Keene Equinox

Issue date: 4/20/06 Section: Justice in New Hampshire

Like most insurance agents, Greg Smart's work day on May 1, 1990 stretched past 5 p.m., what with clients to call or counsel, paperwork to file or forms to complete. He pulled into his driveway at 4E Misty Morning Drive in Derry, N.H.

He unlocked his front door to the condo he shared with his wife of less than a year, Pam. He stepped inside.

His wife Pam arrived home from a school board meeting at 10:15 p.m. As she later described in a written statement, "when I came up to the house I thought it was weird because there were no outside or inside lights on. I opened the door with my key and turned the hallway light on."

By the time the Winnacunnet Board of Education had finished its meeting, three of the district's students and one other friend were already back home in Seabrook. Their night's journey had carried them to Derry, a town 37 miles away from Seabrook. Not the usual stomping grounds for four guys from the wrong side of the tracks.

One of the four teenagers, William Flynn, 16, had a very close relationship to the victim's wife Pam. Flynn was also a friend with Pam's teenage assistant and confidant, Cecelia Pierce. The two had worked together on a video project for Pam three months earlier.

Earlier in the year Greg, admitted to Pam he'd had a one-time affair with a woman while away on a business trip in the fall of 1989. This had devastating effects on Pam's self esteem, particularly since they'd just married May 8, that same year.

As she later described in an exclusive prison interview, the combination of betrayal, low self esteem and Prozac brought her to the edge. Hurt and feeling desperate, Pam became close with Flynn.

The relationship between Flynn and Pam, age 21, was the reason why the four teens drove a car borrowed from one of their grandmother's the evening of May 1, 1990. Besides Flynn, the car carried 16- year- old Patrick "Pete" Randall, 17- year- old Vance "J.R." Lattime and Raymond Fowler, 19, who maintains, along with others, he was along for the ride.

Fowler said he was just along for the ride to Derry because the boys were only going to check out a place to break into. Lattime and Fowler hung around a shopping plaza while Randall and Flynn went to "check things out to steal at a later time."

About 90 minutes later, Flynn and Randall returned back to Lattime's grandmother's 1977 tan four door Chevrolet Impala. Fowler recalls that Flynn and Randall spoke of the power that they had felt. "You should feel the power of killing a man, feel the gun, it's still hot."

Continued...

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