US judge rejects Pamela Smart's bid for a new trial over husband's 1990 murder after 35 years in prison

From the Newshound archive · first published 19 September 2026.

Merrimack County Superior Court Judge James Kennedy on Thursday threw out Pamela Smart's habeas corpus petition, finding that her constitutional claims either had no merit or should have been raised in previous appeals. Smart, 59, has spent more than three decades at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in New York after her 15-year-old student lover murdered her husband Gregory in Derry, New Hampshire, at her behest. Her lawyers argued that prosecutors manipulated transcripts by filling inaudible gaps with words such as 'killed', 'busted' and 'murder', tainting her conviction. Smart did not acknowledge responsibility for Gregory's death until 2024, saying she had spent years shifting blame onto others "almost as if it was a coping mechanism."

The teenage accomplice who fired the fatal shot walked free in 2015 after 25 years; Smart remains imprisoned for life without the possibility of parole.

Her 1991 trial was one of the first in the US to be aired in its entirety on live television, captivating the country.

The case went on to inspire the film 'To Die For', sealing Smart's reputation as one of America's most notorious convicted killers.