May 1, 1990: the shocking death that started a sensation in N.H.

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."

Approximately one hour after the boys had left the Smart residence, Pam opened the front door to her house. "I saw Greg's foot and opened the door further," she said, "[I] saw him lying on his stomach." Pam ran out of her home screaming and started to bang on her neighbor's doors.

Paul Dacier of unit 4D Misty Morning drive described to the police that he heard "pitter patter" from next door and a loud bang after Greg Smart had arrived home from work. "I looked out my window and saw a man - who I recognized as the resident who lives beside my condo," Dacier said. Dacier then went on to explain in a Derry Police Department statement form that around 10:15 a woman came to his front door screaming for help. "She was pounding on the door. I told my fiancé to call 9-1-1," Dacier said.

Dacier's fiancé Kim Mercer also placed a statement with the police. "At 10 p.m. I heard frantic screaming outside of my door. I called the police," she said. She also stated that during the year prior to that day she witnessed activity next door with lots of parties, couples sleeping over, and strange people arriving at the condo.

  Greg Smart, 24, had been murdered. Crime scene photos show a young man face down in a hallway with a bullet wound to the upper left side of his head. Visible by his body are two pens and the valise he'd brought home from work. His feet point towards the welcome mat with a pink and blue goose design. A single gunshot wound to the head from a .38 caliber bullet was determined to be the cause of death.

Identifying who caused the death fell to Detective Daniel R. Pelletier from the Derry Police Department who was assigned to the case. Even 15 years later, it's obvious this is one case Pelletier remembers well. Understandable, given the fact that the murder of Greg Smart and the ensuing murder trial remains one of the biggest spectacles to ever hit New Hampshire.

"I observed the victim lying in the hallway face down just inside the front door of the apartment at the dining room entrance," Pelletier said. "There was a pool of blood under the victim's head. A wound was located on the top, left side of the victim's head and blood was located on and around the wound."

Five days after the murder, and one day before what would have been the one year wedding anniversary of Pam and Greg Smart, Pam contacted Bill Spencer at WMUR News 9 for an interview.

On May 14, 1990, an anonymous phone call placed to the Derry Police department linked Cecelia Pierce, a fellow student of Bill Flynn and an intern for Pam in the media center, to the murder case.

On June 10, 1990, the Seabrook Police Department had a break in the case. Ralph Welch, a friend of Lattime, had come to the Seabrook Police Department and informed them that he had knowledge about Greg Smart's murder and that he knew who killed Greg Smart.

Charewicz of the Seabrook Police Department interviewed Welch, and he found that Welch knew intimate details about the case. At the same time Vance Lattime Sr. had just turned in his .38 caliber revolver to be looked at by the Seabrook Police Department, due to his suspicion of the gun's involvement with a murder, according to the affidavit of Pelletier.

"Vance Lattime Sr. had checked and noticed his .38 caliber had been cleaned, he thought it was strange," said Pelletier.