Pamela Smart, who is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for plotting with a teenage student to murder her husband in 1990, has accepted responsibility for his death for the first time.
In her latest plea to New Hampshire officials to reduce her sentence, Smart acknowledged that she previously “deflected blame” instead of admitting her own role in the murder “because the truth of being so responsible was very difficult” for her, according to a videotaped statement released Tuesday. The message concluded with a request to meet with New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and the New Hampshire Executive Council, which advises the governor, among other things.
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Smart, 56, was a 22-year-old high school media coordinator when she started an affair with a 15-year-old child who subsequently shot and killed her husband, Gregory Smart, in Derry, New Hampshire. 2015 saw the release of the shooter, who had served a 25-year sentence. Despite Pamela Smart’s denial of knowledge about the conspiracy, the court found her guilty of first-degree murder and other charges, and sentenced her to life in prison without parole.
Smart has been in custody for approximately 34 years. Despite multiple attempts to appeal her sentence, she told CBS Boston in a 2019 interview from prison that she would never admit to arranging the murder. However, Smart stated in Tuesday’s statement that she began to “dig deeper into her own responsibility” after participating in a writing group that “encouraged us to go beyond and into spaces that we didn’t want to be in.”
“For me, that was really hard, because going into those places, in those spaces, is where I found myself responsible for something I desperately didn’t want to be responsible for—my husband’s murder,” she said with a quavering voice. “I had to acknowledge for the first time in my own mind and my own heart how responsible I was, because I had deflected blame all the time, I think, almost as if it were a coping mechanism, because the truth of being so responsible was very difficult for me.”
Smart stated that she has reflected on her history and believes she has changed since her sentence.
“Now that I am older and able to reflect on things, I can see how many mistakes I made, how distorted my judgment was, and how immature I was. “Looking back, you know, I’m such a different person than I was back then,” she admitted. “I mean, 34 years is a very long time, and during that time, I’ve done a lot of work on myself.”
She requested an “honest conversation” with New Hampshire’s five-member Executive Council, which authorizes state contracts and appoints to courts and state agencies while also advising the governor and Sununu. The council denied her most recent request in 2022, prompting Smart to file an appeal with the state Supreme Court, which dismissed her suit last year.
“I’m respectfully asking for the opportunity to come before you, the New Hampshire Executive Council, and have an honest conversation with you about my incarceration, my acceptance of responsibility, and any concerns or questions you might have,” Smart stated at the conclusion of the video. “If I could come in person or via video conference so that we could share an honest conversation, I would be extremely grateful for that.”
Gregory Smart’s cousin, Val Fryatt, told The Associated Press that Smart “danced around” and acknowledged full responsibility “without admitting the facts surrounding what made her ‘fully responsible.'”
Fryatt observed that Smart did not mention her cousin’s name in the video, “not even once.”
We sent messages to council members, Sununu, and the attorney general’s office requesting feedback on the petition and statement.
Smart had exhausted her legal appeals when she submitted her third petition to the Executive Council, requesting a sentence reduction hearing in 2022. The council’s rejection spurred her later appeal to the state Supreme Court, which refused the motion, stating that compelling the elected board to reconsider its decision would violate New Hampshire’s separation of powers.
Smart is spending time at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County, New York. While incarcerated, she earned two master’s degrees, educated other convicts, received pastoral ordination, and served on an inmate liaison committee. She stated that she is remorseful and has undergone rehabilitation.
Her trial was a media circus and one of America’s first high-profile cases involving a sexual relationship between a school employee and a kid. Joyce Maynard authored “To Die For” in 1992, based on the Smart case. This inspired the 1995 film of the same name, starring Nicole Kidman and Joaquin Phoenix. William Flynn, the murderer, and three other teenagers cooperated with the authorities. After serving shorter sentences, the authorities released them.
