After Decades of Denial, Incarcerated Woman Seeks Leniency from New Hampshire Officials
Concord, NH – Pamela Smart, notorious for her 1990 conviction of manipulating a teenager into killing her husband, has made a dramatic shift in her stance. For the first time in over three decades, Smart has accepted full responsibility for her husband’s death. This newfound acceptance comes in the form of a video statement released as part of her latest attempt to have her life sentence reduced.
A Look Back: Affair, Murder Plot, and Conviction
Smart, currently 56 years old, was a 22-year-old high school media coordinator when she began an affair with a 15-year-old student. This student, whose name is not being used due to his minor status at the time, later fatally shot Smart’s husband, Gregory Smart, in Derry, New Hampshire. The teenager served a 25-year sentence and was released in 2015.
Pamela Smart consistently denied any involvement in the murder plot. However, she was convicted of being an accomplice to first-degree murder and other crimes. This conviction resulted in a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Seeking Forgiveness and a Reduced Sentence
Smart has now spent nearly 34 years behind bars. In her video statement, she attributes her newfound acceptance of responsibility to participation in a prison writing group. This group, she claims, encouraged members to confront difficult truths.
“For me, that was really hard,” Smart says in the emotional video, her voice trembling. “Because going into those places, in those spaces is where I found myself responsible for something I desperately didn’t want to be responsible for, my husband’s murder.”
Smart continues, acknowledging deflection and denial as past coping mechanisms. She expresses a desire for an “honest conversation” with both the New Hampshire Executive Council and Governor Chris Sununu. The Executive Council holds the authority to approve sentence reductions in the state, and Smart has exhausted all avenues of judicial appeal.
Previous Appeals Rejected, Council Unconvinced
This recent plea marks Smart’s third attempt at sentence reduction. The Executive Council rejected her previous requests in 2022. An appeal to the state Supreme Court in 2023 was similarly unsuccessful.
