Pamela Smart, who is imprisoned for life, acknowledges her role in her husband's 1990 murder.
Pamela Smart, who is currently serving life in prison for her involvement in plotting the murder of her husband, has for the first time in a video statement taken full responsibility for his death. Smart, now 56 years old, was a 22-year-old media coordinator at a high school when she began a relationship with a 15-year-old student who ended up shooting and killing her husband, Gregory Smart, in Derry, New Hampshire. The shooter was released in 2015 after serving a 25-year sentence. Despite claims of ignorance concerning the plot, Smart was convicted of being an accomplice to first-degree murder and other crimes, and was sentenced to life without parole.
Smart has now been incarcerated for nearly 34 years. In this statement, she explains that through her involvement in a writing group, she started to confront her own role in the events that led to her husband's death.
"For me, that was really difficult, 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 emotion-laden 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 for so long - almost like a coping mechanism - because the truth of being so responsible was very difficult for me."
Smart requested a meeting with New Hampshire's five-member Executive Council and Gov. Chris Sununu to have "an honest conversation." However, her request was turned down in 2022, leading her to file a petition with the state Supreme Court, which was dismissed.
A cousin of Gregory Smart, Val Fryatt, pointed out that Smart avoided mentioning his name in the video. "She danced around it and accepted full responsibility without admitting the facts around what made her ‘fully responsible’," Fryatt told the Associated Press.
Smart is currently held at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County, New York. Despite being behind bars, she has earned two master's degrees, tutored fellow inmates, been ordained as a minister, and was part of an inmate liaison committee. She now asserts that she is remorseful and has been rehabilitated.
The trial garnered significant media attention and was one of the first high-profile cases in America involving a sexual relationship between a school staff member and a student. The case inspired Joyce Maynard's 1992 novel "To Die For", which was later adapted into a 1995 film starring Nicole Kidman and Joaquin Phoenix. The killer, William Flynn, and three other accomplices cooperated with prosecutors and served shorter sentences before being released.
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In her video statement, Pamela Smart acknowledged that she had deflected blame for her husband's murder for a long time, but now, while at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, she has acknowledged her full responsibility in the US.
Gregory Smart's cousin, Val Fryatt, noted that despite Smart's admission of responsibility, she did not mention Gregory's name in the video, stating that she danced around the facts.
