Episode 464: The Pamela Smart Case (Part2)

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. What's the answer, and what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

Hysterical, a new podcast from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free on Wondery. Plus. Hey weirdos, I'm ash.

And I'm Alayna, and this is morbid.

It's so morbid here, it's so morbid because it's the day after the motherfucking Scandival finale. Yeah, you're gonna have to bear with us for like, a moment here, because maybe a few moments. The Vanderpump rules Super Bowl has begun.

Started, really, yeah, commenced. The playoffs have begun, I would say.

Commenced, commenced, yeah, let the games, let the games begin.

Yeah, I don't know.

We had the finale of Vanderpump Rules last night. I know some of you are like, skip, skip, skip, and that's okay, it's okay, it's okay to be lame. But for those of you who partake, those of you who celebrate, was that, or was that not the most infuriating thing you've ever seen?

Like, we've seen a lot of cheating go down on this show. Yeah, we have never seen cheating to this level go down on this show.

When Sandoval walked into Raquel's led and galaxy-lit apartment.

Mama, grow up, I left my soul, left my body. When Sandoval called Raquel Ariana, and she still was like, I love you.

Oh my God, I was beside myself also, I was beside myself on the couch. Are you team?

He absolutely fucking said, I love you and then said he didn't say it or are you team? He said they love you, He definitely said, I love you. A girl I saw on TikTok, literally, like, slowed it down and he said, I love you.

Why are you playing mind games with your mistress? He's a lot like what? he's a lot. They're both really disgusting.

The way he talked to Ariana last night, I was like, Ariana, you are dodged, the bullet of a century, you are thriving. My Goddess. The spell she did with Kristen, it worked.

It absolutely worked. Look at her flourishing out here in these streets. When Kristen did that spell with her, we looked at each other and we were like, that shit worked, cause, look at her. That's why we have Selenite.

She doesn't even give a shit. We have Selenite up in here too, and last night, watching Ariana on Watch What Happens live in the revenge dress of the century. I showed John and I was like, I was like, tell me, this isn't a goddess that we should like worship at her feet.

Also, how do you cheat on that exquisite looking human snack being? They always cheat down always, but like, how do you even cheat? period?

And remember, I, I think I asked my ex boyfriend straight out cause he was like a big old cheater. And I asked him one of the times. Cause I was like, I just really like to get insight on this cause. Like, I've never actually met somebody that does this kind of heinous shit. I've never met a monster like you do tell.

I was like, So can I interview you real quick? I was like, why? uh, why? That girl? Like, what, what's that about? And he literally said, I was like, Why is it always like, this is making me feel uncomfortable? And he was like, Yeah, it's just really. He's like, it's easy.

It's easier. Wow, and I was like, Wow, you really? just, you just gave that just right up, like, just, I don't want to have to work for the cheating. No, it's so true.

But they fucking worked for this, I mean, they hid it or tried to hide this shit for months and months, and months and months. They'll work to continue it, but they don't want to work to have to get it started. I just and Sandoval did not work to get this started.

I mean, well, yeah, Rachel was ready and willing to start this whole thing. And the fact that he had the motherfucking audacity to blame it on Ariana. Like, Oh she, if she had just followed me, what if she just followed me to Schwartz's house? What about that thing that you build throughout a nine year relationship called trust?

One of my favorite parts, and don't worry, we'll get to the case, but we just got to spout this out. One of my favorite parts was that it definitely was Ariana's fault. Because she was just never in a place for him to tell her that he was cheating on her. For seven months, the vibes were never right, but he literally said she was just never open to hearing it. I'm sorry. When are you open to hearing that? Your partner of almost 10 years has been having an affair with one of your best friends for seven months?

When will you ever be in a place of like, you know what? I'd love to hear that? Let's sit down and chat about it. Yeah, I'm really open to hearing something catastrophic today, so let's sit down and you can just tell me whatever you want.

And then, just like one more small thing, and then we'll get on with it. Him, like her, trying to talk to him and him, just like taking the longest fucking pause to take a sip of that drink. Because he had to think of what he was saying next, because he just can't, are you? He can't human.

And also I feel like he had to get like an advertising moment in there. Oh yeah, I was like, we're advertising right now. Well, and he just, he doesn't know how to human like he had to like.

Take a minute and be like, How do I human in this moment? So you know, if you don't watch guys, get on it, get on it.

Peacock has a whole like playlist, basically, of the most important episodes. Oh, there you go, so that you know what's up. But honestly, I wish we had, like, a code for you or something.

I know, maybe start from season one. I'll give you all my login, I'll give all of you my login. I don't think that would work.

I think they would catch on to that one, but you know, you never know, you know. But yeah, so Vanderpump aside.

I didn't think I'd ever say that in my life. Oh my goodness, here's another scandal for you. Cheaters everywhere Theme of the episode today is Cheaters.

Cheaters? This is part two of the Pam Smart Greg Smart series. It's not really a series, it's just a two-parter part two.

Part Two But when we left off in part one, we got all the yucca details about Pam and Billy's quote-unquote relationship. It's hard for me to call it a relationship because she's an adult and he's a child. Yeah, so that's hard.

They're crime. We heard about that. We heard about Pam and her husband Greg's relationship becoming way more toxic. And finally, how she asked her teenage lover. At this point, I believe he's 16 year old Billy Flynn to kill her husband. So if you don't remember from part one, let me just give you, like, a quick little recap.

The plan was for Billy to go into the house through the basement. Pam was going to leave that basement door unlocked. Billy would wait there for Greg to get home. He would shoot him and stage the scene to be a robbery. And remember, Pam would be like she would get a whole alibi out of this because she would be away at some kind of school board meeting.

Okay, like we said in part one, Billy had no gun, no car, no license, and he also wasn't quite sure how he felt about murdering a human. Wow, so the first time Pam asked him, he couldn't go through with it.

But, like, we know, she lost it on him. But at the very end of part one, we heard that Billy had another quote-unquote opportunity. Because there was another school board meeting that Pam was going to be away at. So now let's get into exactly how Pam, Billy and some of Billy's friends actually did carry out their plan to commit murder. So if you remember from part one, two of Billy's best friends were J.r and Patrick, who was known as Pete.

And they were the ones who liked to work on junk cars together in J.

R.

's front yard, Yes. They were the first best friends that Billy made when his family had moved to Seabrook three years earlier, and they were both very instrumental in helping Billy get through life. When his father died, their families all knew them as like the three musketeers.

They did literally everything together. In fact, there wasn't a lot that they wouldn't have done for each other. Uh-oh, and that statement was about to be taken to the next level, uh-oh.

So the first time Billy brought up the idea, you know, the one about killing a whole ass man to his friends, was the first or second week of April. Okay, I can't be like too sure. But he told his two friends that there would be a lot in it for them. Once the worst part was done, which he said obviously was killing Greg. They could take any valuables that they wanted from the house.

Oh, fantastic, yeah, silver linings, yeah, woo-hoo. So one afternoon, Ralph Welch, who I mentioned it in part one, he had been staying with J.R.

Okay, he, like, got kicked out of his house, so he was staying at the Latham house he had a cousin over. Ralph did that ended up eavesdropping on a conversation between Billy, Pete and J.R about the murder. Oh, damn.

They're sloppy. So, rather than like, contact authorities or tell someone the cousin who's Ray Ray Fowler? not Lloyd Fowler, Ray Fowler, Ray Fowler? Just decided he wanted in on it. Like, instead of going to anybody and being like, Hey, they're gonna kill someone, he was like, Oh yeah, like, can I get in on this?

What can I get out of this? Like, What's up? Wow, everybody. Yeah, a piece of shit.

How I always wonder, how we say it every time, how do these people find each other? how do these people find each other? It's so wild to me, it really is.

Now, Ray was a few years older than Billy and his friends Ray was 18. He already had way more than his fair share of run-ins with the police, and the most recent was his four-month stay at the Rockingham County House of Corrections. He had already served time.

Oh, okay, yeah, no big deal. He said he was most interested in the burglary and he would help with the murder if he had to. Oh, okay.

He was really just there to burglarize the house. Yeah, absolutely. Now that he had a full team assembled, though, Billy was like, Okay, like, I guess we should start looking for a weapon so that we can carry out this murder now. A lot of the kids involved thought that finding the gun would be the easiest part of their plan. I don't really know why.

They were like, Yeah, we should be able to do that, that's why, but they were surprised at what a hard time they were having. So that's when they decided that they should find a large hunting knife as a backup plan, a large hunting knife.

As a backup plan, your backup plan is to stab this man hand-to-hand combat with a hunting knife. Like, what? And you're worried about shooting him? Like, you can tell that these are just kids.

Kids like their frontal lobes, like this is wild, are not developed, it's wild. So yeah, they decided to look for a large hunting knife as a backup plan.

But, you know, they were still going to look for a gun now, while the other boys kept on trying their different connections to find a gun. Billy went to Pam and he was like, Hey, we're still having trouble looking for a car to use, since, you know, none of us have a license. And she was like, Oh my god, that's fine. I have a Honda CRX and you guys can use it. I'll park it behind the building on the night of the school board meeting.

I'll leave the key in the ignition, take off as soon as you get there. Okay, no problem, yeah.

So the plan did come to fruition for the first time in mid-April. Billy packed a duffel bag of dark clothing that he was going to change into. And the four boys, Billy, Pete, Ray and Jr. loaded into Pam's car, which was parked behind the building. Like, she said, it was going to be, and they started making their way to the condo in Derry.

But as they were driving, Billy was getting way more anxious the closer they got. He's starting to freak the fuck out. He didn't want to go through with the murder anymore. And he actually started giving Ray Fowler the wrong directions so that they would get lost. It's like, my guy, just stop.

Like, you don't want to do this, you don't have to do this. Everything in the world is telling you not to, including your own conscience, which apparently you have. So they did end up getting lost, but somehow, Ray finally did figure out his way to the condo.

But when they got there, Greg had already gotten home, so already the plan was fucked. And so they felt like they had missed their window, so they headed back to Hampton. Also, I can't help but think of Greg in that moment. Like just carrying out his normal night in his own home, having no idea how close he was to the people that were going to murder him.

That's what's crazy to me is. He had no idea these kids were driving around, just waiting, and that this whole plan was in motion. Right? Like, they got to his condo and they very well would have been inside had he not gotten home before they got there.

Wow, that's so sad, it's so sad, and it's just so scary. Yeah, now, when Billie went to Pam and explained what happened, she was just the same as last time, probably worse. Absolutely furious with him.

She was like, If you loved me as much as you said, then you would stop making excuses, you'd follow through. EW. She went with the whole. I don't know if we should be together anymore if you can't do this for me. Wow, what a piece of shit. Yeah, a piece of shit.

This is the second time now that she's done this. So finally, Billie broke down. And he said, Next time I won't fail, Oh my God, fail, like, No, you're failing if you're murdering someone.

That's a big old failure, like, go down the right path here, Billie, walk away. It's so sad to see how many times he almost did. But she brought him right back into her fucking tangled web. She knew that he could be manipulated.

And he was so. The next time came a few weeks later, on May 1st, when Pam was once again scheduled to be at a school board meeting. So Pete and Jr agreed to help a second time. But now they decided that they wanted to be paid. Wow, so not only did they want the valuables at the house, they wanted payment.

So Billie went to Pam about this and she was like, Okay, I'll give them $1,000 each, but I'm going to pay it out in installments of $50 per week. So it doesn't seem suspicious. Oh yeah, you paying these two kids for literally no reason at all is not suspicious at all. Yeah, that wouldn't be suspicious at all. Yeah, it's just the amount, that's all, that's crazy.

You're insane. So. Otherwise, the murder was just to move forward like Pam had planned all along. Now, in the days leading up to the murder, she made sure that they weren't going to fuck it up. This time, she drove around the neighborhood, with Billie and Cecilia pointing out where they should park the car so that they wouldn't be noticed sneaking into the condo. And JR agreed to take one of his father's guns to use, but they still planned on bringing the knife with them just in case.

And this time, they were taking JR's grandmother's car. Oh man, this is just grosser and grosser. They drove a Nana's car to commit murder. So on the morning of May 1st, Greg went to work. He did some paperwork, returned a couple phone calls, and then he ducked out of the office early.

The reason he left early was because he was going to be having dinner with a few clients that evening. But in the meantime, he went to his parents house, he played with his little niece, chatted with his parents, fixed a flat tire and then went off to all his appointments. So it was 8.30 at night by the time he finished up with his clients and headed back home to Derry. And by that time, all the arrangements had been made.

Pam had left the basement door unlocked. And she told the boys where all the jewelry was, all the valuables, told them exactly where they could find everything. And she said the rest of the details she didn't want to know. Oh, okay, I don't want to know. I was like, but you do know because you planned this entire thing from beginning to end.

Yeah, and I'll let you do it, I'll let you deal with all that and live with that. Yeah, but I don't want to know, but I don't want to know the details.

Yeah, fuck you, okay. So it was still light out when they all arrived in Derry, so they drove around a little bit before J.R parked the car in a shopping plaza near Misty Morning Drive.

Billy and Pete sat in the back seat. They were tap—oh, excuse me, taping their fingers so that they wouldn't leave fingerprints. Oh my God, they taped their fingers, Jesus.

Then Billy loaded the.

38 revolver that j.

R had taken from his dad's collection. And once the sun went down, they Billy and Pete. The two of them, crept around the backside of the condo until they found the door that led to Greg and Pam's unit, the basement door. Now they made their way inside. Billy had to chase around the dog, who was barking and growling, and he was like, Ah, get the fuck out of my house.

Oh, I hate that, but Billy got him into the basement and this is like a tiny dog. Yeah, it's a what is it? a shih tzu? I think I was going to say, it's a little guy.

Exactly exactly so. Then, once the dog was out of the way, they headed upstairs, they ripped apart the couple's bedroom.

Pete threw everything of value into a suit, a pillowcase that he'd taken from their bed. Wow, and then they did the same thing on the first floor, they turned over side tables, lamps, just grabbed whatever they thought was valuable. Pete grabbed a knife from the kitchen and cut open multiple pillows on the couch. And, just like, spread the stuffing out across the living room floor, I guess, for dramatic effect.

Hmm, I was like, what was the point of that? Yeah, like, was that just for fun? Like, I don't think.

Robbers slice pillows. No, I mean, I don't know, but yeah, maybe it's weird.

So once they felt like they had sufficiently ransacked the house. Billy and Pete sat in the dark, just waiting for Greg to get home. And as they waited, they talked about the best way to subdue him. When he finally did walk in the door, Billy thought that it might be a good idea to wait in the closet and jump out when Greg finally walked in. Or he suggested that maybe they should throw a towel over his head when he arrived to, like, disorient him.

This man walks into his house and they throw a towel over his head. They're just sitting there, deciding, like, what they're going to do now? Finally, they settled on a strategy. Pete would wait behind the door and surprise Greg when he walked in, and then Billy would turn off all the lights and close the door. Now, a few minutes after they settled on their plan, they watched Greg's truck pull into the driveway.

So in the excitement and anxiety that they were having, Billy and Pete's positions got switched and Billy ended up behind the door. Okay, so Greg walked in the front door, he flicked on the hall light and called out to the dog. Everything was eerily silent for a few seconds, and then Billy jumped out from behind the door and grabbed Greg by his shoulders.

So obviously he's like, stunned, so he yells out and he pulls back hard. But before he could get away, Pete rushes over and he rushes up behind Greg and pushes him to the floor. Then he turns off the lights and closes the door. Now, when he turned back, Billy had Greg on the floor in front of the stairs, just beating him in the face. While Greg was just trying to block any of the blows, this man just walked into his house.

Into his home to this chaos after a full day of work, after spending time with his family earlier. Just being a normal fucking guy.

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So Billy's beating the shit out of him. So Pete rushes over and grabs Greg by the hair and slams his head into the wall. They, like, attacked him brutally, Oh my God, and Pete screams at him. Get down on your knees. And he lunged forward slightly, with the knife in his hand to make Greg do what he wanted to say.

So Greg did, as he was told, and he said, Just don't hurt me, dude, oh my God. He repeatedly asked about the dog, like, Where's the dog? where's the dog? Oh, and Pete finally told him nobody had hurt the dog.

And then Pete demanded that Greg take off his wedding ring and give it to them. EW and Greg said, I can't give it to you. My wife would kill me. So he had obviously no idea that his wife had orchestrated this whole thing, and he's thinking about her getting mad at him.

Oh my God, up until the very end, which I'm sorry, that tells you exactly who Pam was. That he was, like, his whole life is being threatened right now. And he's like, I can't give you this ring. She'll kill me, she'll get mad at me, even if it's me giving it to robbers. Wow, damn, that should tell you everything you need to know, right there.

So telling, like the horrific irony in that statement, Oh, that's awful. My wife would kill me, like, that's really awful. it's terrible.

And just him saying like, don't hurt me, and him saying, like, where's the dog? Like, worrying about everything else around? Like, I just, Oh, that's like, really gut wrenching, that's the perfect word for it. So they fumbled around with his wallet.

They were procrastinating until there was finally nothing left to do but to kill him. So from the moment they started talking about the plan to kill Greg, Pete had been confident that he was going to be able to do it. Without a second thought, he was like, I can do it. He was boasting to his friends, telling them that he was actually curious to know what it would be like. Oh, shut the fuck up.

He was saying he was looking forward to it. Oh, these kind of idiots who, like, later when you hear that, they're like, Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. It's like, I can't wait. Get so wrecked.

Get absolutely wrecked, get so wrecked. My guy like, ugh, that is dark sided that's given.

Dark sided That is truly dark sided. But now he was faced with the reality of actually murdering a human, of course, so things felt a little different than he thought they might.

That's the thing I'm like, you're disgusting for, like, play, acting, like, Oh yeah, I'm actually looking forward to it. It's like, Fuck you dude, like, Okay, tough guy.

Yeah, you're fucked. If you're looking forward to murder and now there's a man sitting in front of you on his knees, begging for his life, what are you going to do?

Exactly, you piece of shit. And he couldn't handle it. Later during the trial, Pete would testify that Greg's comments about the wedding ring and his Excuse me. His pleas for his life made him, in that moment, regret what they were doing. Of course, it did.

So you should have stopped? Mm Hmm, you should have stopped. And you should have said, My guy, your wife sent us to do this. And we don't want to do it. I so wish.

Imagine if they had done that? I so wish that the story ended that way. They should have done that. And she went away for, like, attempted murder or conspiracy, that's the thing.

Like, this should have been like these, if these little boys, and that's the worst part about this, that's what they are, these children. Yeah, they should have had the wherewithal or the, you know, any kind of moral compass here to stop and go. I can't do this.

I was sent here to kill you and I don't want to do it right, and I was sent here by your wife. So you need to get the fuck out of this marriage and you and we got to go away.

Like, like, we're so sorry that we're even here. Greg would be alive, these kids would be, you know, they would have gotten in trouble, but they would have been.

But it wouldn't be what they're in trouble for now. And in the end, they would have been the heroes of the story. They would have saved his life. That's the thing. They would have turned around and been the ones that sat there and went, you know what?

What the fuck were we thinking, agreeing to do this? And they can take their consequences, but it wouldn't have been the consequences they get now, it would have been. We thought about it, we had a we had a heart, yeah.

Like, and to think now, and to hear now. That, like, that kid sat there and regretted it before even doing it, before even having it. But being like, I don't even want to be here. But he still did it. It's like, my guy, you had a chance and you didn't take it and you fucked it.

So whatever the fuck you got after that, you deserve absolutely, and it's so frustrating. absolutely. Oh, what a frustrating story.

It really is, it's just terrible, yeah. So in the moment when Pete realized that he couldn't do it. He looked to Billy and nodded his head in the direction of the revolver that was in Billy's jacket pocket.

So Billy knew what that meant. Obviously. He grabbed the gun from his pocket, he pulled back the hammer and held it right near Greg's head. The three of them stood there. Pete was still gripping Greg by the hair.

And Billy was holding the man to excuse me, holding the gun to the man's head for what he would later say to a jury. Felt like a hundred years. Oh, and Greg is just sitting there, just sitting there with a gun to his head, being like, what the fuck is going to happen?

Right, because at that point he's probably like, are they even going to do this? Or are they just trying to scare me, like, what's going on here? Oh? Then Billy inhaled deeply, and before he pulled the trigger, he said, God, forgive me.

Baby God, I don't know him, I don't know much about him, but I don't think he's going to forgive you for that. If there is a God and you believe in that God, that God does not forgive you. My friend, I can tell you that much.

You just stuck a gun to some man's head because his wife that you are fucking told you to, that's not a real friend. If he's going to forgive you for that, yeah, I don't think that's something that just gets written off in the book. I'm also like, Did you just God?

Are you there? It's me, Margaret, in the middle of a murder. Did you just, God, forgive me? That's what you just did, like, how dare you?

Fuck you, how dare you fuck you like, I'm not religious? but how fucking dare you? no me either?

That's just like disgusting. To bring God into that situation is fucked like, what a mockery that is. It is absolutely, or it feels like at least.

I would think so, so. With the plan completed, the both of them ran for the back door. Pete grabbed the pillowcase full of the valuables, and then they ran through the back door. They jumped the railing on the back porch and ran. There was a big field behind the condo, so they ran through that until they saw the headlights of J.R.'s grandmother's car.

Oh my God, can you imagine if I was his grandma, I'd be like, you have been written out of my will? Oh yeah, and then some.

You've been written out of all the wills, you've been written out of my life, you didn't even get your own will. That's what I would say, exactly.

I'm revoking your right. You don't have one. No, I mean, what do you really have at that point? But the plan was for the other two boys to wait in the parking lot until Billy and Pete returned, but something had changed.

I think they got nervous, so they were parked in a different area than they should have been. So both boys were falling over themselves as they were sprinting through the grass. Until finally, they got to the car and they herded themselves into the back seat and shouted for them to drive. Now, Billy and Pete changed in the back seat as they just drove along the back roads back to Seabrook. They threw a ton of items of clothing out of the window as they drove. But what didn't get thrown out of the window went into the duffel bag, which they would ditch in the woods on the way back.

Okay, I'm so excited, I'm like, you're so excited to tell the story. So to cut the tension, jr....

This is fucked, this is absolutely wild. They were cutting the tension, Jr. and Ray started singing Shoo fly pie, Shoo fly pie.

It's like this song, I looked it up, It's really fucking weird. I was like, what even is that? It's like a...?

It's almost like a.

Like, one of those songs, what? like a shabop? kind of thing, like a shabop.

I don't know how to describe it, I need to look this up now. It's very, it's like old, tiny, like what you would play at the Gilmore Girls Dance along thing.

At the Like Dance Marathon, Yeah, exactly. So Billy was like, this made him feel better, he was starting to smile.

It made my fucking stomach turn. And Pete actually got wicked. Pissed off at them for singing, and was like, shut the fuck up, like, I don't want you to sing right now, damn.

He wanted to get the hell out of Derry and as far away from the condo as he possibly could, so Pam. She got back home to Derry around 10.30pm. Once everything was done, she, of course, pretended to be shocked and horrified when she found Greg's body.

Neighbors could hear her screams from several houses away, they said, and it was followed by her yelling Help my husband, my husband. Wow, you piece of shit, an actual monster.

So she ran to the house next door and she said something was wrong with her husband and that they needed to call 911. Like, you know that he's dead, you just found him lying in a pool of his own blood at the bottom of your stairs now. Derry, New Hampshire, at the time had a super low crime rate.

And homicides were, like, super out of the ordinary. Uh, oh, so, actually, to drive that point home even further. Before Greg's murder, there had been zero murders in the town that year. Oh, damn.

Wow. So. When officers arrived and they found Greg lying face down, just beyond the front door, still dressed in his gray suit and coat, they were shocked. Yeah, now. By the time they got there, his skin had been bruised up completely and there was a bit of blood coming from his nose.

One of the officers checked for a pulse, but obviously they weren't able to find one. And another neighbor, who was actually a medical assistant, offered to do CPR. Because at this point they're not seeing that. He's been like, shot, yeah. So the officer that hadn't found a pulse rolled Greg over onto his back.

And that was when they saw the bullet hole on the top of his head and they were like, Yeah, CPR is not necessary anymore. So, to the responding officers, the scene seemed like what Pam had hoped it would like. Greg came home, found somebody robbing his house and had been killed by the intruders. Yeah.

Outside the condo, it was absolute chaos because Pam's screams had drawn all the neighbors outside. Dozens of people were just crowding around the area outside of the house. So Pam asked that somebody call Judy and Bill, who remember, lived like five minutes away in the same complex, yep, and whoever called them just said that Greg was, quote, very, very sick.

Are you kidding me? So they rush over there, thinking, like, Oh, no, like, does he have a stomach bug? Yeah, like, what's going on? No, so they threw on their coats over their pajamas and they ran over, but they got stopped by the police at the perimeter of the scene.

And Judy was like, What the fuck is going on? and Pam just told her, I don't know. I was at school, there was a meeting. Like being super theatrical, like acting, like over the top, but giving nothing.

Of course, so. Luckily, she was interrupted, but also not luckily. The front door opened and an officer stepped out of the house. And it was then that Greg's parents saw his body lying on the floor.

Oh, my God. And the officer came out and told them we can't help him, he's already dead, oh so. The case called for the presence of the Derry Police captain, who at the time was Captain Loring Jackson. Now, he arrived to the scene after it had already been cleared completely.

He was a veteran detective. Luckily, like, thank goodness, we have somebody who knows what they're doing here. Yeah, seriously. He had 24 years on the job between Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and he had seen every kind of crime you could possibly see.

Now, the other officers on the scene obviously weren't as seasoned, so he started taking over and just divvying out tasks. Yeah, he wanted to be sure that everything was properly documented and that all the evidence was collected and cataloged correctly. That was like a big thing for him.

Okay, which it always should be, yeah, now. Some officers went out to check the field beyond the complex and just about 100 yards from the Smart's back deck area. Sergeant Vincent Byron found a large carving knife stuck into the ground.

Oh shit, they had left the knife behind, they left that, they left the knife behind. Why?

Like, I'm glad they did, but like Jesus, I think they must have dropped it on the way is all I can think of. Wow, but then actually no, because it was stuck in the ground, that's what I mean.

Like, why would they shove it into the ground and run? I don't know if they just had too much between the valuables that they had stolen. It's like, drop a valuable, my friend, right? You would think so.

Not the actual, like other murder weapon, seriously. And then so they found the knife in the ground out there. But then, a few feet away from that, that sergeant there found pieces of cardboard and plastic from Pam's jewelry box. Damn.

So he's like, What the fuck happened here? Yeah. So by 2.30 that morning, the Derry Police got joined by the New Hampshire State Police Major Crimes Unit, who went over the house a second time. Like it had already been totally cleared, and then they were like, we're going to clear it even further, yeah.

Took more photos, got more evidence and took notes on literally everything. Then another group of officers started going around to the neighbors, who were, like, really, overall very unhelpful. They hadn't seen much, yeah.

Or heard much? But it's like, whatever. So, according to almost everybody they talked to, Greg was, quote, a very private individual, someone they never really got to know. During the 18 months he and his wife had lived in Derry. See, that's why it's important to know your neighbors. I know my neighbors never talked to me.

My neighbors and I had a barbecue the other night or no last night, and it was wonderful. I love that, it was delightful. Yeah, they'll be on the lookout for, like, any weird shit, that's the thing.

Like, know your neighbors, because, like, it's a good thing to get to be friends with your neighbors because then they're on that shit. See, like, Drew, it takes a village, my friends, it does, and if everyone's looking out for each other, no shit gets past you. I was just thinking about it and my neighbors don't really talk to me, but they talk to Drew.

That's strange. What do you think that means? I don't know what that means. That's weird, I'm offended.

I just think I'm like, you know what? If you have a chance to have, like a tight-knit little neighborhood, if you happen to be in there, do it. Man. Yeah, because everybody's on that text chain and everybody's like, What the fuck was that car? who say, who's? Did you hear that noise?

Like, everyone's on it, I love it. There's like an app now too that you can I think there is get in. Like, keep in touch with your neighbors, or even like people like beyond your neighbors, but are like in close proximity.

I mean, my neighbors just have a text chain, I think it's called like, Next door or something like that. Yeah, I think you're right, Drew has it. Maybe that's why they talk to him.

Yeah, I think we just have a text chain. And as soon as, like, I think like, somebody on an outside street got their car broken into, oh shit, everyone fucking knew that by the morning, everyone was checking each other's cars. If you weren't at your house, like, Oh my god, I love it. It was great. That's ideal.

I was like, neighbors, neigh-bers love it. Well, this was also a time which is crazy to think about before cameras. Yeah, exactly.

Before people had doorbell cameras, so it's even more important back then. Like, that's why it is very helpful if your neighbors can be like, Yeah, we know that person exactly, you know?

But unfortunately, and can be on the lookout for, like, something weird is happening over there. I might step in. Exactly like, that's the thing if you don't know your neighbors, they're not going to feel comfortable doing that exactly.

Which it sucks that this was a case where they just they didn't know each other very well, they just didn't communicate. And not for any reason. It doesn't sound like it just no, it just seems like it didn't happen, which 100? It doesn't happen a lot of times, so and I also, if you can make it happen, try to.

I think this was kind of more of a time where, like you, minded your own business. Yeah, that's true, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. So Pam, she was just as unhelpful to the investigators, but obviously more pointedly.

She explained that she got home, She found Greg on the floor and she said quote.

And instead just started screaming for help. Okay, it's like, Okay, like, what? Why did you have to mention that? Sorry, there's a fruit fly in my face.

I do remember how what a chokehold that show had on all of us. Though. Rescue 911 I don't think I ever watched that. No, I think it was before your time, yeah.

It was Rescue 911, and Unsolved Mysteries were like back-to-back Unsolved Mysteries, and Rescue 911 was intense. Really. yeah, it was very intense.

I used to, they like, reenacted 911 calls, but you heard the 911 call, not for me. It was like everyone's first venture into true crime. I believe, yeah.

Yeah, mine was unsolved. Mysteries and forensic files. Yeah, yeah, a good one.

A good one now. So obviously we all say all the time how, you know, people are going to react differently to trauma and grief. Yeah, but there was something off about Pam's behavior in the minds of the detectives. She, like, they were. I think they kind of tried to put it in the back of their minds the more and more they got through the investigation.

That's a thing, but it was still there. Yeah, you observe, you look at it and say, Okay, everyone grieves differently. But when compiled upon other evidence, you go, Okay, that is a little strange, right?

Yeah, you just hold it in the back of your head and just put it together with the other evidence, and then you find, like, the supporting things that tie it together. Yeah, so she was super calm and super composed. Which was not really what anybody expected from a woman who had just found her husband murdered in their home a few hours earlier.

Yeah, but you know, okay, everybody's different, I suppose, yeah.

Different strokes for different folks. In this case, not so much, not so much to Detective Barry Cherwicks. I believe, is how you say it. Pam seemed more anxious than sad, weird.

Or upset? She was nervous, and he noticed that her eyes would dart around the room at different times throughout the interview. Which is so telling, because you know who else's eyes do that? Scandavals. That's true, but anyway, he tried to remind himself that, you know, people act differently in these situations.

I'll dismiss it right now as just another strange reaction to death, but it's in my head, but I will note it. So, the next day, the state medical examiner confirmed that, of course, the cause of death was the single gunshot wound to the head. And he. The medical examiner estimated that it had occurred just an hour or two before Pam arrived home, which was correct now. The wound itself was ragged, which suggested to the medical examiner that Greg had been shot at close range, with somebody holding the gun very close to his head, which was also true.

But what was strange was that there was no gunpowder residue on the wound and there were small pieces of lead on the scalp, which indicated that the bullet started to fragment before it struck. Greg Huh? And even stranger, there was no blood spatter at the scene like you would expect with this kind of crime. So the medical examiner was trying to figure this out, like how that could have happened, and he felt like somebody had placed a pillow. Oh my god, I was literally just going to say,....

Yeah, they placed the pillow on his head, exactly, so that's what they thought like, they they took a pillow or some kind of soft thing. In between. Greg's head and the barrel of the gun, almost like a silencer or a quieter.

Yeah, but they couldn't find anything at the scene to support that theory. There was no pillow with a hole through it, huh? So, and sadly, that question would never be answered.

Huh, so I don't know if maybe they took the pillow with them and it was one of the things they threw out, maybe on the way. But they never answered that question. Oh, that's interesting.

It's it is, yeah, that's really interesting, but I would think that's probably the answer, I am sure that's it.

Yeah, like, I think they were conniving enough to silence that gun. I think they saw it in a movie, probably, I think they saw it in a movie, or they saw it on something.

Or Pam saw it on Rescue 911 and reiterated it, and they did it. Yeah, exactly now. So obviously, the cause of death was not that surprising to anybody.

Everybody knew that Greg had been shot, but what they wanted to know obviously was who killed Greg and why? So, while authorities were combing through evidence, Pam was super happy to entertain reporters. Oh, I'm sure, and she had so many theories as to what happened.

She told the Dairy News I'm absolutely convinced someone was burglarizing our house and Greg just walked in. Gee, whiz Pam, what made you think that? Yeah, wow?

Was it the robbery scene that you saw? was it the entire robbery scene that you set up to look like that? Was it the missing valuables from your home that you orchestrated the ransacked house? Like, yeah.

She also told reporters that in the days since she had found her husband dead, she'd woken up at 6 a.

M every day and called the police for updates, but said that they quote, she said, that quote. They haven't even sat down with everything yet, which is not true. And also it's like, Oh, now we're going to shit all over the police, even though, you know, you set up this whole thing up, right?

Like, wow, like these police who haven't handled a murder, yeah, this week, this week.

This month, this year, this month, this year, this year, anywhere.

Anytime like that, never handle murders, right? And like, you know, you did it and you're still being like, it's their fault, like, who's like, trying to play the victim?

Oh, and it wasn't only like, bitch, it wasn't only their fault. She was also pissed at the neighbors. Oh, of course.

She said she found it hard to believe that none of her neighbors heard anything on the night of the murder. Wow, I'm like, you orchestrated this whole thing, you are throwing everyone under the bus when you're a fucking murderer at heart, like, Are you kidding me?

Like, Okay, gaslighter, McGee, wow, she literally told reporters. Quote I've heard their stereo before, and I know they've heard mine. I know a gunshot isn't a common sound in Derry, New Hampshire, but I'd at least look out the window. Wow.

It's like, yeah, they didn't hear a gunshot because you probably told your boy there to fucking silence it. And it's like, you are a murderer at heart and you're shitting on everyone you just don't have. You just didn't want to get in trouble for it, and you thought you could get away with it by having someone else do it.

Yup, but if you're setting someone else up to get murdered by someone else, you are a murderer. Absolutely like you are capable of that, absolutely.

And you're sitting here like saying that the neighbors are at fault when you know what you did. The neighbors didn't hear anything, so fuck them, and the police aren't working on this yet, so fuck them. Damn, like what?

Yeah, it's everybody else's fault. She's crazy. So, uh. Police captain Loring was, uh, not pleased to say the least, that Pam was talking to the press. Yeah, because he had personally told her not to.

Jesus, he was like, Can you stop doing that, please? You think she would listen to them too, to try to play along with the whole thing. Yeah, to be cooperative, like, seem like a very cooperative....

Instead of making waves, I don't think so that they look at you a little heavier. I don't think she was capable of cooperating. I think it's....

In her mind, it was her world, and she was orchestrating it. How she saw fit, yeah, and the spotlight was on her, and she couldn't, she couldn't help herself.

Yup, she absolutely loved the attention she had to lean in. So the investigators in Derry, Uh, had been working on the case, obviously, even though Pam said they weren't. And they told her. Sharing any kind of info with the press could be really damaging or could even compromise their case.

Yeah, so they're like, why the fuck are you trying to ruin our case, lady? and Loring, excuse me, loring? Jackson would later say that Pam was very defensive about talking to the press. She said She didn't want to hear anything bad about the press because she was one of them. Oh, shut the fuck up.

Because, remember, she wanted to work in the media, and she did work in media. Oh, shut up. Also, you're not a reporter, no, you're a volunteer for project self-esteem.

Yeah, stop, humble thyself, humble thyself, fuck you pam oy.

But Jackson found her comment about being one of the press very strange. It really wasn't the only thing about her that he was going to find strange as the investigation went on. And he still he was, like, her behavior, it's fucking weird. For instance, when she was allowed to go back to the house after the scene had been cleared, she started complaining about what a mess the investigators had made in her home. She also stepped right onto the bloodstain from where Greg's body had been found. And had the audacity to ask them who was going to clean that up.

Wow, wow, stepped on the bloodstain and said, Who's going to clean this up? What you caused it?

You made this like, you caused that, and then you're mad that we trashed your house, trying to figure out who did this, like, what the fuck, what?

Because the reason like this is all doubly, triply, quadruply fucked up. Because you're like, you know that she did this, yeah, like she's causing all these problems and bitching and moaning. When she did this, she made this all happen.

Wow, and like, you're, and I don't know what it is like. You're going to ask who's going to clean this up? You orchestrated this and you can't even fucking clean it up? That's the thing.

You wanted this baby, clean it up. If this was a real like, a real thing where, like, somebody had come in and robbed their house and killed her husband, yeah.

Who's going to clean that up? ask, who's going to clean that up? Totally, because, like you, that's I can't. I never knew before. Like, really getting into researching true crime and all that and learning about like Aftermath Inc. and all that stuff.

And like, 24, you know, whatever that like. Victims are left to call someone to hire a whole team to come and clean up after their loved ones. Like you have to pay for that, like you have to pay for it, like a lot of people don't know that. I never knew that until we started this podcast.

And I'm sure a lot of people when it happens to them, they don't know that. They come back to the house and they're like, who the fuck is going to clean this? like, I can't clean this? So if that was the case, it's like, yeah, ask, be like, I don't know what's happening here, but that's the thing.

Knowing that she did it, it's like, you need to clean this up, you clean it up, wench wench, like Jesus.

Get to work? ugh.

She struck him with her motor vehicle, she had been under the influence, and then she left him there. In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location. What happens next depends on who you ask.

Was it a crime of passion? If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling. This was clearly an intentional act. And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia or a corrupt police cover-up?

If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover-up to prevent one of their own from going down. Everyone had an opinion and after the 10-week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision to end in a mistrial. It's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is. Law and Crime presents the most in-depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen.

You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus. join Wondery Plus in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like, at my locker and she came up to me and she was like, stuttering, super bad.

I'm like, stop f***ing around. She's like, I can't. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast, it's like doubling and tripling, and it's all these girls with a diagnosis.

The state tried to keep on the down-low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, well, yeah, no, it's hysteria.

It's all in your head, it's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem, or is it something else entirely?

Something's wrong here, something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline, and everyone was trying to solve the murder. A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.

So what was shitty was that the crime scene itself was kind of just as unhelpful as the neighbors. And PAM. Like they were hitting a lot of dead ends there. Obviously, it was obvious that somebody had ransacked the house, but it didn't seem like your regular robbery. So they're like, they're confused here because they're like, Yeah, it seems like this happened, but it's awful a little bit. Yeah, it's like, disorganized.

Actually, it's strangely organized. They thought they were like, what? Like? It seems like there's differences in the ways that some areas were trashed, like some were more organized than others.

And so the investigators theorized that there were two intruders. I was going to say, because I would think that would be like multiple people, right off the bat, exactly. There were also some more strange tidbits. On the first floor of the home, Greg's ring and his car keys were found underneath his body.

And his wallet, which still had all his credit cards, was tucked safely away. It was found by his legs. So they're like, they didn't steal his car, they didn't take his ring. And his wallet full of his credit cards is right here. And why did they have him take off the ring? I don't know.

Like, because my initial thought was that, my initial thought with that, and maybe I'm wrong, I don't know. Was that that was an order from PAM as proof that they had done it? I could see that because they were supposed to bring that ring back, that's what I assumed was the like whole thing. I thought she was like, bring me that ring.

So I know you actually did it well. She would have known they actually did it when she got home, so that, like, she wouldn't have had to do that. Oh, I forgot that they didn't meet before that, like they didn't meet before she went home. No, she just got the car. They got the car where she had parked it. And then the whole thing was that she was going to come home and find this.

Okay, that makes more sense. So what I think with the ring is that they probably. I think Billy probably was like, take it off, or Pete said, take it off. Because, like, you know, he's fucking Pam now. Yeah, that's true. And then I think, maybe in the haste of everything, they forgot to take the ring.

Yeah, because it's like, why did you do that? Because I think they had fully planned on taking that ring they must have, and I think they just were stupid. Because, like, that's like, what a last humiliation for Greg.

Right, to make him remove that ring and then to leave it. It's like, Wow, so you just did that just to do that? yeah, like that's even more fucked up.

It's adding insult to injury. Yeah, it's just like, That's really, that's really gross. mm-hmm. ugh, it's fucked.

But so that's the thing. Investigators are, like, okay, so there's clearly two intruders, but like, they both suck, like, that's weird. Yeah, like, what the hell? Very strange.

And they started thinking, if somebody was going into a home to take everything of value. So much so that they were willing to commit a murder. In the middle of it, why wouldn't they take the most valuable things? Yeah, that's weird, no, like even the car.

Yeah, it doesn't make sense. So the investigators, they still felt like the theory of a robbery gone wrong wasn't a bad one. But it had other flaws, even beyond the valuables left behind. Yeah, it's like, more nuanced. It was going to start kind of like falling by the wayside their whole theory again. Why would these robbers, even if they weren't the most experienced, choose a time to rob a densely populated condo when everyone was home and awake?

That was another thing that they were like, why would they do that? And they also reasoned that most burglars, even petty thieves, they don't usually bring along a firearm and they're usually not willing to kill someone. Yeah, they just want to steal shit and leave. And if, for some reason, they did go against all of that and kill someone again, why wouldn't they take the most valuable things when they had already gone that far? Yeah, exactly.

That's the thing you better take, all the valuable shit now. So between Pam's strange behavior, obvious enjoyment of the spotlight and the very many unusual aspects of their crime scene. Something about this murder wasn't adding up to them, but they were struggling because it wasn't adding up. But then it wasn't leading them in the direction of the truth, yeah.

Now back to Pam. As far as she knew, she had planned every aspect of Greg's murder perfectly, and she almost did, which is scary. Yeah, but what she didn't plan for was the impulsive stupidity of teenagers. Oh, yeah.

Because in the months before the murder, Billy had told a good number of his friends about his sexual relationship with Pam. And most of the time, they weren't even doing much to hide their affair in public. And in the weeks they had spent planning the murder, Billy had told those same friends the plot to kill Pam's husband so that they could be together. And he told most of those friends that what he believed to be true, based on what Pam had told him, Greg was abusive toward her. He was going to be the hero that saved her. So he's just spilling the beans left right, everywhere, of course, he is.

He's a child, yeah. And as we know, some of the people who he told about the plan had become participants, yeah, and the ones who didn't. They just kind of thought he was bluffing and trying to seem tough.

Oh my God, which, like, we've been there, we've done that, so you know how we feel everybody stop. But the day after the murder, Billy and his friends were back in school. Oh my God.

They just go back to high school, they just went back to high school, I'm pretty sure it was like their junior year. Oh my god so. And before his first class even started, Billy was telling his friend Sal Parks about what he'd done immediately.

Now, Billy and Sal had talked about the murder plot a number of times before that day. Billy had even shown Sal sketches of the condo's floor plan that he made based on Pam's description. Wow. But for some reason, Sal never thought Billy was going to go through with it, guys.

Guys, guys, you know, I can't. But that morning, when Sal asked Billy if he had gone through with the plan, Billy nervously confirmed that, Yup, they had killed him the night before. Oh my God.

Now, later that day, Billy bought Sal lunch with the money that he'd stolen from Greg's wallet just to prove it to him. Shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up. And by the end of that afternoon, he had told pretty much almost all of his friends the gnarly details about what had happened. Now, Sal was worried.

Now that he knew all the details, he could be considered an accomplice. So he was like, I'm just going to keep my mouth shut about this entire thing, like, I'm not going to say anything. I'm still like reeling about him. Buying lunch with Greg's money, with Greg's money.

Yup, this is just wild now, just like Billy Cecilia Pierce. She knew this whole thing had happened at this point and she had been an instrumental part of being a part of it, playing it, yeah, so she found it difficult to keep what she knew to herself.

And on the morning of the murder, Pam had confided in Cecilia that the boys were going to follow through with the plan that night. So the next day, a guidance counselor came up to Cecilia because she knew that Cecilia had been close with Pam. She called her into a meeting and let her know what had happened to Pam's husband. Oh my god. So Cecilia did her best to fake shock. But later that night, when she got to her shift at Papa Gino's, the secret was becoming too overwhelming for her.

And she ended up confiding in a co-worker about it. She told her co-worker, Cindy Butt, what had happened to Greg, and Cindy said, Didn't you tell me about a friend that was planning on having their husband killed? Oh my God, and Cecilia said, Oh shit, I'd forgotten.

I had told you that couldn't even keep track of the people they had told what?

I forgot that, I shit, Oh my gosh, I told you that, I forgot that I told you that.

Oh my God. Also imagine eating a fucking pizza that those two women had made for you, and that conversation happened above your glorious pizza. I would not be happy, although Papa Gino's is not my fave.

Oh, I hate Papa Gino's. ugh, it's the big tomatoes for me. I mean, you can eat it all you want. I have no hate to Papa Gino's. I mean, a lot of people love Papa Gino's.

But ugh, yeah, anyways. So Cecilia explained the rest of the story to Cindy, and Cindy suggested it would be best to stay out of it entirely. She was like, I don't think you need to tell more people about this.

I think you need to shut your mouth, yeah. She basically said that if Cecilia had told her about it, then other people could definitely find that out. And one of them might go to the police. So she should shut her fucking mouth, my God. But at the same time, Cindy there apparently didn't take her own advice. And a couple weeks later, she had some friends over her apartment for drinks. And she told all of them. The entire story about Pam, Billy and Cecilia.

So there were two women there. Finally, some people with sense in this fucking town, and they were absolutely shocked. Wow, so one of them, 39-year-old Louise Coleman, went home and called the police. Finally, oh, finally.

Finally, somebody has contacted the appropriate people in this situation. Finally, someone calls the police and says, Shit's weird, Jesus Christ. She would later tell a jury, Louise there quote someone was killed and that bothered me to hear what I had heard. I figured any little bit was going to help them because at that point police didn't know much of anything.

Like, I told them, it's hearsay. If it helps, it helps, if it don't, it don't. But I feel like I did my civic duty.

Which I'm like, Yes, Louise, you did. Yeah, okay, thank you, pat pat, pat, Louise.

See you later, Good job now. Like the bad game of telephone. It was, though, Louise Coleman's tip to the Derry police got a lot of the facts wrong, but luckily it was still enough to point investigators towards Cecilia Pierce. So Detective Sherwick's Uh, Sherwick, excuse me, paid a visit to Cecilia and, joined by her parents, they sat down for a formal interview.

And Cecilia told the detective that, yup, she did know Pam. She met her through an internship in the media center. But she said, I know nothing about the murder. I insist I know absolutely nothing. So then Pam is approached and she told detectives, Oh my gosh, Cecilia would not have anything to do with this. Of course not. And it's like, Yeah, but what about you?

Yeah, but for her part, she seemed pam there, pretty unconcerned about the fact that investigators were circling closer and closer to her and her group of fucking teenage misfits that she put together. Yeah, it's like, no one noticed this shit, no one noticed it, yeah.

And now, even as they're encroaching upon them, she's not worried about it. So by mid-may, she had gotten a large sum from Greg's life insurance, and she seemed in a hurry to spend it. She bought clothes and shoes for Cecilia in an obvious-to-all-of-us attempt to buy her. Silence. Yup.

Then she went electronic shopping with Billy and his friends. Oh my god. She also used some of the money to buy herself a new car. She put down the first and last month's rent on a condo in Hampton, closer to Billy. Excuse me.

This is so disgusting, closer to Billy's mother's house, I was just going to say, This is so disgusting, fucked. So she was doing her best to rein in this group of teens and, for the most part, she was successful.

Cecilia would later say she just really was convinced that no one was going to listen to the boys over an adult. Like, she thought she was going to have everybody hook, line and sink her, of course. But what wasn't in her control was the people that the kids had already confessed to. And Louise Coleman's tip had pointed the investigators in the right direction.

But it would be a tip from one of the few honest teens in the circle that would finally break the case. So remember Ralph Welch, Ray's cousin, So Ray was the one that drove the car, yup, and Ralph had nothing to do with it.

He was just staying at JR's house. Yes, he had heard about this, yup, so he had known about Pam and Billy's relationship since it started.

Ralph there, okay, he was, like, I just said, one of the kids living in the household. And since he was a close friend of Jr and Billy. He was privy to all the information about what had been going on. But he was just trying to keep his head down and stay out of any trouble.

He had gotten into trouble before and he was like trying to stay on a narrow path. Okay, so he heard about the murder and about his friend's involvement, but he was still having trouble believing that they had anything to do with it. He was like, You guys are fucked, like you didn't do this.

But by early June, all the talk and boasting from Jr. Billy and Ray had started to get to him, and all the rumors about Billy killing Greg started to seem more likely than they had to him before. So he confronted them, he said, Did you do this? And at first they denied any involvement, but eventually they told him the whole story, thinking he wasn't going to tell anybody.

So by the time they finished telling the story, though, he pretty much told them. He didn't know what he was going to do, but it wasn't something he was going to keep to himself. He was like, You guys fucked up here, yeah, like you shouldn't have told me this.

He's like, I'm going to be honest, like, shit's going to go down. He's like, I don't know exactly what I'm going to do, but I'm going to do something. I'm going to do something though. So the next day, Ralph tried to make Pete Randall leave the Lattime house where he was staying.

Okay, so like two guys here getting in a fight, yeah, so they started fighting even more and it got physical, okay.

They beat the shit out of each other for a few minutes. Pete ended up storming off with J.r and Ralph, or, excuse me, with J.r, and Ralph. Went inside the house where J.r.'s mom wanted to know why. He was all fucked up, like, he obviously looked like he'd been in a fight.

Yeah, and Ralph just blurted out to her, They used Vance's gun to kill someone. Vance is J.r.'s dad. Oh so Diane, the mother. Obviously, she had a few follow-up questions, and once Ralph had gotten through the whole story, including the part where J.R.

Stole one of his gun's dads to kill Greg Vance Jr.

's father so J.

R.

's father, Sorry, Vance J.

R.

's father went to check his gun collection. There's a lot of players here, so sure enough, he found that his .38 revolver had been cleaned and he was not the one to have cleaned it. So he took the gun straight to the Seabrook police and the rest of the story slowly started to fall into place. It's coming.

His son stole this gun and this dad. I have to say that's really heroic and what a fucking Sophie's choice to make. There. Absolutely like, Oh my god, my kid might be involved in killing somebody, but I have to take this information to the police. Yes, you can't just ignore it and hope it goes away. He's one of the heroes in this story.

But some people would have to be honest, Yeah, I mean, we've seen instances where that's happened. Absolutely, we have. So as soon as she heard the police were looking for her son, Ray Fowler's mother dragged him to the police department. Another hero here.

There you go. And once he was there, he wasted no time telling the detectives the entire story, he didn't spare any details. But of course, he passed all the blame on his friends and he said he had only gone along for the ride. He had no idea they were going to kill someone.

No, so when they learned that Ralph fully intended to go to the police, the other boys fled to Connecticut. In Pete's, in Pete's father's car, they planned to continue driving south, possibly to Mexico or to South America. But Pete called home to let his mom know they were safe and his dad got on the phone. And he had, like, he didn't know about the murder yet, but he was like, why the fuck did you steal my car? And you better turn it right the fuck around right now? Yeah, hell yeah.

Pete's dad was not the kind of guy you wanted to go against. So they all turned around and headed back to Seabrook because Daddy said, bring my car back home. Oh my God. Like, that's where we're at, you guys, that's the age group we're at.

The lack of frontal lobe development is really highlighted here. They thought, Oh yeah, I'll just steal my dad's car and drive it to Mexico and he won't know this. I'm sorry what, I'm sorry what, I'm sorry what?

So once they got back home, each of the boys struggled to tell their parents what had happened. They were obviously leaving out all kinds of important details. Of course, they were using pseudonyms here and there, and they were peppering the story with lies to minimize their own involvement. Now, Vance listened to his son's version of the events. And even though he still didn't understand what had actually happened, or how Jr had even gotten himself involved in this. He went back to the Seabrook Police Department to let the detectives know that. It seemed like all of the boys were involved in this murder in one way or the other, including his own son.

That's a hard hit. So, on. The morning of June 11, 1990, a clerk from the Derry Police Department arrived in Seabrook carrying warrants for the arrests of Billy, Pete, Ray and Jr. They knew that their arrests were on the horizon, so they all scattered and they spent most of the day just trying to avoid the police. Oh man, now. Meanwhile, Derry Police captain Jackson wanted to have another talk with Cecilia Pierce.

I think he saw that she was a bit of a weak point, 100, he saw that as a weak point. So he called Cecilia's mother, and Cecilia's mother said she was out for the day, but she was going to try to track her down. She's like, Oh, fuck.

What are we involved in here? Yeah, so Mrs. Eaton, that's Cecilia's mother. She figured her daughter would actually be at Pam's house because that's how much time they were spending together. That's so weird, ma'am.

I don't know if Cecilia's mom didn't realize that Pam was like an authority figure and maybe just thought she was like an older friend. Because she's not that much older than Cecilia. That's true, that's very true, I didn't even think of that, I think she just didn't have all the facts.

Yeah, no, I'm like, No, hate to like her parents for not even thinking about it. It's just wild, but when you think about it afterwards, you're like, Oh God, oh fuck.

This relationship was like too much. So Pam picks up the phone and she was like, Oh, Cecilia actually just left, but let me go collect her and I'll bring her to the police. Oh man. But at that point, Mrs Eaton had had it up to here officially.

Officially, she was like, I am real, fucking tired of this strange hold that you seem to have over my daughter. Stay out of it and I will track down my own daughter. So, later, she found Cecilia at a friend's house. And Miss Eaton called Pam and was like, Just so, you know, we're going to the police station now? Pam yelled at Mrs.

Eaton on the phone and said, Don't take her over until I get there, let me go with you and we can all go together. I am a victim here, I have a right to know everything that the police know and they're not telling me anything. I'm getting tired of being treated this way and I want to know what's going on.

Oh man, mama, you're a murderer, man. Like girly girl, she is reckless.

Also, Who the fuck do you think you are yelling at Mrs Eaton Oy? So obviously she's trying to stay on top of things and she wants to make sure Cecilia is not going to turn on her. But Pam was telling the truth a little bit there.

The Derry police had actually stopped giving her any information about this case. Of course they did because she kept going to the press every time they gave her an update. So they were like, Okay, if you want to paint us this way, we'll act this way, Oy.

So in that moment, Mrs Eaton didn't care about Pam Smart or her relationship with the Derry police. She was like, if you want to meet us at the station, meet us at the station, but we're going there now. She's like, I don't know, I don't have time for this.

So they get to the station. Cecilia continues to insist to the police that she knows nothing about the murders. She tried to even seem like she was disinterested in being there. Now, Captain Jackson realized that Cecilia wasn't really grasping the severity of the situation she was involved in. Oh, yeah.

So he was like, you know what, let me fucking scare her. So he starts making threats of charging her with interfering with the investigation. He's like, you want to play that game, let's go.

But at that point, Cecilia's mom didn't know that's where this was headed, so she put a stop to the interview. She was like, No, we're done here, yeah.

Now, in a private conversation with Cecilia's mother, Jackson explained that he was simply like playing bad cop. He was just trying to get Cecilia to say what she knew. Yeah, of course. And he was like, We know that she doesn't have anything to do with the murders, or we don't think she does, or the murder. Excuse me. So Cecilia's mom was like, Yep, I get it.

I still feel like she's gone through enough tonight and we're not really going to get anywhere here. So I will talk to her at home and try to get out the truth and I'll get back to you. So they were like, Okay, yeah, and I think they knew they weren't going to get very far at that point.

But on their way out of the station, Pam had been sitting there the whole time waiting for them at the station. And she went right up to them and was like, What's going on? I need to know everything. My God, she is like, she just is, she doesn't give a shit, she's like a fly attracted to a big pile of shit, she can't stay away.

Oy So Cecilia was like, Nope, nothing's going on. They asked me the same questions that they did before, but she said, like, don't worry about it. Basically, Yeah, so that night, Diane LATime Late, late time. Excuse me. Jr's mother, she was like hunting them down because she knows that the police are looking for these kids.

So she finds them hiding out in an arcade, Oh my God in Salisbury, Massachusetts. Oh my God. And she was able to convince them to turn themselves in.

But these motherfuckers were hiding out at an arcade. Of course they were. But it just like, adds to the story even more that you're like, Oh my God, these are literal children, of course. And they thought they could just avoid the police by playing a nice game of pac-man.

Yeah, what is wrong with you? Yep, absolutely, are you trying to play pinball to get through the fact that you just murdered somebody? Absolutely, they are.

I literally can't, that's so messed up, I quite literally cannot. Oy. But she was able to convince themselves and they turned themselves in.

Oy So, news of the arrest broke a day later, but because everybody arrested at that point was a juvenile, there weren't a lot of details available. And as far as the public was concerned, it seemed like Greg's murder had been solved. They were like, Oh, okay, they got the people that did it right. Yeah, they were like, okay.

Fantastic now. Investigators in Derry, on the other hand, were convinced that there was still a lot more to this story than they were being told. And literally, all of them were like, Yeah, Pam has something to do with it. This random band of teenagers didn't just come up with this plan by themselves, that's the thing.

It's like, you really think they just came up with this and did it and like, what would the motive be? Exactly that's the thing. So the day after the arrests were made, Pam called Loring Jackson. She can't, she can't stay away.

My God, she's like asking to be caught. Oh my God, at this point, literally. So she calls him and she's like, Can I just please have any kind of update?

She said, I'm afraid I know these kids. And then she said, Am I in any danger? and Jackson was like, No, Pam, you're not in danger. She's reaching out to ask if she is in danger. When she knows she set them up to kill her like that is like a whole other level.

I don't know what she has as far as, like, personality disorders go, but there's a couple in there I won't armchair diagnose. But the manipulative, conniving gaslighting going on, there's a lot going on there, it's a layer, there's some stuff.

It's a layered situation, but this is great. I fucking love this. So she's like, Am I in any danger? and he goes, He's like, No, Pam, you're not, and she goes, How can you be so sure?

And he goes, because I know, and so do you, Oh shit, it's heating up in here, baby mic drop moment.

So while the state Attorney general's office worked to get approval to try all the teens as adults, that's what they were working on. The media made their way to Seabrook, they were shoving microphones and cameras in faces of anybody, even remotely involved. And then Pam was doing her absolute best to display the devastated widow. Betrayed by these students, she had hoped to help and project self-esteem.

Wow. And she knew that the arrest of the four boys definitely put her at risk, like she was starting to get nervous here. But what she didn't realize was that her good old buddy, Cecilia Pierce, would actually be the biggest risk. Oh, shit.

Because, remember, police still aren't done with her. No, so. In the week or so since her last interview with the police, everything around Cecilia had changed. Her friends had been arrested for murder. Pam seemed more anxious than ever to keep Cecilia close by.

And worse than that, the dairy police definitely knew that Cecilia knew something she wasn't saying damn, she later told reporters. Every night when I was in bed, I'd get up like every five minutes when I heard a car pull in. Seeing if it was the police coming to get me. Oh man, which I'm like, honestly good.

Because you knew a lot and you didn't say shit. None of them were ready for this. nope, none of them. So the position she's starting to feel like this is impossible.

And she was like, I know that everything about this situation was wrong and I've been manipulated by Pam. Yeah, and she was like, in the past, she was like, Oh my gosh. Pam has been nothing but good to me. And now I'm faced with this decision to betray her. Yeah, so she's sick over it.

But then, at the same time, the angel on the side is like, you need to do the right thing, you need to betray Pam. Mm-hmm. Exactly so. Cecilia's unwavering loyalty to Pam obviously was a part of Pam's plan all along.

That's why she spent so much time building trust between her and these kids. Mm-hmm. And that's obviously why she was testing that loyalty in small ways leading up to the murder, like we saw. But in the time since the arrests, Cecilia had noticed a very large change in Pam's behavior, and she was starting to question everything she thought about their relationship.

In a later interview with hard copy, she told them Cecilia did, her lover was in jail and she didn't care. How was I supposed to believe that she was actually my friend? I could hang myself knowing what I know, and she'd be relieved because that's one less person who could tell, Wow. So she started to realize who Pam was.

Yeah, and then, to make matters worse, everyone had been treating Cecilia so nicely since the arrest, thinking that she was a victim of this fallout. And she's like, Fuck, I know everything, yeah. So, between the kindness of her family and friends and Pam's increasing coldness towards Billy, Cecilia finally broke down and went to her mom and just spilled the beans.

So obviously that got passed along to the detectives and the detectives in Derry. They were, like, great, this story confirms what we know. Yeah, Billy and Pete did the actual killing, but it was Pam behind the murder of her husband, yeah.

But the problem was now, how the fuck were they going to prove that she wasn't there? No text messages or anything like that. So they're considering their options. But ultimately, they decided that the best way to secure a conviction would be for Cecilia to get Pam on tape. Confessing to her role in the murder. And Cecilia and her mother agreed to the plan. Damn.

Because, remember, her mother needs to sign off on this because she's a juvenile. Yeah, because they are children.

So Cecilia's first attempt came on June 19th, when the police attached a recording device to the family's telephone. They were hoping they could record a conversation like a phone conversation between Cecilia and Pam. So Cecilia was giving it her all. She wanted to win here. But Pam was very guarded and she was denying any romantic relationship between her and Billy.

Because I think she was like, they could bug our phones. Yeah, of course, she was a little ahead, yeah. But at the same time, she was also dodging Cecilia's references to Greg's murder.

So in the end, the call was a bust, yeah, but in the weeks and months after the arrest, Pam she was playing it cool in public. She was like, Oh, I don't even think these boys had anything to do with Greg's death, like, just playing it up.

Hamming it up, yeah, but at the same time, she obviously must have known she was a suspect. Rumors were starting to spread about Billy having an affair with her. In the back of her mind, I think she knew her plan was shit all along.

Yep, also, like, why would you be dumb enough to have teenagers do this for you? Truly? It's only a matter of time before somebody slips up and says something, and here we go.

On July 12, 1990, Cecilia Pierce took a second run at Pam in an attempt to get this confession. And this time, she was wired with a microphone and a recording device. For what the New Hampshire Attorney General's office referred to as face-to-face one-party intercept. Ooh, damn, I love it, that sounds intense.

It is so. That afternoon, Cecilia went to Pam's office and she literally had a tape recorder running like somewhere in her. And Pam immediately, somewhere in her, somewhere in her pockets or something, and she swallowed it.

I don't know. So Pam rushes over to give her a hug, which she must have been sharting herself. Yeah, absolutely pooping her pants, truly.

And as she's hugging her, Pam's hands come dangerously close to brushing the microphone wires. Oh my God, like she was very, very close to being caught. I'd be like, No touchy, no touchy.

But the conversation ended up being like rambling. There was a lot of weird chatting. And she kind of alluded to some involvement in the murder, but she didn't outright confess to anything. Okay, so a second meeting got set up for the next day and Cecilia got re-set up with a recording device.

And this time, they got what they needed. Oh shit. So the second recorded conversation with Pam was much more direct. There were way more details about the case, and now there was the potential for even more arrests because more names were dropped.

Throughout the discussion, Pam went out of her way multiple times to insist that Cecilia would be arrested as a necessary. If she went to the police. She was like, just so, you know, like you'll be in too, so like, don't fuck me over, oh shit. But Cecilia has already talked to the police and she knows that this is not true.

So she kept going.

And so finally, after what seemed like hours, investigators got what they needed. And this is the little bit of it, Cecilia says. So he's not going to say that you offered to pay him, right? He's going to say he knew about it before it happened, which is the truth. And Pam says, Right, well, so then I'll have to say, no, I didn't.

And then they're either going to believe me or they're going to believe J.

R.

16 years old and in the slammer. And then who me? With a professional reputation and a course that I teach, you know, that's the thing. Cecilia says, right, and Pam goes, They're going to believe me.

Wow the confidence. boom baby. wow the dumb confidence. It would turn out that Pam was wrong. I was going to say, Err.

They didn't believe her incorrect key. On August 1st, less than two weeks after that recorded conversation with Cecilia, Pam was approached by Detective Danielle. I believe it's Pelletier in her office, in the building inside of the high school, and she'd actually already spoken with Pelletier a few times. So as soon as she saw him, she jumped up and was, like, excited to see him, and he got very theatrical with it.

I can't even say I blame him, he said. Well, Pam, I have some good news and I have some bad news. The good news is that we've solved the murder of your husband. Oh my God, I love it. The bad news is that you're under arrest.

Oh, he really went for it. Dave and I were talking about it and he was like, how many times do you think he practiced that? Oh, 100, and I can't blame him. No, absolutely.

I can't blame him. I would be on the car ride there, like talking to myself in the rear view mirror. I would be saying it over and over again, Let's go. Got arrested at the high school, wow.

We love to see it. Poetic, poetic. Justice. So Pam was stunned, but obviously she had to follow detective's orders as she was handcuffed and let out of the building. Yeah, I mean, you don't really have a choice at that point.

And there were several other detectives from Derry and Hampton out there waiting in their cars, so this was like a sting operation. And a journalist from Nashua, who had shown up at the school after getting an anonymous tip, he actually snapped several photos of Pam being loaded into the back of the cruiser. Oh, yup.

I'm going to look it up, look it up. So the next day, August 2nd, Pam was arraigned in Derry District Court for what the prosecutor claimed was promoting or facilitating the murder of her husband. Now, in an affidavit filed with the county, the Attorney general's office said that PAM quote aided William Flynn in the planning or commission of the murder. And the affidavit makes it clear that it was Billy, not Pam, who fired the fatal shot.

Okay, so. The news came as a shock to almost everyone outside of the investigation, especially Greg's parents, who had to show up to this arraignment now. In a statement given to the press outside the courthouse, Bill Smart, Greg's father told the reporters.

There you go, boom, that says it all, I think I think so, so. A week later, there was a bail hearing and Pam pleaded with the judge to please allow her to be released on bail.

Yeah.

We totally believe you, like, girl, I hope that you take up acting in prison. You're bad at it, though, you're pretty bad at it so. Her defense lawyers argued that the arrest and the entire case against her was based on innuendo. Hearsay, double hearsay, contradictions and statements made by an unidentified 16-year-old intern who was browbeaten into saying the state's evidence was true.

That's a quote, Wow, okay. The prosecution, though, was led by Assistant Attorney General Cynthia White, and she disagreed. She's like, Nah.

She argued that Pam could be heard on the recording, making several allusions to her relationship with Billy and her role in the affair. And quote encouraging the teenager to lie to the police about her knowledge of the murder. Yeah, you know that whole thing, yep. So the county Superior Court Judge Douglas Gray luckily sided with the prosecution and ordered that Pam be held without bail until the trial. Okay?

And in his decision, Gray wrote.

And secondly, they lend credence to the friend's prior statement to police. So basically, he's like, she admitted it, and it makes sense, and it lines right up with what we thought happened. Yep, so, of course, the press covering the case were chomping at the motherfucking bit.

They overlooked some of the more important details of the case, like the fact that Pam wasn't a teacher. Yeah, that whole thing, but it didn't matter. The nation was captivated. It was the first time that anybody had really heard of a case with details as shocking as these ones.

Yeah, so people were like, following super closely for every last update and actually fun fact here. It was the first criminal trial in America to be televised from beginning to end. Oh shit, mm-hmm.

That's crazy, isn't that crazy? On Monday, January 28th, 1991, Billy pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and Pete and J.R pleaded guilty to a charge of being accomplices to second-degree murder. In exchange for their testifying against Pam at her trial, Damn.

Which was supposed to start in early March. The pleas were another blow for Pam's defense lawyers. Their attempts to suppress the recorded conversation had been denied and they were trying to contain the damage. By the press, which, like that, was going to be hard to do. And by Cecilia, who already had agreed to interviews with everybody from Hampton Union to ABC News. Oh shit. But still, her lawyers, Pam's lawyers, tried to stay confident in front of the cameras.

They told reporters the claims from Cecilia and the boys were garbage and they were confidently boasting quote.

Oh.

Whatever, and then they said, the thing that you should never say if you're going to lose a case, we're looking forward to it. Oh, that's not good, I just feel like that's never good.

No, so Pam kept maintaining that she was entirely innocent of any charges. But in the seven months since her arrest, the media coverage had allowed the public, and probably any jury member anywhere near here, to form an opinion on their own. Yeah, people were pretty sure she was guilty and that was pretty much confirmed for them when, a month before the trial started. Pam was indicted for attempting to solicit another inmate at the New Hampshire State prison for women to kill Cecilia Pierce before she could testify. Oh my God.

Because, you know, that wouldn't look suspicious or anything. Wow, mama, she's reckless, reckless.

Like, she is so reckless, reckless. What a monstrous human being, literally indicted in the middle of a murder trial for soliciting another fucking murder. She is a monstrous, monstrous human being.

She is a cuckoo nut, man, so her trial started on March 4th, 1991, in Exeter, New Hampshire. The state's case was led by Assistant Attorney General Diane Nicolosi. I believe, is how you say it. And Pam continued to be represented by Mark Sisti and Paul Toomey. Now, from the moment the trial began, the courtroom was, like, I said, packed with reporters from print and television media. And even though there had been multiple criminal trials in the past, like I said, this one was the first criminal trial to unfold on television in real time. Beginning to end, and the start of this trial actually coincided with the debut of Court TV. Oh, shit.

This was like the first thing that happened on court TV. Oh wow, isn't that crazy? So? In her opening statement to the jury, Nicolosi laid out the facts. On the evening of May 1st, 1990, Billy Flynn, acting under the direction of his lover Pam Smart, drove to Derry, where he and Pete Randall murdered Greg Smart and tried to make it look like it was a robbery. And the attorney there explained to the court that Billy's motivation was Pam. And his worry that if he didn't go through with the murder, she was going to leave him. And then went on to explain that Pete, Randall and the other boys in the getaway car. They were motivated by money.

Okay, now, finally. Even though she wasn't in the room when the murder happened, Nicolosi made it clear that the only reason Greg Smart was murdered by Billy and Pete was because Pam had lied, manipulated and orchestrated the entire thing. Of course, she was like, Pam did this willingly, intentionally, and even when she was presented with multiple opportunities to call this off, she kept going double down.

She said she was determined to be free of Greg and she wanted the money from his life insurance policy. Which was very easy to prove with what she did with it. Now, the defense attorney, Mark Sisti, I believe, is how you say it, said It should be obvious we don't agree on much or on the evidence they claim. They're going to place before you, like, yes, we know that, that's why you're the defense attorney.

That's kind of how court works. Thank you for telling us, thank you so much for that. The obvious, Yeah, thank you for that.

Now, he didn't really dispute the fact that Pam was guilty, and also really didn't try to prove her innocence with his own information. Instead, he was just trying to undermine the prosecution's case, like, make them doubt that, yeah. He paid specific attention to the fact that the most damning testimony was going to come from the killer themselves or the killers. And he said that they were only testifying as part of a plea agreement for a lesser sentence, which would put doubt in the jury's mind, of course, yeah, of course.

And then he went on to tell them that what the prosecution planned to present was going to be. Quote, one of the most vile concoctions ever assembled in one courtroom in the state of New Hampshire. Wow, that's intense, they always get so theatrical with it. I was going to say, that's like, very exaggerated, yeah.

And then, finally, he ended by saying that Greg's murder was the sole responsibility of three. And this is a quote quote. Three cold-blooded thrill killers fueled by sex obsession, jealousy and mental illness. Wow, okay, yeah, I think you're talking about your client brother. Yeah, I think so. So. The next day, the Patrick, sorry. The state called Patrick Pete Randall as its first witness.

His description of the events on the night of Greg's murder were so matter-of-a-fact and so brutal. That Judge Gray actually had to stop the testimony at one point so that Greg's mother could be helped out of the courtroom. Oh God, that's awful, he explained. Quote I was supposed to cut his throat, but I couldn't do that because of the things he said. I just couldn't do it after that. Wow.

Yup, now J.r Latime there. The second witness to be called by the state confirmed the details given in the prosecution's opening statements and in Pete's testimony. But he went on to add even more details about Pam and her relationship with Billy. He told the jury Quote She just kept asking how she should act. When she discovered Greg's body, she didn't know whether to scream, run from the house or call the police.

What? We just told her to act normally.

I can't believe that she was like, how do you act when someone that you're supposed to love is found murdered in your home? Hey, 16-year-old friends, how should you act? What should I do? Yeah.

Like, you can't even muster that up, like you did marry this man, you did, like, love him, you wanted to have children with him, or.

No, well, she didn't, he wanted kids with her. You can't just like, muster up some kind of like, well, what would happen if you loved someone and they got murdered? like, really, you can't.

Wow, what, she couldn't conjure that one. And you're a 22-year-old woman asking a couple of 16-year-old boys how you should act, of course.

In what world? Oy? So, it was clear, obviously, that the prosecution was attempting to portray, or, just like, showing that Pam was a narcissistic mastermind. Yeah, and the defense was trying to do the same, but they were trying to point it as the three boys were the mastermind and crazy people.

Of course, now. Sisti pointed to the arrest reports, which included the boys laughing and singing on the way back to Seabrook after the murder. So he's like, Look there, look at how callous they are. yeah, look how fucked up they were.

But the press noted that neither the witnesses nor the accused quote ever displayed sadness or remorse for the killing. So he is trying to sit there and pin the blame on one of them. But the media is like, Yeah, none of them seem that upset. It doesn't seem like it to me now. Ten days into the trial, into Pam's trial, Billy Flynn was finally called to testify for the prosecution. His testimony basically said the same thing that Pete and Jr had already said. But he was the one with all the sensational details about his romance with Pam.

Of course, and her reaction in the days before and after the murder. He told the jury that Pam would later tell him about finding Greg's body. He said She told me she couldn't get herself to cry. Wow.

Like, you have been, like, dating and married to this man for years and you can't muster up anything. That's cold blooded, that's cold blooded. He also told the prosecution that his testimony betrayed a promise that he had made to Pam a month before his arrest. My guy.

He said I told her I'd never tell on her because I loved her. Wow, yikes, wow. Now. Before his questioning was over, Assistant Attorney General Paul Maggiato asked Billy, why did you say God, forgive me before shooting Greg?

And Billy answered Because I didn't want to kill Greg, I wanted to be with Pam, and that's what I had to do to be with Pam. Oh my god, that's so fucked up.

It's so fucked up, I actually have goosebumps saying that, yeah, like that, truly, like, that's fucked up. It's also like for him to say, I didn't want to do that. But I did it for her. And it's like, Oh, like, the amount of lives that she just straight up shattered in every way.

Destroyed, she turned a kid into a killer that wasn't a killer, literally crazy.

That's fucked up, absolutely insane, and that's I didn't want to kill Greg, I just wanted to be with Pam, yeah.

That tells you everything, everything. Like him. Saying those few sets of words says a million words, wow. So the defense on cross-examination tried to make it seem like Billy had an unreciprocated obsession with Pam.

Nah, and he misunderstood and agreed with them and said She was the first girl I ever loved and I didn't want her to leave me. Oh my God, so it's just so sad, it's sad all around.

So the most damning evidence came in the last days of the trial. When jurors finally heard the recorded conversation between Cecilia and Pam, which then was followed by testimony from Cecilia. On recording, you can hear Pam tell Cecilia, I'm afraid one day you're going to come in here and you're going to be wired by the fucking police and I'm going to be busted. I would shit my pants about Cecilia, I would have sharted the biggest shart, yeah.

Oh my god, wow, as she's sitting there, yeah, wired like, Oh pam you silly goose.

Like, oof, you don't know how close you were, Oh my God now. Across the two tapes allowed into evidence, Pam can also be heard repeatedly admitting to the affair, manipulating Cecilia into remaining silent and strongly alluding to the fact that she was the one behind the murder. So, on March 22nd, 1991, now, after 13 hours of deliberation, the jury found Pam Smart guilty of being an accomplice to first degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with a witness.

In the end, multiple jurors would tell the press more than anything else, it was the tapes that convinced them of her guilt, one juror told The Boston Globe. It was a very, very difficult decision for us. I didn't want it to turn out this way. But the evidence, the tapes and the testimony proved in our minds that she was guilty. Yeah, of course.

And other jurors were convinced because of Pam's demeanor and her attitude on the stand, and just how she acted in the courtroom in general, according to another juror. Everyone commented that Pamela Smart looked like a statue. Her coldness was very striking. Ooh, creepy.

Yeah, now. Even when she was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, she sat there, motionless, with absolutely no expression on her face. Yeah, something wrong with that one, something real wrong with that one. Greg's parents, on the other hand, were sobbing with relief.

Judy Smart told reporters It feels great she got what she deserved. The first thing we're going to do is go to Greg's grave as a family and tell him what happened so he can rest in peace. Oh, that hurts my heart, it's so sad.

Now, friends of the family and all of the boys involved were also pleased with the verdict. Karen Knight, who was actually a friend of the Flynn family, told reporters. She not only took Greg's life, she also took Billy's future, and that's not something he can ever get back. No sentence the court could put on her is high enough for the injustice that she's caused. Yeah, I mean, it's so true.

It really is now. Just after sentencing, Pam was immediately sent to the New Hampshire State Prison for Women to begin serving her sentence. And in early 1993, she and her attorneys, of course, appealed the verdict to the state Supreme Court. Basically, they argued that the publicity surrounding the case fucked the whole thing up and that Pam never had a chance to receive a fair trial. It's like, girl, she was on tape.

Exactly, but they were like. And thus, her constitutional rights have been violated, so the court recognized the media coverage before and during the trial. They were like, Yeah, it was unprecedented in state history, but we disagree with you, they said. Both the 16th Amendment of the United States Constitution and Part 1, Article 15 of New Hampshire Constitution guarantee the right of a defendant to a trial by a fair and impartial jury.

This, however, does not require that the jurors be totally ignorant of the facts and issues involved. Yep, and these days of swift, widespread and diverse methods of communication, an important case can be expected to arouse the interest of the public in the vicinity. And scarcely, any of those best qualified to serve as jurors will not have some informed impression or opinion as to the merits of the case. Whoa?

Which, I mean, makes sense now. The appeal also challenged the recorded conversations, though, between Cecilia and Pam. Pam's attorneys claimed that the police had pressured Cecilia into consenting to the recording. And therefore, it should have been excluded from evidence and not presented at the trial. Wow. But the court also disagreed with this challenge and wrote back, basically saying that Cecilia's mother was present for all of the interviews.

Yeah, no, she was able to advise Cecilia the whole way through. Yep. And Cecilia herself said that the police explained everything to her, and both she and her mother signed all the necessary consent forms. Yeah, no.

So that was a bust, obviously. In the end, the state Supreme Court sided with the prosecution in the appeal, and the lower court's original ruling was upheld. Nice, so in the end, Billy Flynn was sentenced to 40 years in adult prison. Oh, wow.

With a minimum of 12 years served before he'd be eligible for parole. He ended up serving his sentence at the Maine State Prison in Warren, Maine. And he applied for a sentence reduction in 2007, which was denied. In 2014, he got moved to a minimum security facility, and in March 2015 he did end up getting paroled and was allowed to reenter the community. Wow. Sadly, the Smart family was entirely against this. But the Parole board chairwoman at the time, Donna Styrak, I believe, is how you say. It, commented on Billy's behavior in prison, saying I've not seen such remarkable accomplishments.

That's not something we ordinarily see. Okay, so at the very least. Hopefully his frontal lobe developed a bit more and he figured out how to make better decisions in life and hopefully he will be a better person. Here's to hope in all forms.

Now Patrick Pete Randall received a similar sentence as Billy, and he also served his sentence at the Maine State Prison. He ended up being granted parole in April of 2015 and was released into the community in June of that year. J..R. Lattime, who pleaded guilty to a lesser crime of being an accomplice to murder. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison to be served again at Maine State Prison. He was paroled in 2005..

Wow. And in early 2023, he actually petitioned the court to have the rest of his sentence suspended. Saying quote He has a wife and a full-time job and is making every effort not to waste his second chance. The court actually has yet to make a decision on that. Wow, now. Ray Fowler, the cousin there. He did eventually plead guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and attempted burglary.

He got a combined sentence of 30 years, but he was paroled in 2003 after he served 11 years of that sentence. He ended up, though, being sent back to prison just a year later because he violated the terms of his parole by leaving New Hampshire to go visit his girlfriend in Massachusetts. But he got released on parole again one year later, and his parole officially ended in 2013. And, according to prison authorities, he quote, had no problems behaving in prison, or else we wouldn't have paroled him. So there's that.

Cecilia Pierce She tried to go back to her life in New Hampshire, but because the trial was so public, she had a really hard time. Oh, and she ended up moving not too long after the trial to Jefferson City, Missouri. Oh, and then, a few years after that, she actually moved back to Seabrook and finally settled in Albany, where she actually works now as a registered nurse.

Wow, she was among the most high-profile witnesses in the case. And she actually ended up getting a lot of negative attention. Because of all the interviews that she did with the press, and because she ended up selling her story to a production company, Oh, shit. In 2016, she told reporters People think I got $120,000, but the truth? But she said, the truth was that she got $10,000, Oh.

Which I was like, Yeah, $10,000 for being a spineless jellyfish, but okay, yeah, it's like, Okay though. Now, Pam, since she's been incarcerated, she talks to the press as often as she possibly can. Of course, she does. She still maintains her innocence, and she still petitions for her release.

No one believes you, no. In 2016, she told reporters I would like people to think of me as a human being. I am not the caricature that people think. Some evil person, No.

Request denied. Yeah, absolutely not. Now, as of 2023, she is currently serving her sentence in a New York prison, and she has exhausted all of her appeals. Aw. And as of February 2023, she and her lawyers are still trying to petition the state Supreme Court to hear her appeal for a sentence reduction. But they don't seem very interested.

It's a no from them, yeah, it's a no from them. When they officially denied the request, they cited Pam's ongoing refusal to accept responsibility. Yeah, and that was her last hope for a sentence reduction.

Cue up the tiniest violin in the world.

Now, she emailed her supporters, which if you're one of them, get absolutely wrecked, seriously, saying that the decision was quote unquote political question mark how?

So question mark? The question mark is me, yeah, she said. The death penalty would have been more merciful than this. Nothing will ever be enough for New Hampshire to say. I'm a human being deserving of anything more than being locked up in a cage like an animal.

For the rest of my entire life, you orchestrated the murder of a man. Yeah, go away, and you had a sexual relationship with a minor as an adult.

Yeah, you're a pedophile, so like, Shh, you did some stuff. Yeah, it's not political, girlfriend, No, it's just yuckas.

Yup, now. When Billy was released, Greg's older brother, Rick, told the Boston Herald I think he did his time, He was at a young age. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying he shouldn't have been punished, but I want to put this behind me and I'm sure he wants to put it behind him. Wow.

He went on to say that PAM should never be released 100. Unfortunately, Greg's mom, Judy, passed away less than 10 years after Greg was killed. Her son's murder absolutely destroyed her and Greg's father, too. He passed away in 2010..

But his brother, Rick, told The Herald he felt as though his father would agree with him. That Billy did his time. And he ended the interview saying, Maybe someday I would like to speak to him, meaning Billy. Just so I could find out how exactly what happened from someone who was there. I kind of want to know, but at the same time I just want to move on. He took our brother and my parents son at a young age. I would hope that by now he would realize what he did, and I think he probably does. He's had a lot of time to think about it.

Whether he'd be honest with me about that, I don't know. It wouldn't change my opinion about him getting out. But if I was him, I wouldn't try and squander it. Wow, like, what a tough dude.

That is a decent human being right there. It really is like, Wow, I don't. It just goes to show you don't know how you would feel until something like this, God forbid, happens to you.

Yeah, like, but mad respect to Rick. for real. a lot of respect to Rick, so much respect. And then obviously this has been made into, like countless movies.

Of course it has. I think Nicole Kidman played Pam at one point, which was a very generous compliment. Yeah, it was. Helen Hunt also played her in another movie, again. a very generous compliment.

I think we should just next time hire a dumpster and put a blonde wig on it and see what happens. Or, you know, like this, don't make another one or don't make another one, there's always that.

Don't make another one, that's a good plan, we've had enough. So, yeah, that is the wild, freaking case that is Pam Smart and the murder of Greg Smart. What a sad story.

It really is, it really is through and through, because they're two people that should never have gotten married, no?

Never. And it's so sad that they didn't just like, get to divorce like a normal couple. That's the thing, because they absolutely. I think Greg was starting to go in that direction.

And it's so sad. There's so many like times where either they should have just divorced and that should have been it. Or in that moment when all those kids realized that they didn't want to do this, I wish they had just not done it, I agree.

They just stood up for what something inside of them was saying and just listened to it, right? Had a fucking just be crazy, had a spine.

I wish anybody in this story had a spine. It would have been great. truly, that would have been awesome. it would have been fantastic.

But as always, guys, we hope you keep listening, and we hope you keep it. Weird, but not so weird that you're a spineless jellyfish who decides to murder somebody because you want to be with a lady that is kind of a pedophile. Don't be a dick, don't be a dick.

Don't do it love you.

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