic fellow.

Oh, he is an undisputed expert.

So this guy definitely knows his business.

And he testified...

(lawyer) There was a single gunshot wound of entrance

high up on the left side of the head,

one inch to the left of the midline of the scalp,

and five inches above the ear canal.

The bullet passed downward and backward

from front to back at about a 45 degree angle.

(Juror 13) Pete said Pete was in front of Greggory Smart

and Bill, from behind, blew him away.

- Standing from behind,

I really... it would be extraordinarily difficult.

- Okay, would you agree with me, then,

that that trajectory in your findings there

are inconsistent with a person

shooting Gregg Smart from behind?

- Well, standing behind, I would think that...

(Juror 13) If you were standing behind me,

It couldn't be done.

- I think that they were in an agreement that Flynn

would take the blame for the killing

no matter what took place.

The way that I saw the case was having the lover of Pam Smart

actually do the job gave it more of an impact statement

than what I believed was true,

and that was that Pete did the job when

they got in the house,

when, probably, Flynn chickened out

and Pete executed him.

- Fucking now, asshole, do it.

(rising metal music)

(gunshot)

(Alec) The gorgeous woman who tempts us to evil

is Eve handing us an apple.

It's a great story.

(Richard) The founder of Court TV once said that trials

are the most dramatic narrative that we have

outside of violent combat.

The idea is multiple perspectives

will generate multiple stories.

And in the test that is the cauldron of

the adversarial process,

truth will be victorious.

But what happens when we're so taken with

the media's distillation of the story?

Is the adversarial system up to that task?

- I feel like there's never been an actual story that's been told

that gave it the time and attention

for it to be the truth.

I was never a teacher,

I was the director of media services

for eleven schools, one of which was the high school

which Bill Flynn and his friends attended.

And we got involved in making a commercial for a contest.

♪♪

- Man has enjoyed the taste

of pure and natural Florida orange juice.

We start each day with...

(Pamela) He had a crush on me, which I thought was cute,

but I really wasn't interested.

I was totally in love with my husband.

But near Christmas time,

my husband cheated on me, a one night stand.

And I was very sad.

And then when Bill Flynn came into my life,

he presented himself as someone

who was extremely kind and thoughtful.

And he made me feel good about myself.

I knew it was wrong.

Like in my head I was saying, no, this is wrong.

But inside my heart I liked him.

Never felt comfortable in it.

So after about eight weeks, I ended the relationship.

I certainly didn't think that he was going to go kill my husband.

Nobody really knew about the relationship.

I was embarrassed about it.

And the only other person that knew it was Cecelia Pierce.

(lawyer) Did you ever see any physical contact?

- Pam and Bill naked.

- And where were they? - On the floor.

- In what room? - In Gregg's bedroom.

- And what kind of position were they in?

- Pam was on top of Bill.

- Who was Hayley? - Pam's dog.

- Did she and Bill ever discuss Hayley?

- She told Bill not to kill Gregg in front of the dog

because it would traumatize the dog.

- Something like that,

these kids couldn't make that up.

I just didn't buy that.

- When did you start trying to get a gun for Bill Flynn

to kill Gregg Smart with?

- I don't know when the date was.

- You had this hear to heart truthful conversation with

the police on June 14, 1990.

Did you discuss with the police

that you were trying to get a firearm

to kill Gregg Smart?

- I don't remember. - You don't remember?

Very selective memory. Almost every question

the defense asked her, uh, she couldn't remember.

"Oh, I can't remember. I don't remember."

Cecelia Pierce helped Bill twice

trying to locate a gun to kill Greggory Smart.

Does not that make Celia Pierce

an accessory to first degree murder?

Doesn't it? Accessory?

(camera clicks)

(Mark) She was more important to the prosecution

in the toolbox than in the jailhouse.

Why was she saying the things she was saying?

Those motivations, quite frankly,

could be frightening.

(Tom) Well, Once Upon a Time Productions, as I have here,

is a life story option and purchase agreement.

Cecelia Pierce signed this contract

for a movie deal and sells her story.

This is dated September 14, 1990,

and again right here.

Purchase price of $100,000.

- I heard about the Pamela Smart story

the same way everybody else did, I saw it on television,

I saw it in the news, and it was one of those

stories that everybody was talking about.

(reporter) Tonight on "Hard Copy,"

one girl's secret,

And also, Elvis fights back.

Cecelia Pierce was wired for murder.

(Cecelia) She said that she was in love with Bill

and she had a choice, she could either

divorce Gregg or kill him.

(Stan) She's so perfect.

If you were doing this movie now, you'd just cast her.

Tim Thompson, who worked for me,

took her out for ice cream in Derry,

Derry, New Hampshire, to get her rights.

So I remember making the joke, did you take her to Derry Queen?

And he thought that was stupid.

- But she said if she divorced him,

he would follow her around

and she'd never have another boyfriend.

And he would get the money,

the dog, the furniture and the house.

- It took some convincing to have Cecelia wear a wire.

I don't think she really wanted to believe Pam was guilty.

(man) At first, she didn't want to believe Pam's guilt.

And over the next year, she went on television again and again

and again and again proclaiming Pam's guilt.

- She picked Bill out of all those boys,

and he trusted her a lot.

(Ted) How does this happen?

If I were doing a reality TV show

and I wanted to turn a witness,

I would do something very similar.

I'd put the wire on them, I would put them

in the position of an investigator.

- She couldn't get a divorce because she wanted

the dog, the car...

The furniture, and the dog, and she'd have money.

(Stan) You know what's interesting, as these

interviews progressed, she gets better at this.

(Ted) Pam got guiltier and guiltier.

You see that happen on every reality TV show.

The more provocative they get, the more their producer

tells them that they're fantastic.

And people would love to be fantastic.

- She'd be like, "Well, this is what happened today.

Bill and I were talking, and you can't find a silencer."

(Tom) Here you have a kid,

and all of a sudden you're part of this

One of the biggest things in television history,

the first televised trial of this sensational murder.

I think that she got caught up

in that whole scene of I'm important.

(Pelletier) She's turning into a little star.

She definitely liked the attention.

(Ted) There's a lot of people who want that.

They wish that their television show was on primetime.

We were seeing the petri dish for what's happened today.

TV has gone from being something

that you watch to being something that you're in.

The boys and Cecelia Pierce

were the first ones to get that injection.

(Mark) It was attention that that girl never would have

gotten in a million years.

You know, you would want the witnesses to be

the most important players,

but in this particular case,

they're not playing to the true audience, the jury.

They may be playing to mom and dad so that

when they go home at night and they're eating supper,

they can turn on Channel Nine news

and watch themself on television.

(Richard) If you shift the paradigm

for the trial to television, a lot of things are different.

Someone has to put all of that footage together.

Someone has to construct the visual narrative.

I call it the God moment.

(tapes whirring)

The moment when you intervene,

you make a cut.

You shift something.

- Why do you think he did it? - I-I just feel

that someone made him do it.

(Richard) And all of a sudden,

you've seriously altered the meaning of that image.

(Bill) She sat almost motionless

as the young man her defense attorneys

had portrayed as a love struck thrill killer

took the witness stand.

- I feel like I want to reach out and grab a hold of her

and just shake the living life right out of her.

- 17-year-old Sarah Thomas also testified that when she asked

Flynn if he was in love with Pamela Smart, he said,

"I don't know, but the sex is great."

(Pamela) "How did you ever end up here?

"Came directly at me like more of

"a declaration than a question.

"I will forever be haunted by the knowledge that had

"I never become involved with Bill,

"then Gregg would still be alive today.

"Even though I didn't pull the trigger,

my bad choices helped load the gun."

- How do people respond?

- You were so uncomfortable in exposing that piece.

You know, you said it. You showed it.

You put the book up, and I was wondering,

is it because you're afraid that we won't

see you for who you are,

that we'll be like everybody else?

Like the media has portrayed you, like you said,

this cold-hearted person.

- I guess it's just because everything I say gets

misinterpreted so much that tomorrow's headline

could be, "Pam Smart that she loaded the gun."

And like I said, I knew better.

I-I remember saying, this is wrong.

Why am I doing this, you know what I'm saying?

But it was like when you're still doing something

and you're saying this is wrong.

So I have to accept responsibility

for the fact that it wasn't like I was under some spell

where I didn't know that this was wrong, I knew it was wrong.

- Who is the real Pam? Who is the real Pam Smart?

- Well, I'm... I'm...

I'm the real... I'm Pam Smart.

(laughter)

(overlapping chatter)

I'm not walking around... I'm not walking around

with a mask on, this is who I really am.

- I've looked her up, I've been curious.

I've looked her up, she shows up with

sexy Hollywood stars and vixens.

This is not her.

(indistinct chatter)

- First, this is Van Halen Rocks.

We're gonna show our kids this, they're probably gonna go,

"You liked those long-haired hippie people?"

And we'll say, yes, son and daughter.

Or I was a metalist once.

(woman) Yes, my darling twin.

(indistinct chatter)

- That's the real Pam.

That is the real Pam that...

I hung out with all the time regularly.

- Let us please demonstrate what we're going to do

when Edward looks at the sign.

(all shrieking)

(Sonia) She's very warm and loving.

You know, she was kind of a geek,

and she was always very good in school.

(Eleanor) I was at Bedford Hills' inmate

education program, and I assisted Pam

in achieving two masters degrees.

One in criminal law,

and the other in English literature.

The superintendent had become extremely hostile,

consistent with the negativity

that always swirled around Pam.

And they took away from me

my books, and my pencils and my pens.

So we talked,

and that was how I taught her.

And she had to absorb everything

I told her without the books.

She's the smartest student I've ever had in my 34-year career

as a professor.

(Pamela) I felt really stupid in the face of this

enormous system that had taken my life.

And I decided that I couldn't really fight back

without the proper tools.

I wanted to understand more about what happened to me

and what I could do to try to get out of here.

I was fighting for my life.

- On the outside, everybody always... they think that

everybody in prison says they didn't do it.

"Sure, everybody's innocent,

they didn't do it, they didn't do it."

And that's not the case at all.

With the exception of three women...

that's out and thousands and thousands

out of the eight years that I served,

I've only heard three women say that they didn't do it.

So far, two out of three of those women

have been proven innocent and released.

The third and last one is Pamela Smart.

(indistinct chatter)

- Do you swear the testimony you're about to give today

is the truth, the whole truth,

and nothing but the truth so help you God?

- I do.

(reporter) Next witness was Pam Smart.

She's testifying as to her side of the story.

(lawyer) You said when you heard Bill Flynn was arrested,

"Oh, my God, they heard about the affair,

they arrested the wrong person."

Of course, you went right to the police

to straighten that out, didn't you?

- No, because I thought if the police knew that I had

an affair with Bill then they would automatically

conclude that I was involved in the murder.

- You did everything you could cover up your relationship

with Bill Flynn. - Yes, I did.

- And not only if you told the police about

Bill Flynn and your relationship,

that would give Bill Flynn a connection

and a reason for killing your husband, right?

- Right. - And it'd also

give you a connection to the murder of your husband

and to Bill Flynn if you told them about be fair, right?

- Yes. - And that's the real reason

you didn't want to talk to the police about Bill Flynn

and the affair with you?

- The real reason is the truth, which I just told you.

- The jury will determine what's the truth, won't they?

- They certainly will, I hope... - Are you afraid

that they're going to decide it for themselves?

- I think the jury is going to believe what the truth is.

- Okay. - I believe in the jury system.

(Juror 13) She was very believable.

I know I didn't believe any of the boys

because they're criminals and their story's discredited

and they've had time and opportunity

and motive to build a story.

And I didn't believe Celia.

I think she was trying to protect her ass because

she was definitely involved as an accomplice.

If the police suspected me, then I would protect,

like her, the fact that I had

an affair with the kid who killed my husband.

Actually, those three tapes

are the only evidence the state has against her.

- Your Honor, I would suggest at this time that everyone

place on their earphones and make sure they are on.

(reporter) Secretly obtained taped conversations

between Pamela Smart and Cecelia Pierce

are about to be played.

(dialing)

(dial tone)

(Pamela) Good afternoon, media center.

- (indistinct) - Uh, who's calling?

- It's Cecelia. - Okay, uh, yeah.

- The tapes clearly show

she had planned the murder, she knew what was going on.

(Alec) Damning. Absolutely damning.

You know, you stop the tape at that point

and look around the room and say, "Can somebody

"find an alternate explanation

of what she would have meant by that?"

- Tell us about what leads to the conversations

on the first tape, what's going on.

- I mean, after the arrest of the kids, Cecelia was

calling me on the phone, and she was very nervous

and worried, and she had asked me

did I know about the murder beforehand.

And initially I had said no.

And then she made a statement to me that if I knew more about it,

that as long as I told her that,

she wouldn't tell anyone and that we had to stick together.

- So what did you do? - I figured that

if she knew more about the murder

then she would tell me if I acted like I knew more about it.

(Pamela) I really thought, I really thought

that they had the wrong person,

that they found out about this relationship

and they'd jumped to this conclusion because there was

no evidence, so to speak,

that was coming out through... a police telling me.

My main thing at that time was trying to figure out

did he really do this?

Because I guess in my heart, I wanted it so not to be true.

I wanted anybody, anywhere to give me any information

that I could to help get the answer to this one question

of did he really do this?

I told Gregg's best friend, actually.

- What she said to me was, "I wonder if I act like

I know something about this if they'll say something to me."

- What di... did you respond to that?

- Yeah. - What did you tell her?

- I told her not to be an idiot, but I used a different word.

- "Don't be an asshole."

- I will never forget the tapes for the rest of my life.

(chuckling)

I usually have an Anglo-Saxon word

I put between thought and tapes, but, um...

- I called my lawyer and he said, "Whatever you do,

don't talk to Cecelia Pierce, she's going to be wired."

And I said, okay.

And I hung up the phone and I called her.

That's the truth. Exactly what happened.

I was not sleeping,

I was over exhausted mentally and physically.

A psychiatrist put me on Prozac, and he put me on a lot of it.

I was both going through depressive states

and I was also going through like manic states.

I just didn't care. I just wanted to know

so bad that I didn't care.

And then Cecelia Pierce would be spilling out pieces of

information here and there and saying, "Oh, well,

I heard this or I heard that."

So I felt like I had to get information out of her.

Yeah, that I definitely said

because I was talking to her about the affair.

And next thing you know it's on a big poster board saying,

"Oh, I was... she was talking about the murder here."

And I'm like, no, I wasn't, because there were pieces that

were before that or after that that are gone.

And conveniently, and there's this whole section

on the transcripts and it'll say,

"Inaudible, inaudible,

inaudible," and then here comes this line

out of nowhere or something, and it's like,

wait a minute,

what was all the inaudible stuff?

(reporter) Last I heard, Spencer does not have

the transcripts yet, they are not out yet...

repeat, not out yet.

(Bill) The quality was just so bad,

you don't want to hear words... every other,

or every fifth word you could hear,

the rest of it's garbled so much,

you can't really tell what she's... what she's saying.

- If you're going to consider listening to a conversation

and all you are able to hear are bits and pieces

without knowing what else has been said before,

in the middle, or after,

what you hear is not necessarily a reflection of the truth.

It's simply a reflection of

the little bits and pieces that you heard.

(Paul M.) These were told to me at the time

to be a very significant piece of evidence.

And when we first... when I first listened to them

in a car ride with my co counsel,

I was extremely depressed because you couldn't make out

heads nor tails of what was being said.

And I really thought they were gonna be useless until

we hired an enhancer, an expert out of Connecticut

who actually took the tapes, got rid of the background noise,

enhanced the sound, where you then could actually

sit down and hear what Pam Smart was saying

and what Cecelia Pierce was saying.

But that was very painstaking because you had to listen

to each word four and five times

before we can get an accurate transcript.

The person who prepared the transcript, by the way,

there's qualifications to do so, I don't know.

In most cases, you would want a qualified audiologist

to do this, but... but this stenographer

tried to figure out what was said.

(distorted audio)

(distorted audio continues)

(lawyer) "Did you see, now seeing what had happened,

"wouldn't you have rather have just divorced Gregg?

"Well, I don't know, you know,

nothing was going wrong until after they told Ralph."

(Robert J.) Those transcripts become taken as gospel

and then treated as if they were the tapes.

- "Remember that time you let Phil

use your car to go up there?"

"Where?" "Up to you house?"

"Yeah." "Well, that time,"

"if he hadn't forgotten directions,

he could have killed Gregg then..."

"I know."

(Pamela) "Pam said this then Cecelia said this,"

then Pam said this, then Cecel..."

Like, that's how it looks on paper.

When someone is talking, the other person is saying,

"Okay, yeah, mm-hmm, whate..." you know?

But on paper, it looks like she makes a statement,

and I say, oh, yes!

- What does Cecelia Pierce say?

"If Raymond hadn't run his friggin' mouth off,

this would have been the perfect murder."

What does the defendant say? "Right."

She says, "He's going to say he knew about it beforehand,

which is the truth." "Right..."

(Robert J.) And look, let's not lose sight of the fact

that none of those issues of the enhancement were

the subject of expert testimony

on behalf of the defense at the trial.

(Pamela) At the time, my attorneys told me,

"Well, if you want to get a tape expert, that's gonna

cost like, $15,000."

And I was struggling to pay them as it was.

This wasn't an instance where I was some kind of

celebrity client that could have a dream team assembled

to help me point out everything about the evidence.

And I couldn't afford it, I could not afford it,

it like many people can't when they're up against

the criminal justice system,

and I wasn't able to get a tape expert.

(Juror 13) The tapes, they're contradicting.

It sounded, you know, incriminating.

But if you believe her story,

that would explain the tapes.

I'm not saying I believe it, but it's a possibility.

Now, Pam doesn't have to prove she's innocent.

The state has to prove she's guilty

beyond a reasonable doubt, and that creates a big doubt

on the one piece of evidence that will get her.

(sighs)

Somewhere lies the truth,

and we're never gonna know, really, what it is.

(sighs)

Tough call.

You are innocent

until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

(bailiff) All rise.

(reporter) As of 2:32 on the afternoon of

March 20, 1991, the fate of Pamela Smart

rests in the hands of the jury.

(Bill) Normally it would just be 12 jurors judging,

now it's all of New England.

Everyday people are making up their minds who's guilty,

who's innocent, and they're focusing in on

the key characters,

who they like, who they don't like.

(Judy Smart) I think she's a very cold person

and I thinks she's guilty and I'll get out.

- For weeks, the jurors had gone home

every night after testimony.

- Did they go home and watch coverage after the fact

on the evening news?

Maybe. Who knows?

Did they read something in the newspaper?

Maybe. Who knows?

- The jury should only hear evidence that's admissible.

It shouldn't be watching videotape

of the victim's parents praying at the grave of the victim.

(Bill Smart) We visited the grave

this morning and spent ten minutes crying

before we came here. - And praying.

- And praying to God that justice is served.

- And it shouldn't know what the people out there think

the result is going to be.

- She was too much of an ice woman.

- Had no emotion. For no emotion,

you have to be guilty of something like that.

(Robert J.) The headlines on TV, on radio

all predicted that Pam would be found guilty

of the crimes of which she was charged.

- Most of what was in the press, and most of what was on the TV

are just replays of what happened

during the day in the courtroom.

So there was no polls going on.

"We think she's guilty, we think she's not guilty."

Call in, how many people think she's guilty?"

I mean, there wasn't none of that.

(automated voice) Do you believe Pamela Smart

was involved in the plot to kill her husband?

For yes, press 1.

(Alan) Juries shouldn't go into that box

wondering how and whether they'll be made to look like

fools if they come to one result

rather than the other, whether they'll be able to speak

and hold their heads up in their community.

They ought to be making an independent judgment,

not reflecting what the rest of us think.

- In any notorious case, when the very fact of the charge

implicates some profound taboo,

the usual burden of proof,

my client is presumed innocent, is off the table.

The Pamela Smart case clearly is evoking

a degree of taboo,

titillation, the abuse of power.

You can arouse that titillation and come out with

completely clean conscience if you can condemn the source

under the rule of law.

(Stan) Part of a good story is a good ending.

And we think she did it, and we like that she did it,

and we like that she got caught.

(juror) Guilty, Your Honor.

(courtroom cheering)

(Ted) Kill the bitch, lock the door,

throw away the key.

I feel good, I feel good.

Justice was done.

- She pays for our sins.

♪♪

(reporter) A verdict has been reached

in the Pamela Smart trial here in Exeter.

We have carried live coverage throughout this trial

and I think we can say we were the first to tell you

that the verdict was reached at about quarter of 1:00.

The green light went off, the bailiff went running in.

The parties were rounded up. Barry Peacock,

the head bailiff came out to bring that verdict...

(indistinct chatter)

Now we're gonna go upstairs,

we have a courtroom shot, I believe.

We are waiting to bring you the verdict live.

(female reporter) The jury is entering now.

We've just seen the defendant and her lawyer stand,

so we know the jury is now returning to the jury box.

As soon as they are in their places,

we know we'll see the entire courtroom rise.

We just heard Judge Grey is entering.

He will be asking for the jury verdict on the charges.

- Will the defendant please rise and face the jury?

Madam forelady, would you please stand?

Has the jury reached a verdict

on each of the three offenses charged?

- Yes, we have - On case number 90S1371,

which charges a defendant with a crime of

accomplice to first degree murder,

how say you, the defendant guilty

or not guilty of the offense charged?

- Guilty. - (Courtroom exclaims)

- Pamela Smart,

on indictment 1371, charging you with the offense

of accomplice to first degree murder

on the jury's verdict of guilty

and in accordance with the mandates of

our state legislature, I am required and do hereby

sentence you to the New Hampshire State Prison

for women for the remainder of your life

without the possibility of parole.

♪♪

(Pamela) I don't need the world to tell me that if I never

had a relationship with Bill,

Gregg would probably still be alive.

I know that myself.

Whoever thinks that I don't know that

every day of my life is so wrong.

They're so wrong.

I think a lot about what my life would be like

if this had never happened.

Would I have children right now?

What would our life be like?

(Alec) The great injustice to me is that she's in jail forever

and the kids who actually perpetrated the crime

will get out of jail.

By sort of any measure, that's not fair.

But that's, again, the way the system works.

So the system did what the system does.

- Her sentence is life without the possibility of parole.

Even Charles Manson doesn't have that sentence.

- This is, um, July 1991,

and the trial is all over

by three or four months.

I had no idea, and I'm not the only one

because the judge came in, sentence terms,

mandatory in the state of New Hampshire,

life in prison with no parole.

And I'm telling you,

not a dry eye in that jury room

and that's God's honest truth that I saw.

And even the ones who were like, arguing adamantly

that she's guilty, and then there were three of us

who argued adamantly that she wasn't,

and I was one of them.

But life was no parole,

she, you know,

that's forever, that's not fair.

And you know, I really believe that I would have hung

that jury because I was damn close to doing it anyway

had I know what this sentence was going to be.

I'm not responsible for what I was to consider as evidence.

I had no control over evidence that was given.

I believe there's so much that no one knows

and we'll probably never know.

- (deep breath)

(director) Do you wanna get more specific?

- No, no, I'm not... I'm telling you,

this summer, there's gonna be some incredible stuff

coming out, but I want the attorneys to release it,

not me.

I think Fowler will tell us what happened

when his parole is done,

and new information will come out.

We'll leave it at that.

- Raymond Fowler's family, including his brother, has said

for many years that the state wants him to stay silent.

And I believe that even at one point on his website,

they had some kind of quote saying that if he spoke,

he would blow the case against me wide open.

(director) She's still... you know, like you,

been claiming her innocence to this day.

Do you think there's any validity in that?

- Uh...

From what I've seen,

um...

what I've seen from her actions is

I believe that

her getting found guilty is right.

I remember being in the plaza.

I remember being there the month before.

So it kind of clicked in my head of, hey, wait a minute,

this is... looks kinda familiar.

Billy come in and says that this girl said we can

break into her house and take whatever we wanted to

and she wanted to have her husband get killed or something.

I wasn't really listening to too much of that.

I was thinking of more just breaking in the house.

And Billy says, "Come on,

we're gonna go do that tonight."

So I went with him, went over to Winnacunnet,

picked up Pam's car, her Honda CRX.

I didn't know anywhere...

where I'm going, where I'm at, nothing.

So he told me to pull in the plaza,

I pull in the plaza, and Billy just said,

"Oh, we can't do nothing. He's home.

So we got back... (indistinct)

to the media center.

(projector whirring)

You notice in the testimony,

he said that we waited outside in the car and she came out.

But in the movie, they're showing him...

us walking inside of the media center.

And if you listen to what she says in here

about saying hi to me, this is what I said happened.

- Hi, Raymond.

So did you do it?

(director) This is your version of the story?

(Raymond) Um, to a point.

I mean, I didn't go inside of the media place.

We picked her up, she got in the car.

I get in the back, and she would...

literally just kind of flipped right out on Billy.

Screaming at him, swearing at him.

"What do you mean you got lost?"

And she says, "Did you get a gun?"

And he says, "No, we got a knife."

And she said, "A knife? I told you I didn't want it

done with a knife, it's gonna be a mess

and it's going to ruin all my furniture"

And she said, "That's it,

that's it, no more," or something.

And Billy said something, and she cranked the radio up.

And I heard her yelling back and forth to him.

He was begging her... I could hear them,

but I couldn't understand what they're saying.

And I could see them going back and forth,

but she had the radio so loud, it's all I heard was...

I don't know what it was, Van Halen or something,

that she had blasted in the stereo.

And then she dropped me off,

and then drove down, like,

she took Billy home, dropped him off,

but I know she was pretty pissed off.

- Um, I'm not sure why he would say that.

I'm a little confused

because it contradicts his own previous statement.

(Surette) You thought that Bill was gonna to kill the guy

because he wanted to...

(Raymond) He likes her.

- But Pamela didn't ask him to kill her husband?

- I don't know, I didn't talk to her.

- I don't know wha...

I believe that was actually a scene in one of the movies.

(William Hirst) It is extremely possible that Raymond Fowler

could come to believe that what he saw in the movie

was what actually happened.

He can even believe that, "Yes, I remember testifying

"that I don't remember her saying that.

"But I now realize that I have come to remember this.

"And like some... all memories, sometimes you forget them

"and then they come later on,

and this is what has happened to me."

And not realize that it was the media

that implanted this memory.

- No, because I know what happened.

And it will always be in my head what happened.

But I do know that I remember the movie like it was yesterday.

I can tell you every part of the movie.

- What the hell happened out there?

- I told you, Pam, we just got lost, is all.

- You expect me to believe that?

(William) Eyewitness testimony is extremely unreliable,

and people can be extremely certain and be wrong.

Not only do memories decay,

but they get transformed and you can actually

remember things very, very differently

than they actually occurred.

- For me, the Pamela Smart movie

blurs with the Nicole Kidman movie.

So now in my memory, I'm not sure what I remember

from the actual case and what I remember from

the Van Sant movie.

- I'm not worried about being true to the facts.

I want to tell a great story, and I get so into the story

that I really do forget what actually happened,

and what just happened in my own version.

- Let me just check one fact... - (Director) Sure, go ahead.

- "Teach Me to Kill," the Steve Sawicki book.

He was formerly "People" magazine.

Whenever I have to prepare for an interview,

I like to call that my Bible, I'll go back and just...

it refreshes my memory about

things that happened during the case.

Sometimes the memory fades with time, so...

- They had all gone through the looking glass.

The judge, and the jury, and the defense,

and the prosecutor, and the kids,

and Pam and Cecelia,

they're all... they'd all become the movie.

- I'm not sure if I put this in, but the judge said

in the trial that he hoped

Clint Eastwood would play him in the movie.

- It was reported reliably

and it's never been denied by Judge Grey.

- MSNBC, Discovery...

By my count, this would be the seventh show that

I've been personally involved in regarding

the Pamela-Gregg Smart homicide.

Good news is we've solved the murder of your husband.

The bad news is you're under arrest,

so stand up and put your hands behind your back.

I think I'm even quoted in the IMDb board now

because that's my quote.

(Ted) It's really rare to find someone who doesn't want to be

on a TV show to act the way that you want them to act

or to act the way that they think you want them to act.

- As soon as I walked in the room today, I...

I felt a tremendous amount of shame.

- Just hours ago, three boys, all of them students...

I mean, you talk about surreal. The screenwriter tells me,

we're casting actors to play you.

And I thought, an actor is going to play me?

Everything I'm saying right here is an ad lib.

The director told me just to talk to Helen Hunt.

You look absolutely beautiful...

(J. Albert) Everyone concerned with Pamela Smart's trial

was caught up in a black hole,

a black hole of media attention.

♪♪

(Joyce C.) This is in hindsight of 20 years of exploiting it.

As you are doing.

We exploited her.

(Stan) And that's what we do. But you know what's interesting?

My job as a television and movie producer,

creating a television movie for an audience

that has to understand it in very simple terms

is probably very similar to what a defense attorney

or prosecuting attorney has to do for a jury.

They have to simplify it for them:

this is the bad guy, this is a good guy.

(Richard) It's all about manipulation

because victory is about manipulating emotion,

thought, identity,

a sense of truth and justice.

And all of that is the product

of wrapping someone in a narrative.

(Ted) I think that as a society,

we judge people based on their stories.

And when someone has a compelling story

and they're great at telling it,

they get the benefit of the doubt.

And when someone has a story that doesn't quite fit together,

as most stories don't in reality,

and they're not good at telling that story,

they get the short end of the stick.

(Richard) So at its highest level,

you have competing Shakespeares

portraying characters in stories

that may or may not be true.

And of course, justice might miscarry

if we wanted this defendant to be something

maybe different from what she is.

♪♪

Which one of these Pamela Smarts is real?

- She's right, t's not her movie.

It's our movie.

(Pamela) I've been fighting for over two decades,

and I'm always fighting to get out of here.

It gets tiring. It gets exhausting.

But I realized that if I let go of the fight, then they won.

And if I let go of hope, what do I have?

Hopes and dreams are the air

that sustains me every day.

Last week, I lost my ID.

So I went to get a new ID.

And when I was taking the picture,

all of a sudden, I just started smiling.

So the officer, he said, "Why are you smiling?"

Who smiles for their prison picture, right?

And I said, well, I'm smiling because

it's the last one I'm ever going to take.

And he said, "Why?"

And I said, 'cause I'm leaving. I'm getting out of here.

What a great movie it'll be if I get out, right?

You would just have the greatest footage

in America if you get like,

me coming out of the door,

you know, leaving the prison.

And, oh, God. Yeah, so that's it.

(phone hangs up)

♪♪

♪♪