Pamela Smart, a former high school employee serving a life sentence for recruiting a student she was having an affair with to kill her husband in 1990, has accepted full responsibility for his death for the first time. Smart, who has been in prison for over 30 years, stated that she had to acknowledge her responsibility for her husband’s murder, something she had previously tried to deflect. She admitted that she feared losing everything in a divorce and threatened to break up with the student if he did not commit the murder.
Smart was convicted of conspiring with the student, William Flynn, to fatally shoot her husband, Gregory Smart, who was 24 at the time. Flynn testified that Smart needed her husband to be killed, which led to his cooperation in the crime. The murder was one of the first high-profile cases to involve a sexual relationship between a school employee and a student, resulting in a trial that became a media circus. The case inspired the 1995 movie “To Die For” starring Nicole Kidman and Joaquin Phoenix.
In a letter to New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, Smart acknowledged that she was responsible for her husband’s death and requested a conversation with him and New Hampshire’s Executive Council. Smart has exhausted all her judicial appeal options, and her previous petition for a sentencing reduction was rejected in 2022. She now has to go through the council for any changes to her sentence. Sununu’s office stated that Smart will be given the opportunity to petition the council like anyone else, but it is not currently on councilor Joseph Kenney’s radar.
Smart stated that she was encouraged to face her responsibility for her husband’s murder through a writing program, where she delved into spaces that she did not want to acknowledge. She described the process of acknowledging her culpability as difficult, as she had previously used blame deflection as a coping mechanism. Smart’s admittance of her role in the murder comes after over 30 years of maintaining her innocence and attempting to appeal her sentence through various legal avenues.
William Flynn and three other teenagers implicated in the murder cooperated with prosecutors and were released after serving time for their involvement. Smart, however, has remained in prison and has now taken responsibility for her actions in a bid to seek a reduction in her sentence. Her video statement expressing her newfound accountability for her husband’s murder marks a significant development in a case that has garnered widespread attention for decades. As Smart navigates the process of petitioning for a sentencing change through the Executive Council, the outcome remains uncertain.
