Oct 4, 2022

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

Drop by and rate and review the show (five stars are my favorite!), it helps the show grow and get found by more listeners. Thank you! Apple Podcasts 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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