Classroom to Crime Scene: Pamela Smart's Deadly Plot

0:40 Strikingly beautiful, some would say, and outrageously popular. Pamela Smart just seemed to have it all, and that's just the way things that always been for her. She was born on August sixteenth, nineteen sixty seven, in Coral Gables, Florida, but she and her family moved to Deary, New Hampshire when Pamela was in the eighth grade. There she went to high school, where she became a ring leading cheerleader with an always sunny disposition. Pamela was always surrounded by friends and always seemed to be the center of attention, and that's exactly how things were when she went to college as well. Now studying communications at the University of Florida, Pamela became the host of her very own radio program.

1:26 Pamela had gone from being the sweet and vivacious cheerleader to the maiden of Metal. A huge Van Halen fan, Pamela played their music all through her show and even got a custom license plate for her car that simply read Haylen. She was just as popular as ever, and she was still very much the center of everyone's attention. But for Pamela, it still wasn't enough. She wanted something more. She wanted to be more. What Pamela really wanted was to be on TV, and it was her big dream to become an anchor. Her degree in communications would set her on the right track to do just that. But when she had one year left to finish her studies, she came across a potential hiccup in that plan. Charming, long haired and handsome Greg Smart was a metalhead who was just two years older than Pamela. Their paths crossed in New Hampshire when pam was visiting her parents for the Christmas holidays, and that was that. It was one of those instant connections, one of those love at first sight and the consequences be damned sort of situations. But her new relationship with Greg put Pamela at a crossroads.

2:39 She still had to go back to Florida to finish up her degree if she ever wanted to fulfill her dreams of becoming a news anchor, but Greg was based in New Hampshire. Could Pam really give up everything she'd been working for just for the possibility that things would work out with her new boyfriend. Lucky for Pam she never had to find out. Finding himself at the same crossroads, Greg picked up and moved to Florida rather than face the possibility of losing Pam. The young couple lived together while Pam finished up her education, and then they got married a year later. With their whole futures ahead of them, Pam and Gregg then settled back down in New Hampshire to work on building a life together. They bought a house, Greg and Pam got a dog. She named it Haylen, after her favorite band. Greg then got a job at his father's insurance company. He cut off his long hair and wore a suit and tie to work every day, and Pam found herself in a situation where her husband looked nothing like the man she'd married. Remember she still the maiden of Metal, and the two started bickering all the time. According to Pam, Gregg began cheating on her during the first year they were married, but it's difficult to say if that's true or not with any degree of certainty. But what we do know is by months seven of their marriage, Pam and Gregg's whirlwind romance had hit the rocks. The two of them were still married, but growing further and further apart every day, trying to make herself feel better, Pamela threw herself into her new job,

4:12 where she was the media coordinator at Winneconnutt High School. I feel like I mispronounced that, but let's keep moving. There she found herself the center of attention once again. The halls and corridors were filled with excited chatter as people pushed and shoved to get to the front of the crowds to talk to Pam. She was objectively beautiful. She was interesting and intelligent. She was a teacher who liked the same kind of music that the students did, and the teenagers at the high school couldn't get enough of her. Instead of spending her spare time with the other teachers at the school, or even people her own age, Pam was spending more and more time with her students. Classes rolled over into break times and after school activities, and then she began volunteering in the evenings and on the weekends too. One student in particular stood out amongst the rest. Tall, lanky, and boasting a mane of long, dark hair, Billy Flynn went up several notches in Pam's books just because his favorite band was also Van Halen.

5:15 The next thing anyone knew. Billy and Pam were working very closely together through the long winter nights making a music video for school project. According to some accounts, one day in February nineteen ninety, when Billy was still only fifteen years old and Pamela was twenty two, she turned around to him and asked, do you think about me? Because I think about you all the time. The seal was broken, charged whispers turned into stolen moments, and about two weeks later, Pam had taken Billy's virginity. She then strung him along with more sexual favors and platitudes, But shortly after that she began to tighten the reins. On the one hand, she was giving Billy pictures of herself posing in only her lingerie. On the other, she was telling him that they had to end their relationship because she was in love with their husband, Greg. Then, in stolen moments filled with heated passion, she would tell Billy that Greg abused her and that she feared the only way they could ever be free of him would be if someone killed him. If she tried to divorce Greg, he would take the house, the car, and maybe even her dog, Halen, And then her life would be ruined.

6:28 The trap was set. The only thing left to do was to wait. On May first, nineteen ninety, just a few months after Pam began sleeping with one of her students, she came home to find greg dead. Her home had been ransacked, and lying face down in the foyer was her husband. He'd been shot in the back of the head. What at first looked like in attempted burglary that had ended in disaster quickly morphed into a murder investigation, and the heart of it was Pamela herself. Detective found her cold and callous, not at all like a grieving widow who had just married her husband only about a year ago. But what they lacked was proof that Pam had anything to do with it. Her alibi was air tight and placed her across town at the time of the murder, and so the investigation stalled to a halt. That was until a tip over the phone named a high school student as a witness. Cecilia Pierce was in the inner circle and allegedly knew about a murder plot to kill Gregory Smart, But before the investigators could interview her, they found themselves chasing up another lead. Rumors about the murder had been circling around the school like wildfire, and one parent was more concerned about them than the others. Vance Latimer Junior, who usually just went by Junior, was very good friends with Billy, and even though he didn't own a gun himself, his father did. With the school absolutely buzzing with rumors and speculations that Greg had been shot

8:01 in the back of the head, Jr's father went to check his gun just to put his own mind at ease. He was shocked to find that his gun had been cleaned within an inch of its life. Suspecting that he was actually in possession of the murder weapon, Jr's father took it down to the police station and handed it in. While the gun was in for processing, investigators closed in on Cecilia. She was reluctant to speak at first. She considered herself special to call herself friends with Pamela Smart, But with the threat of being arrested herself looming over her head, Cecilia cracked. She confessed to knowing about a murder plot to kill Greg Smart, and she was willing to wear a wire to record her conversations with the mastermind behind it. During these recordings, Pam can be heard talking about the plan to kill her husband, and she can be heard coaching Cecilia on what to say if investigators approach her. You'd be better off just lying, she says.

9:01 A few months later, Pam found herself in the car park at the school and she was surrounded by officers. What's up, she asked one of them. Well, Pam, I have some good news and I have some bad news. The good news is we've solved the murder of your husband. The bad news is you're under arrest. In court, Pam, Billy, and three other teenage boys, including Jr. Faced charges. Pam admitted to having an affair with the miner, but claimed she had no idea that Billy or anyone else had been planning on killing her husband. The trial quickly derailed into a case of he said, she said, but the prosecution painted a clear picture in everyone's minds. Pam had manipulated young and impressionable students, and she'd had them to do her dirty work for her. She was found guilty of being an accomplice to first degree murder. She was given a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Her appeals process actually ran out in March of twenty twenty three, when she lost her final appeal.

10:07 She will now officially spend the rest of her life behind bars. Billy Flynn was found guilty of second degree murder and was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for forty years, but with the possibility that his sentence could be deferred to twelve years if he maintained good behavior. He was granted parole in March twenty fifteen, just a few days after the twenty fifth anniversary of Greg's murder. Another boy named Patrick Randall was found guilty of the same charges and received a similar sentence with a similar release date. Jr. Was found guilty of being an accomplice to second degree murder, and he was released from prison in two thousand and five. Raymond Fowler, who waited in the car during the murder, was released in two thousand and three. That is ten minute murder for Today Brief and Bingeable True Crime. I'm Joe, I'm the host, and thank you for taking the time to listen to the podcast today. If you're off to binge more episodes, don't let me stop you keep right on moving and if you're a new listener, hit subscribe wherever you'd like to listen to podcasts, be sure to connect with ten Minute Murder any place that you're on social media, and that is going to keep you update on the podcast.

11:28 And you know, I post all kinds of things on the social media, the stuff that never makes it to what you're listening to right now, just current things that are happening. I'll put that on the social media. I sounded like a boomer just now. I'm going to put that on the Facebook. My bad. And if you've got a question or a story you'd like me to cover, you can email it to me Joe at ten minute Murder dot com. And here is an email. They'd like to remain anonymous. So here's the question. What is something that you do in private that you may be embarrassed that anyone knew? And the answer is kind of embarrassing. It's not really embarrassing. I guess a lot of us do it. But I hyper fixate on different things, the strangest things like today. Now, keep in mind, before I say this, I'm not a dancer. I know that that may surprise you. I seem like a dancer, right, I'm not a dancer. But I watched the choreography for the dance break, the little dance break of the Janet Jackson video, if that's what the song is called. If I watched it over and over. I love Janet Jackson, and I watched the original and I watch the behind the scenes videos of Janet learning it, doing it on tour, and then finally, like everyday people doing that same dance, and I ended up with a guy that was just absolutely killing it in the cold ale at the grocery store.

12:51 And if you don't know what I'm talking about, just google dance break in Janet Jackson's If you're gonna spend some time watching that, probably you're welcome. But that's kind of an answer. I hyperfixate on things, and I don't know how to stop doing it. I don't even know that I want to stop doing it because it helps this podcast quite a bit. I'll hyperfixate on things having to do with the podcast, and then I'll just knock stuff out. I'll get stuff done really quick when I hyperfixate on it. But that's it. Thank you for your email, mister or missus anonymous, And that's it. That's your episode for today. Thank you for listening to ten minute Murder