Original subtitles

- I'm Craig Melvin,

and this is "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered".

- This really was a soap opera.

- Unfortunately, it's my life

and it wasn't a soap opera for me.

- It was TV's first blockbuster trial,

scandalous and Sensational. - Her sexuality,

that was the star of the Pam Smart show.

- This explosion of flashbulbs.

- It's "Body Heat." It's "Fatal Attraction."

- Pamela Smart, accused of bewitching a teenage student

into murdering her husband.

- Yes.

- I said, "God, forgive me". I pulled the trigger.

- Now, more than three decades later,

another look at the frenzy. - It was just crazy.

- The trial. - I made a mistake.

- Was killing your husband one of those mistakes?

- No. - The woman.

- It's not at all who she is or was.

- And the case, some say, changed the way

Americans witnessed justice.

- I don't know if enough will ever be enough

for anyone in this case.

**

- Hello and welcome to "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered".

An attractive young high school employee

became the center of a steamy murder trial

that gripped our nation.

Her name is Pamela Smart, and she has secrets

she wishes the jury heard.

Now she is ready to share them with you.

Here's Andrea Canning with "Deadly Secret".

- You were the biggest show in town.

- It was. - Maybe in America.

- At the time. - I mean, this story,

people couldn't get enough of it.

- Nope.

When I look back at the footage, I look like a baby.

You know, I look so young and I look so afraid.

And that's exactly how I felt.

- Before the Menendez brothers, before the Bobbitts

or Amy Fisher or even O.J.,

Pamela Smart was television's first true crime celebrity.

- It's like I'm frozen forever in my worst mistake,

and I'm judged forever by my worst mistake.

And people think there's nothing else to me.

- The story begins in the old mill town

of Derry, New Hampshire.

Twenty-two-year-old Pamela Smart had come home late from work

to find her twenty-four-year-old husband,

Gregg, sprawled out on the floor of their home.

- It's six days before your first anniversary.

- Mm-hmm.

- Take us to that-that night, that--

what happened when you walked in the door?

- I saw Gregg on the ground

in front of the entrance to the door.

I called for him, and he didn't respond.

There was--

- Did you try to shake him or... - No.

- You're just calling his name?

- I called his name, he didn't answer,

and I ran-I just ran that fast.

- You go to the neighbor and what does the neighbor do?

Call 911?

- I don't even remember after that.

- Daniel Pelletier was the lead detective in the case.

- Well, the first two officers arrived,

found Mrs. Smart outside.

She was yelling and screaming that her husband had been hurt.

- It wasn't until way after his--

the police were there, his parents were there,

all of that, his father said, "Why aren't you helping my son?"

And the police officer said, "Because he's dead".

- What's that moment like? - His father hit the floor.

I hit the floor. His mother passed out.

It was just-- it was crazy.

- We later determined through the medical examiner

that it was a gunshot wound.

The wound was actually at the top left of his skull,

entered in through there.

- When I got to her parent's house,

we both sobbed.

- Sonia Fortin-Simon was a friend

of Gregg and Pamela Smart's.

- We-we laid there together in her bed.

I was hugging her,

because she was in a fetal position crying.

She was inconsolable, just trying to figure out

who could have done this.

- It was apparent that two people were involved

because of the way that things were set up

and the amount of things that were disturbed.

The, uh, stereo had been removed from the stereo rack

and it was pulled out.

There were speakers piled up by the rear door

where it looked like they had exited.

There was, um, jewelry boxes overturned.

- You know, it looked like a burglary gone bad.

That's kind of what we were hearing.

That's kind of what we're seeing.

The police weren't saying anything.

- Tami Plyler was a reporter

for the "New Hampshire Union Leader".

- We had heard at one point that they were looking for someone

who might have traded in some jewelry;

we had picked it up on the police scanner.

- But the burglary gone bad theory had some problems.

- That didn't really make a lot of sense

because the time of day

and nighttime burglary in a neighborhood like that,

there were a lot of residents there.

- It was looking like an execution.

Maybe there was more to the story.

- Police always look at the spouse.

- Mm-hmm.

- They just have to talk to them.

- Right.

- Did they interview you? - They did.

I spent hours with the police.

I spent hours at the police station

in the days after that.

- Did you feel like you were a suspect?

- Not at all.

- Did you feel like they were suspicious of you in any way?

- Not at all.

- Gregg Smart's short life was over.

Now, as police tried to find out who killed him,

life for his young widow

was about to enter a strange new reality.

And what happened next would raise questions

about justice and fairness that are still being asked today.

- Coming up, students with a deadly secret

about to be revealed.

- If they hadn't told people,

I'm not sure how this would have turned out.

- And one of those students had an intimate connection

to Pamela Smart.

- Somebody came and told me that he had a crush on me

or something.

I thought it was cute, but I wasn't interested.

- You're the grown up here. - Right, I was sure it was.

And I kept... - You're working for the school.

- I was not even thinking about him

in any romantic way whatsoever.

**

- A well-liked young man had been gunned down at home

in a quiet New England town.

Bill Spencer, who went on to report for

NBC affiliate KPRC in Houston,

was just starting out in New Hampshire

when he picked up the story of who killed Gregg Smart.

- He has his whole life ahead of him.

He's a successful life insurance salesman,

he's got a beautiful young wife, and he has been,

for some reason, shot to death at the doorstep of his own home.

Why?

- Police were asking the same question

and trying to learn more about Gregg.

Sonia knew him well.

- Gregg was the life of the party.

He was always big dimples, smiling, having all the jokes,

and acting a little crazy.

- Police learned that Gregg met Pamela

in New Hampshire about four years earlier

when she was home for a holiday break from college.

She and Gregg got along so well

that he moved with her to Tallahassee,

where Pamela was a sophomore in communications

at Florida State.

- He followed you there? - Yeah.

And we used to go a lot to the beach and travel,

we went to concerts a lot.

I was working as a disc jockey at the time.

- She had been in a couple of my classes

and she was walking, um, and had a Bon Jovi t-shirt on.

- That's when Amy Newman Bonczek met Pamela and Gregg.

- And what did you say to her?

- And I said, "Do you like Bon Jovi?"

And she's like, "I love Bon Jovi".

She's like, "My boyfriend looks like Bon Jovi".

- Gregg wasn't taking classes,

but Pamela was a serious student.

- I was having some problems in a few classes,

and she would take me to the library.

She'd have index cards, she'd have everything prepared,

and she taught me how to study.

- How was Pamela around Gregg? What did he bring out of her?

- Even though he was shy, she was also, you know,

they were just very sweet and kind of cozy.

- By the time graduation rolled around,

Pamela and Gregg were engaged.

They went home to New Hampshire, got married.

Gregg cut his hair and got a job with his dad

selling insurance.

Pamela, who dreamed of being a TV reporter,

got a media job with a local school district.

- You kind of had it all together at twenty,

twenty-one years old? - Yeah, I was trying.

I thought I was doing all right.

- Amy imagined a big future for Pamela.

- I knew that she was gonna do great things.

And I told her that the next time I saw her,

I knew she was gonna be famous and I would see her on TV.

- And in fact, a few days after the murder,

Pamela Smart was on TV

being interviewed by reporter Bill Spencer.

- She was wearing a beautiful, vibrant blue dress,

hair was all made up, makeup perfect.

She looked gorgeous.

- Police watched Pamela on television with unease.

- We had limited the information that was going to Pamela Smart

because she had the propensity to talk to the media.

She enjoyed talking to the media.

- While reporters worked the story,

police continued working the case.

And then came a break.

It happened at a high school where Pamela worked.

Kids there were spreading a wild story.

- If they hadn't told people,

I'm not sure how this would have turned out,

because I don't think the police had that much.

- Some teenage boys at the school

were telling people they killed Gregg Smart

and used one of their father's guns to do it.

A neighborhood kid heard them talking.

He repeated the story to the father,

who located his gun and then made a tough decision.

- Ended up bringing it to the Derry Police Department,

saying, "This may have been involved in a murder".

Turned out it was the gun that killed Gregg.

- Shortly after that, three local high schoolers

were arrested for Gregg's murder.

Bill Spencer made a beeline for Pamela Smart's house.

- She looks frantic and, um, incredibly emotional.

And I'm like, "But-but-but this is great news.

I mean, they just made the arrests.

I mean, the case is wrapping up."

And she's like, no, I-I can't talk, Bill.

I'm just too upset. I'm too devastated.

- It was the first time he'd seen her like that.

It didn't make sense.

But turns out, Pamela Smart knew the kids under arrest.

She had an intimate connection with one of them.

His name was Billy Flynn.

- At first, somebody came and told me that he had--

he was a-- had a crush on me or something.

I thought it was cute, but I wasn't interested.

- You're the grown up here.

- Right, I sure was. And I kept--

- You're working for the school.

- I was not even thinking about him

in any romantic way whatsoever.

- They had worked together on a school program

called Project Self-esteem,

when she was helping some students

produce this goofy orange juice commercial

as part of a competition.

There's Pamela on the left, and that's Billy.

- And then where does it go from there?

- Well, I didn't think it was going anywhere,

'cause I was not interested and I didn't care.

Looking back, I guess I was flattered by his attention

because I felt like at that point in my life,

kind of low still after what had happened with Gregg.

- She says Gregg had had a one night stand

with a woman he met in a bar.

Pamela says she was feeling wounded

and Billy made her feel better.

Apparently much better.

- How did things cross the line?

How did it get to that point? - I knew it was wrong.

I felt like I didn't wanna be attracted to him,

but I still felt like I was.

- She said the affair lasted a few months,

but then she told Billy it was over

after confessing it all to Gregg.

- You were going to try and make it work?

- Yes.

- How was Billy Flynn acting throughout all this?

- Um, he was angry. He was sad.

He was crying.

He was-- you know, and I felt-- I did feel bad.

Like, I-I didn't intend to hurt his feelings.

- Not long after that, her husband was dead,

and the teenage student she'd been sleeping with

was under arrest.

- It was a complete shock.

And then when I- when I first heard it,

I thought, "Oh, my God, they found out about the affair.

And now I'm somehow part of this one way or another,

because I had this relationship with him."

- The kids under arrest may have been young,

but they were also tough, they weren't talking.

But police were tougher, and figured that

getting the teens to talk was just a matter of time.

- Coming up...

- It's "Body Heat." It's "Fatal Attraction."

It's what pours millions into the theater every weekend.

And it's right here in New Hampshire.

- The drama builds

as the student who shares Pamela Smart's secret does talk.

- What was his version of events to you?

- Pam had said to him that they could never be together

unless Gregg was killed.

- I didn't realize the scope of this thing

until the sex part came out.

**

- In the days after the murder, Pamela Smart spent

a lot of time with police

talking about her life with Gregg

and what happened the night he was killed.

But she had left out one important detail...

- If you're being interviewed for hours, though,

one might think it's relevant to say,

"I was having an affair". That's a possible suspect.

- Looking backwards, I should have said that.

But I did not think that I knew someone

that was capable of murder.

It wasn't even in my brain t-that

he had possibly killed my husband.

- But even after teenager Billy Flynn

and two of his friends were arrested,

she still didn't say anything about the affair.

- It was bad enough that my husband was dead,

and I was trying to go through all of this.

And then I had Gregg's parents calling me up, saying,

"Well, how come these people that you know killed my son?"

- The teenagers kept silent for months,

but then the prosecution moved to try them as adults,

and the stakes got higher,

according to lead prosecutor Paul Maggiotto.

- That's when they were facing life without parole,

and the idea of cooperating

became all the more relevant to them.

- That's when they admitted they killed Gregg Smart.

But there was more to it.

Billy said Pamela was involved.

In fact, the teen said she was the mastermind.

- What was his version of events to you?

- Well, basically that Pam had said to him

that they could never be together

unless Gregg was killed.

- Police heard a story of seduction and manipulation,

that Billy had become spellbound by the sensuous

and more experienced Pamela Smart.

He would do anything for her.

Even kill.

- And the original plan was for him to try

and find someone to kill Gregg Smart.

And they really couldn't find anybody to kill him, you know?

So eventually, Pam started putting pressure on Billy

and said, "you got to kill Gregg Smart,

and this is how you can do it".

- Maggiotto says Billy tried and failed a few times

to kill Gregg

and then asked his friends for help.

- And for the life of me, I'm not sure

why they agree to help him.

And they agree to help him

in part because Pam says to them,

"you can have whatever you want out of the apartment".

And Billy tells them, "she'll give you $1,000 each",

um, which Pam reneges on with Billy later

and says, "I'll give 'em $500 each".

- They said Pamela told them when Gregg would be home,

and she made arrangements to be gone.

They ransacked the house, Billy shot Gregg,

and they all fled.

Exactly three months after the killing,

police had what they needed.

They drove to Pamela's workplace.

- She said, "hello", and I said, "hello",

and I-- she said, "what's up?"

And I told her, "well, we have good news

"and we have bad news.

"The good news is we solved the murder of your husband.

"The bad news is you're under arrest for murder.

Stand up, turn around, and put your hands behind your back."

- And she's being led by the police into court,

and she looks so, to me, um, powerless,

so helpless, vulnerable.

- The news morphed in a nanosecond

from the story of a tragic widow to the story of a black widow.

She was 22 and he was 16.

- Up until then, it was a murder case,

and it had a lot of interesting parts to it.

But, um, I didn't realize the scope of this thing

until the sex part came out

between Billy Flynn and Pamela Smart

and all the sexual manipulation.

- People looked back at her early interviews

and picked her apart.

Her looks, her clothes.

Was she enjoying the attention?

- This is a real live soap opera.

- NBC News did a story about covering the story

with Bill Spencer's boss, then the news director of WMUR.

- It's "Body Heat."

It's "Fatal Attraction."

It's what pours millions into the theater every weekend.

And it's right here in New Hampshire.

- The tabloids loved it,

especially when these pictures surfaced.

Pamela Smart posing in a bikini.

She gave those pictures to young, innocent Billy Flynn,

the story went.

Supposedly all part of her seduction.

The story moved like wildfire around the country.

- I went in a gas station, I saw "Star" magazine,

and there was their wedding picture,

and it called her the Ice Princess

and that she had murdered Gregg.

I just couldn't believe it, and bawled my eyes out.

There was no way this was her.

- When the media was talking about Pam,

I couldn't recognize who they were talking about

because it's not the person that I know.

- The families and friends of Pamela and Gregg Smart

were about to face a media onslaught,

and Pamela was about to become

part of a new kind of television phenomenon.

- She told me she was gonna dance for me like that.

- What did "like that" mean, do you know?

- Like, provocative.

Like a striptease type of thing.

- Red hot testimony.

- What happened after that? - We had sex.

- By that you mean intercourse? - Yeah, we made love.

- Cold-blooded murder.

- I said, "God, forgive me".

- After you said, "God, forgive me,"

what happened?

- I pulled the trigger.

**

- Welcome back to "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered".

I'm Craig Melvin.

Newlywed Pamela Smart received widespread sympathy

after her husband was killed.

But in a stunning twist,

police arrested her for murder.

Now, all eyes were on a New Hampshire courtroom

where Pamela's teenage admirer was about to reveal his secrets,

taking jurors inside their doomed love affair.

Will they believe him?

Back to Andrea Canning with "Deadly Secret".

- It was the first week of March 1991,

ten months after Gregg Smart was killed

and Pamela Smart was on trial for his murder.

Reporters from around the world swarmed the courthouse

to cover the salacious story.

The woman accused of seducing a teenage boy

and convincing him and his friends

to kill her husband.

- All I can remember hearing is this explosion of flashbulbs

going off like... [imitating popping]

As she's being led into the courtroom.

- What kind of impact did it have on the trial,

all that attention?

- I mean, certainly I think

the court had to take certain precautions

to make sure things didn't get out of hand.

- Pamela's defense attorney, Mark Sisti,

says things had already gotten out of hand.

- I felt as though the jury was in shark-infested waters,

they hadn't been sequestered.

Camera crews at that point were running wild.

We had our own client chased into the women's lavatory.

- That was the backdrop

as the state of New Hampshire laid out its case.

- ...and fired one fatal shot

into the head of Greggory Smart.

Prosecutors contended in their opening arguments

that Pamela Smart was a calculating temptress,

a woman who lured young Billy Flynn

with promises of sex and money.

- Yeah, that's the gun I got out of the drawer.

- One by one, the teens who had already pleaded guilty

to second degree murder, took the stand.

- In homes, bars, diners, and barbershops,

the people watched as they described an awful crime.

One admitted driving the others to murder Gregg Smart.

As he told it,

the motive was money for him and for Pamela.

He said Pam told them

there would be a big life insurance payout

after Gregg was killed

and they would get some of the money.

- The driver told the jury

how Pamela Smart issued detailed instructions,

including no stabbing.

- But one of the teens

found a butcher knife in Pamela's kitchen

and held it to Gregg's throat as he attempted to rob him.

- At the center of this R-rated courtroom drama

was the lovestruck teenage killer, Billy Flynn.

He took the stand on his 17th birthday

and testified about how he and Pamela Smart

became intimate.

Flynn testified that

while Pamela's husband was away on a ski trip,

she invited him into her bedroom.

And then...

- She told me she was gonna dance for me like that.

- What did "like that" mean, do you know?

- Like, provocative.

Like a striptease type of thing.

- What happened after that? - We had sex.

- By that you mean intercourse? - Yeah, we made love.

- On the stand, Billy went on to say that the next morning,

Pamela Smart began a different kind of seduction.

- She started crying, and that got me upset.

And she was saying that

the only way that we're gonna be able to be together

is if, um, you know, if we kill Gregg.

"If you love me, do this, 'cause you'd wanna be with me."

Like that.

- Then what did you say to her as she was saying this to you?

- I told her I did love her.

You know, I loved her very much.

- Billy testified that the murder plot was planned

over the course of at least two months.

You could hear a pin drop in court

when the tearful, doe-eyed high school student

described the killing.

- I cocked the hammer back

and, um, I pointed the gun at his head.

- After you pointed the gun at his head,

what'd you do? - I just stood there.

- How long was it?

- Um, a hundred years, it seemed like.

I said, um, "God, forgive me".

- After you said, "God, forgive me",

what happened?

- I pulled the trigger.

- Viewers were like jurors

rendering a verdict in real time.

- I feel sorry for the kids.

They're so young and everything

and they've ruined their lives.

- The story of the wedding ring was devastating.

"Don't take that wedding ring, my wife will kill me."

Oh, my lord.

- There's no soap opera to this.

It's real stuff.

It's real stuff.

- If the testimony from the young conspirators

wasn't enough,

prosecutors had Pamela in her own words,

courtesy of another student,

Pamela's intern, Cecelia Pierce.

Prosecutors believed Cecelia knew about the murder plot,

but they didn't have enough evidence

to charge her with conspiracy.

But police did convince her to cooperate.

- When Cecelia Pierce came on board

and, uh, she decided to start cooperating with us,

she wore a body wire and talked to Pamela Smart.

- Investigators hoped Pamela Smart

would implicate herself in Gregg's murder.

On the tapes, she didn't come right out

and say, "I did it",

but she did sound like someone worried about being arrested.

- On one recording, Pamela implies

she knows plenty about the murder plot.

- She also worries about what would happen

if one of the teens involved in the plot

started talking to police.

- How critical are those tapes?

- I'd tell you, they're the nail in the coffin.

If you really want the truth.

I mean, they're the nail in the coffin.

- As he wrapped up the state's case,

Prosecutor Maggiotto warned the jury

not to be fooled by Pamela Smart

the way Billy Flynn and his accomplices had been.

- This woman counted on from day one,

that if this case ever came to court,

she could put herself on the stand

with her background, her intelligence,

with her ability to answer questions,

and pull one over on you, ladies and gentlemen.

- The prosecutors had little doubt

that the always poised Pamela Smart

was capable of doing just that.

- As the TV cameras roll and the nation watches,

Pamela Smart is about to do something unusual

for a murder defendant: talk.

- Yes.

- Yes.

- Pamela Smart takes the stand.

- I made a mistake.

- You've made a lot of mistakes so far in this case.

- I sure have. Yes, I have.

- Was killing your husband one of those mistakes?

- No, it wasn't.

- Was not getting a divorce,

maybe that was one of the mistakes?

You should have gotten divorced, but you didn't?

- No, I didn't wanna get divorced.

**

- Pamela Smart says the story told by the prosecutor

was compelling fiction,

a tale meant for the movies.

In fact, after the trial, her story became a movie,

a breakout hit for Nicole Kidman.

- If somebody can't remember Pamela Smart necessarily,

you say, oh, the movie "To Die For" with Nicole Kidman.

Oh, of course I know that case.

- If you watch "To Die For", people take that and they say,

"okay, this whole movie is true.

And this person, Pamela Smart, is a horrible individual."

- It's a very iconic movie. - Yes.

And it helped to freeze me

in the image of my worst mistake.

- That mistake, Pamela says it was sleeping with Billy Flynn,

not asking him to kill her husband.

She denies that.

Pamela says the jury was infected by a press

that caricatured her as an evil seductress.

She says the tabloids were full of lies,

like those bikini photos.

That they weren't shot to tempt Billy Flynn,

they were taken for fun with a friend

for a modeling contest.

- Somehow the narrative escaped, or got created,

that I took these pictures for Bill Flynn

and gave them to him to seduce him.

And that's totally a false story.

- By the time Pamela took the stand,

there was a lot to dig out of.

She had to testify in court that, yes, she'd been

a school district employee who'd slept with a student.

- Yes.

- Yes.

- Yes.

And then when I did,

I told him that I didn't think it was right,

and that it was wrong and that I wanted to be with Gregg.

And he kept saying, why wouldn't--

why didn't I just get a divorce?

And I said, because I love Gregg.

- She said Billy didn't want the relationship to end.

- He started crying,

and he said that he couldn't live without me.

- I felt bad. I didn't wanna hurt his feelings.

I mean, I still wanted to be friends with him, and he's--

he was still a nice person.

- And then, the prosecutor pressed her about

why she didn't admit the affair from the beginning.

- I did not want the whole United States of America

to know that I had had an affair.

I made a mistake.

- You've made a lot of mistakes so far in this case.

- I sure have. Yes, I have.

- Was killing your husband one of those mistakes?

- No, it wasn't. - Was not getting a divorce,

maybe that was one of the mistakes?

You should have gotten divorced, but you didn't?

- No, I didn't wanna get divorced.

- You were so composed.

Someone in the media even likened you to an ice princess.

- Mm-hmm. I think I was in shock completely by it.

I was overwhelmed by the media attention.

I was raised my whole life not to be a cry baby, not to be,

you know, overly dramatic or anything like that.

And, of course, when I was by myself later on in the night,

I would be crying when I was rewatching the coverage

or whatever, you know?

It was-- it was upsetting.

- From defense attorney Mark Sisti's point of view,

Pamela was more arrested development than Ice Queen.

- She seemed more like a 14, 15 year old

playing the part of an adult.

- He says another false image that persisted

was Billy Flynn and his friends

as innocent young boys easily manipulated.

The attorney says in reality, they were tough teens

who killed Gregg on their own

and then concocted a story about Pamela's involvement

to shorten their sentences.

- The quote, "boys were boys" is a myth.

The so-called boys were certified

by the Attorney General's office as adults,

with the sophistication of adults

that would face trial in adult courtrooms

and be punished with adult punishments.

- He says it's outrageous that they were housed

in the same jail for months before trial.

Billy and the teen who held the knife

were even in the same cell.

- They had a long time

to get their stories straight, if necessary.

- From the day that Gregg was slaughtered

in his own living room,

to the day they stepped into the courtroom,

they could prepare for trial together.

- What do you say about the motive the prosecution gives

about you wanting your husband dead?

Life insurance-- - Well, no-- right.

- Or the infidelity-- - No one has ever explained

any kind of sufficient motive

for why I would want to murder my husband

when I could have just gotten divorced.

My parents lived in a beautiful house right up the street.

We had no children and no property or--

and there was nothing to lose.

- Why would Billy Flynn kill Gregg, kill your husband,

with the help of these other teenagers?

- I think he felt like

that was the only way he could be with me.

It was very clear that as long as I was married,

I was never gonna be with him.

- Looking back, do you think there was anything

you might have inadvertently said to Billy Flynn

or done that could have provoked him into doing this?

- The only thing I ever said was that I'm not--

I'm not gonna be with you

because I'm gonna be with Gregg.

- Still, it's hard to explain those tapes.

- Pamela told us there's a story behind those tapes.

Her attorney says he warned her that Cecelia might be wired,

but Pamela talked to her anyway.

- The police weren't giving me any information.

I was completely cut off.

- She says on those tapes she's acting,

pretending to know more than she did,

in order to pump Cecelia for information.

- All I wanted to know was did this guy kill my husband?

I had-- It's like, I couldn't even sleep.

I had to know, did he really do this?

Because I knew that if he killed my husband,

I felt like it was all my fault.

Whether I asked him to kill him or not,

it was still my fault,

because if I would never have had this relationship,

my husband would still be alive.

- Pamela points out that a lot of what's on the tapes

is hard to hear.

She also argues that the tapes may have been edited,

and the transcripts given to the jury for deliberations

were unreliable. - All these years later,

we found out a secretary in the Attorney General's office

made the transcription.

That would be like having my mother make--

make the transcripts.

- Do you understand why people hear those tapes

and believe that you're guilty?

- I do. Right. I do. I do.

- The verdict.

- Do you think it was fair?

- And more than 30 years later,

some are asking that same question.

- A lot of forward, progressive- thinking governors

are saying that this sentence is archaic.

Enough is enough.

**

- The jury in the Pamela Smart case

deliberated for 13 hours before rendering its verdict.

- How say you? Is the defendant guilty or not guilty

of the offense charged? - Guilty.

- So say you all? - Yes.

- Guilty, and Gregg's parents agreed.

- Tell him that, by God, she did do it.

- She got what she deserved. - And she's getting-- yes.

- But Pamela's family was heartbroken.

- Get the hell out of the way.

- Do you think it was fair, the trial?

- I want my son. No, no. Get outta here. I want my son.

- Not at all. Do you? Do you think it was fair?

Of course not. From the beginning, it wasn't fair.

- The sentence was mandatory.

- 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.

- Life in prison. - With no chance of parole?

- No chance for parole.

- Today, this is home for Pamela Smart,

Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women,

about an hour north of New York City.

She filed appeals

on the grounds of excessive pretrial publicity,

change of venue, and jury misconduct.

The courts found no merit in those appeals

and they were denied,

while one by one, the teens, now middle-aged men,

have been paroled.

Billy Flynn, who pulled the trigger,

was released in 2015.

He addressed the court then, once again, in tears.

- I felt a tremendous amount of shame.

- Do you think about Billy Flynn, what he's doing?

All the other guys? - I do sometimes, you know?

And it makes me angry, but I'm a person

that doesn't wanna live in bitterness and anger.

- In our interview,

what Pamela Smart did want to talk about

was her sentence, life without parole.

- I'm not even arguing of trying my case again.

What happened happened, you know, at trial.

And I was found guilty, and I was sentenced,

and I'm in prison,

and I've spent nearly 29 years here now,

So at this point, all I'm saying is,

is the sentence fair?

- That's the kind of question

many criminal justice reform advocates are asking.

More and more states are rethinking mandatory sentencing

and the value of life without parole.

- A lot of forward, progressive- thinking governors are saying

that this sentence is archaic.

It leaves no room for any real change in rehabilitation

and redemption or mercy.

- And if rehabilitation is the goal,

Pamela Smart would say she's the poster child.

- I have one master's in law and one in English literature,

and I'm working on a doctorate in Biblical studies right now.

- She's an inmate advocate, studies music,

and she does this, praise dancing.

- Praise dancing, which I do often in church,

it makes me feel free.

It's one of the times here that I do feel free.

- Friends who have stood by her

have waged a social media campaign

to get Pamela Smart out of prison, #FreePamSmart.

They say it's unfair that the person who pulled the trigger

and killed Gregg Smart is free,

while Pamela is not.

- So legally, what's left?

- What's left is I have a petition

in front of the New Hampshire Governor.

I'm asking that my sentence be reduced

to anything but life with no parole.

- Why do you believe that you should be allowed to walk free?

- I know if I get out of prison tomorrow,

I'm gonna get a job, and I'm gonna be a productive citizen.

And I just feel like enough is enough.

- In the past, members of Gregg's family have said

they oppose her release,

and as the convicted mastermind,

she should serve more time than the others.

Bill Spencer looks back on all the years of news coverage

and sees a gaping hole.

- Don't forget about Gregg Smart.

He's been overshadowed for so many years.

This was a young-- from everybody I've talked to,

beautiful, young guy with his whole life ahead of him

and so much promise.

Um, he should be here now.

- Pamela Smart filed yet another petition

with the state of New Hampshire in 2018.

She asked that her sentence be changed

so she would be allowed to have a parole hearing.

Andru Volinsky was a member of the state's executive council

that considered her request.

- There were letters from inmates.

There were letters from family members.

I learned that she accomplished a great deal

while in prison.

- More than 500 pages about what a good person

Pamela Smart is. And then...

- Ten little words blew her chance at a hearing

to smithereens.

She again denied responsibility for Gregg Smart's murder,

so the council voted against her request

for a change of sentence.

- If Ms. Smart's petition had omitted any reference

to whether she was guilty or not guilty,

and had simply focused on her good efforts while in prison,

I would have voted for a hearing.

- I think it's-- The problem is it's sort of unpopular

for a governor to say, "okay, I'll let her go,"

when she's not taking responsibility

for what happened. - Well, actually,

I am taking responsibility for what happened.

- But you know what I mean, more direct responsibility--

- Right. - That you ordered this murder.

- So I'm supposed to admit to something that I didn't do

just to get out of prison? I don't get it.

- Paul Maggiotto has strong words for Pamela Smart.

More than once, he's called her a sociopath.

- This is a personal opinion? - It's a personal opinion.

I mean, I don't have the ability to bring

a psycho-psychoanalyst to her and interviewer questions,

but look at her behavior.

Okay, maybe she's not a sociopath.

Whatever she is, she's a sick woman.

- Pamela Smart wrote you a note.

- She did. She wrote me a note basically saying,

I've heard you say on the media that I have no remorse.

And I do have remorse for what happened with the boys,

and I do have remorse for my husband's death.

And I wrote her back and basically said,

I get you have that remorse, but you've never expressed remorse

for planning the murder or for taking, uh,

responsibility for the murder.

- Will you ever say, "I did this" Or, "I--

- No. - "I told them to do this"?

- No, because I did not tell them to do this.

I didn't ask them to do that, and no, I will not.

- So far, all of Pamela's petitions

to be considered for parole have been denied.

But she says she'll never stop trying to win her freedom.

- And that's all for this edition

of "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered".

I'm Craig Melvin. Thank you for watching.