Anngelle Wood

Oct 4, 2022

Episode 33 | A Fool's Game: The Murder of Gregg Smart, Derry, New Hampshire (part two)

Updated: Jun 5, 2023

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Part two in the series about Gregg Smart's murder and those who planned and carried out this plot to kill him. It's ridiculous to imagine anyone going through with such a ridiculous plan. Yet four teenagers from Seabrook, NH did at the behest of a 22 year old high school media coordinator. It is a sensational story and mesmerized the region for the better part of a year in 1990-91.

Gregg Smart is the forgotten victim in the crime of the century - as it has been called over and over given its history of firsts. Gregg was murdered on May 1, 1990. The 24-year-old insurance broker was shot dead in his home six days before his first wedding anniversary.

At first, it looked like he'd interrupted a burglary, because that's what the killers were told to make it look like. As the investigation wore on, it uncovered a plot rife with salacious headlines by a mastermind who was first tried in the media before they were tried in court. The Smart case was a spectacle, the original crime of the century. The first televised trial.

WMUR Channel 9 in Manchester, New Hampshire preempted its daily programming to televise the two-week trial. People stood in line at 2am to get a seat in the courtroom. The pretrial coverage was frenzied. I often cover stories that affected me. This is one of those. I lived in Southern New Hampshire in the late 80s/early 90s. You couldn't go anywhere without hearing the name Pamela Smart.

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Main Sources for this episode
 

Skylights and Screen doors

by Dean J. Smart

Teach Me to Kill: The Shocking True Story of the Pamela Smart Murder Case

by Stephen Sawicki

Court TV trial coverage

Crime of the Truest Kind

Hosted by Anngelle Wood

@anngelle

CrimeoftheTruestKind.com

Follow @crimeofthetruestkind

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