Plot Synopsis

PAMELA SMART: AN AMERICAN MURDER MYSTERY is a three-part special the centers on 22-year-old teacher Pamela Smart, who finds her husband Gregg dead on the floor of their southern New Hampshire condo on May 1, 1990, leaving the town of Derry stunned. Scouring the region for clues, police shift their attention to Gregg's grieving widow, Pamela Smart, who has been making curious television appearances publicizing her plight. When investigators discover Pamela has beenhaving a sordid affair with high school student, Billy Flynn, a complicated web of lies and deceit unravel, revealing one of the most scandalous crimes of the century. Created by the team that brought viewers the record-breaking AMERICAN MURDER MYSTERY franchise, this new installment examines the case that fascinated the country with interviews from the story's key players, including Det. Daniel Pelletier, the police detective who tirelessly chased down leads; Bill Spencer, the investigative reporter who followed the case from the very beginning; Paul Maggiotto, the prosecutor who painstakingly crafted the case; and an exclusive interview with the defendant herself, Pamela Smart, who maintains her innocence decades after her conviction. Notable interviews featured in the special include: crime and justice journalist Diane Dimond; Pamela Smart's former intern, Cecelia Pierce; criminal defense attorney Mark Sisti; and others close to the case, including legal experts, journalists and friends.

Pamela Smart was a 22-year-old media coordinator at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton, New Hampshire when she first met 16-year-old Billy Flynn, a sophomore at the school. What began as a mentorship quickly evolved into a scandalous affair between Smart and Flynn, despite Pam's recent marriage to 24-year-old Gregg Smart. On May 1, 1990, Pamela returned home from a school board meeting to discover her condo had been ransacked and Gregg was shot pointblank in the back of the head. Police feared this was more than a botched robbery, and their suspicions were confirmed when the father of Vance Lattime, a friend of Billy Flynn's, reported he heard his son and Flynn discussing how one of his guns was the murder weapon with their friends, Raymond Fowler and Patrick Randall. Investigators brought the four boys in for questioning, and it didn't take long for them to uncover the sordid affair, and a murder plot designed by Pamela herself. Claiming abuse by Gregg, Pamela recruited her lover and his three friends -Lattime, Fowler and Randall, to kill her husband; she also confided her plans in her student aide, Cecilia Pierce. To lure the evidence needed to convict Pamela, police convinced Pierce to wear a wire to a meeting with Pamela, resulting in a series of damning recordings of Pamela scheming after the crime. Pamela was arrested for first-degree murder on August 1, 1990. In the first nationally televised courtroom trial, Pamela Smart recounted a very different story about what happened to Gregg. She claimed that Flynn saw Gregg as a romantic rival, and independently killed him to eliminate competition for Pamela's heart. Ultimately, the explosive recordings and the boys' testimony against Pamela Smart led to her conviction for the murder of Gregg Smart. She is currently serving a life sentence without the chance of parole at a maximum-security prison in Upstate New York. Nearly three decades have passed, and Pamela Smart maintains her innocence.