Suburban Siren: Pamela Smart

In this episode of The Femme Fatal, we examine the case of Pamela Smart, the New Hampshire media coordinator whose affair with a teenage student led to one of the most notorious murder trials of the early 1990s. We walk through the timeline of the crime, the investigation, and the courtroom proceedings that made the case a national media spectacle. The story later inspired films, television portrayals, and ongoing debate about manipulation, influence, and responsibility. As always, we close the episode with an astrological look at Pamela Smart’s chart and the personality dynamics reflected in it.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Welcome to the Femme Fatal, a true crime podcast with an astrology twist. I'm your host, Stacey Dotson. Each week I'll be joined by a guest host because this femme fatal prefers not to work alone. Hey, Kay. Hey, Stacy. Hey, welcome back to the Femme Fatal. Thank you. I'm so happy to be back. I'm excited.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Okay, so who are we talking about today? So we are talking about Pamela Smart. She became pretty famous in the early 90s. Do you remember watching the OJ trial back in the mid-90s? Yes. Yes. Did you watch a lot of it? I did.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

I watched a lot of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

I remember watching the Houston Rockets and the New York Knicks in the NBA Championship. And they took the game and put it in a tiny little rectangle in the corner of the screen. And the, I mean, the entire country was riveted by this Bronco chase. And then the subsequent trial that followed. The reason I bring that up is because before OJ, before the Menendez brothers, before any of these famous trials that we have watched, experienced, heard of over the past few decades, the very first Gavel to Gavel murder trial, where they covered the entire thing on TV, was the Pamela Smart Trial. This was pretty fascinating. Lots of buzz. There was a lot of buzz, a lot of attention. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Okay. Tell me about that. But wait, really quick, I wanted to tell you a funny story about the OJ trial. So we happened to be, me and Eileen and our friend Dana were in Boston, and we wanted to find a place to go watch the Rockets Knicks games, right? So we walk into this place. I want to say the bar was called The Rat. Okay. So we walk in and it was like, oh my God, everybody's staring at us when we walk in. It was a big sports bar. And I was like, holy moly. And I walk in and then I look above me when I get in, and there's a giant TV screen and it's got the OJ shapes on. We were all like, we didn't even want to go in. We're like, why are they staring at us?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

It was crazy. I mean, do you remember? Gosh, it was crazy. It was crazy. Ever since then, I've wanted one of those white Broncos. But Greg does too. He loves the Bronco. I think it's so great. The old Bronco. Okay. So Pamela Smart was born Pamela Wojis. That's W-O-J-A-S Wojis. Her birthday is August 16th, 1967, which makes her Leo. And you'll never guess where she was born. It was our favorite place, Florida. Oh she. Her dad was an airline pilot, I believe. Mom was a stay-at-home mom. Nice, happy family, good parents, I think. Anyway, her family, when she was completing the eighth grade, they moved to New Hampshire. So she completed high school in New Hampshire. But after she graduated, she headed back down to Florida. She attended Florida State University for college. So she majored in communications. She was the DJ of a metal show on the college radio station.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

We'll get to that shirt I'm wearing later, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

She was known as the maiden of metal. That was her shtick for her radio show. So she loved rock and roll, loved heavy metal. So one Christmas, she was back home in New Hampshire visiting family, and she met Greg Smart. They hit it off, fell in love, dated. He ended up moving to Florida with her for her senior year of college. They had a lot in common. They both love heavy metal music. He had long hair. She loved that about him. She thought he was a rocker and he was so cool. Totally 90s. Yeah, this is the late 80s, right? When she graduated, they moved back to New Hampshire and they moved to Derry, New Hampshire to be close to his family. They moved into a condo. He bought her a shihtsu, a little dog. She named it Halen after Dan Halen. Oh, okay. Yeah. And so, you know, they're setting up their little family in New Hampshire. She's 22 at this point. He's 24. He gets a job working for, I think it was his dad's insurance company, but that involved him wearing a suit and a tie. He cut his hair. Some of the stories I read were that she was not a fan of the short hair. She was upset he was not the rocker that she had married. Anyway, he's becoming professional. She gets a job at the local high school as the media services coordinator. And so she did like television and film type stuff with these kids.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Putting that communications degree to work.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Exactly. Exactly. You're a communications major, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:16

I have a communications degree. Me too. And I'm not doing anything in it, but now I am. You are now. I am now.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

So she's working at the high school and their relationship is changing. They're seven months into their marriage. So very, very much newlywed still. It's changing because he's no longer the rocker that she wanted him to be. He also allegedly admitted to her that he had cheated. What? Yes. I didn't know that part. Right? Seven months. They've been married seven months and he cheated. And then, well, and to add to that, he also had a$140,000 life insurance policy on himself. Oh, yeah. So, anyway, this is how marriage started. So, relationship is rocky. She's working with a bunch of teenagers at this high school. One of those teenagers is a 15-year-old boy named Billy Flynn. Another teen that she's mentoring pretty closely is a girl named Cecilia Pierce. And she's also 15 or 16. So a couple of teenagers. And she was essentially their teacher, but she worked on projects with kids. She was working on this video project called Project Self-Esteem, which I read had something to do with drug awareness or avoiding drugs, but also self-esteem. So, from some accounts, Pamela was a very immature 22-year-old. Fit right in with these teenagers in high school. These 15-year-olds. She hung out with them outside of school, let them drive her car, had them over to her house when her husband was not home. And she she totally crossed that line of teacher student.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Way crossed the line. But wait. From what I understand, she crosses it a lot more. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

So while hanging out at her condo over multiple incidents, Cecilia became privy to some information. A that Pamela and Billy were having a sexual relationship. Gross. And B, that Pamela was plotting with Billy to have Billy kill Pamela's husband, Greg. So Cecilia knows this before anything ever happens. She's privy to these discussions. She knows they're talking about locating a weapon, how to do the deed. I mean, she knows what's up. Billy is an impressionable 15-year-old boy. He's got this older woman paying attention to him. And you know, I knew 15-year-old boys back in high school. You knew 15-year-old boys back in high school. 15-year-old boys only think about just a very few things. And well, yeah. I was talking to my husband about that, and he was like, Yeah, music, cars, beer. And I'm like, Yeah, marijuana. And the ladies.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

And sex. Well, not necessarily just ladies, sex. Yeah, just sex. Also, that just made me when you said that, it made me think, okay, so if she's working on this project self-esteem, obviously, these two kids probably have low self-esteem, right? Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

I mean, teenagers don't have the highest self-esteem. You're still trying to figure your shit out, right? So vulnerable, impressionable, and he was getting the attention from this pretty experienced older woman. I mean, he was falling for her hook line and sinker. Right. So again, her relationship with him grew to way beyond mentorship and friendship. It became sexual. She allegedly told him she wanted her husband dead. She told Billy that she and her husband didn't get along very well. They fought all the time. One report I read said she told Billy their fights were physical, that the husband was kidding her, the husband being Greg. Pamela Smart also admitted that when she found out her husband had cheated, she was devastated. It was an emotional blow. So her self-esteem wasn't very high at this time either. Billy claimed that Pamela promised him that their relationship would continue only if he carried out her wishes of killing her husband. So ultimatum. Yeah. And for some reason he said, okay, I'm in. Pam, she said Billy gave her the attention she was lacking in her own marriage. She admitted, this is later on, she admits the affair was a mistake, but she claimed that she ended her relationship with Billy about one month before the murder of her husband so that she could mend things with him. That's her story. So Billy, he had three friends that helped with this murder plot. They're all also teenage boys. Pete Randall, J.R. Latamy, and Raymond Fowler. So Pete, Jr. and Raymond. On May 1st, someone's birthday, I know.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Me.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Yes, you. Billy, along with Pete, JR, and Raymond, entered Greg Smart's home. So Pamela's gone. It's just Greg. He's entering his empty house, or at least so he thinks. Yeah. Pete gets a hold of Greg by force. Billy shoots him in the head with a 38 caliber revolver.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

To be able to do that at 15.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Unimaginable.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

One story I read was they also threw Halen the dog down the stairs into the basement. What? I know.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Right? Leave the dog alone. Leave the dog alone. I with movies, I'm like, I can watch people get blown up all day long, but if they hurt the dog.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Actually, when law enforcement arrived, the dog was cowering in the basement and scared. Poor little guy. Anyway, so Pamela, again, she was not home. She actually comes home, opens the door, and sees her husband laying on the floor in the foyer of the home in a pool of blood, runs to a neighbor, they call law enforcement, law enforcement shows up, blah, blah, blah. He's dead. And they think at first that it's a robbery gone wrong. The house is ransacked, but they didn't notice anything missing. There were no signs of forced entry. And according to the boys, Pamela Smart had left the basement door unlocked. So they were able to get into the home easily and set up and wait, wait for the murderer. So law enforcement, they were suspicious because they didn't notice anything missing. There were no signs of forced entry. But there are a couple of other things that caused them to take a closer look at this. JR, one of the boys involved, he told another friend, someone outside of this group, he told another friend about the murder. The friend told JR's dad, and JR's dad found the 38-caliber revolver and took it to the police.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

And that was, you said that was JR's dad's gun, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:55

JR's dad's gun, yeah. And so that was one thing that caused them to look at this a little bit closer. A second thing though was Cecilia. So remember Cecilia, one of the kids that Pamela was mentoring. Law enforcement received an anonymous tip identifying Cecilia as someone with knowledge of the crime. And when they interviewed her, she agreed to cooperate to avoid being charged as an accessory to murder. She wore a recording device during four separate secret conversations with Pamela Smart that took place between June and July of 1990. The recordings were considered the most crucial evidence in the trial. They captured Pamela Smart discussing the murder, pressuring Cecilia to lie to the police. And then later at trial, Cecilia testified against Pamela, detailing the affair between Smart and Billy and the planning of the murder. And again, in exchange for her cooperation and testimony, she was granted immunity. She never faced criminal charges, despite her confessed knowledge of the plot.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Yeah. So that was my question was going to be did she actually confess on these tapes, like say I did it? Or she didn't admit that?

SPEAKER_00 15:18

She did, but the tapes are going to come up again here in a minute. Things that were captured on the tape, one thing was if you go to the police, we are both going to jail for a long time, or something like that. So the implication from the tapes was a confession, although she never actually said the words, I ordered these boys to kill my husband. Given those tapes, those tapes from Cecilia, the gun that had been turned in, and their suspicions, law enforcement had enough to arrest Pamela Smart and charge her with murder. They also charged these four boys with murder as accessories. In March of 1991, Pamela Smart went on trial 14 days. And again, it was covered on TV, and everyone around the nation could watch. And it was a media circus.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

What channel was it on? Was it on like CNN or something? It may have been court TV. There was a court TV. I don't remember court TV. Does that still exist?

SPEAKER_00 16:24

That's a good question. I did used to watch court TV here and there, but well, I mean, you kind of are in the legal profession. Just kinda, you're a lawyer. No, definitely. I am a lawyer, but you know what? My last day of work is gonna be March 31st.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

You're gonna get to retire early. Yeah. Are you gonna officially retire or are you gonna do something else? I don't know what I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

I'm gonna do, well, I'm gonna do this podcast with you. I was about to say, you're gonna do this podcast with me, Mar. Yay! But yeah, I think I'm gonna go to Hawaii, visit Julia, you know.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Oh, that'll be nice.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

So, anyway, throughout one of the tapes, Pamela Smart is speaking rapidly and sounds increasingly frantic and nervous. According to this report, she was on Prozac and it made her very agitated, and her dosage was incorrect. So that was her claim for why she was sounding nervous and talking manically. Towards the end of the first conversation, Pierce, Cecilia, she asks Pamela, she says, Listen, if they find out that I lied for you, am I gonna be charged with? And then Pamela interrupts, You're not gonna be lying. You didn't lie about anything, you don't know anything. What the hell's the problem? She abruptly ends the conversation when Pierce mentions that smart could have just got a divorce instead. Yeah. And then she makes an inaudible comment about her phone before ending the conversation. So she doesn't admit to it, but it's very suspicious behavior and conversation.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Anyway, so they go to trial, it's 14 days long. Media is nuts over this thing. The jurors heard the taped conversations, they were garbled and scratchy and hard to understand. But what they heard in those conversations, the witness testimony, so the boys all testified, and evidence alleging smart involvement. And in the end, all of that was enough for the jury to say, yeah, she did it. Guilty. Guilty. She was convicted. And she was convicted of accomplice to first degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and witness tampering. And she was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. A sentence that she continues to serve till this day. Now the boys, so this is interesting. These four young men under various plea agreements with prosecutors later testified against Smart at her trial. So they all testified against her. Billy, the one that actually pulled the trigger, the one that was having the affair with her, he was initially sentenced in 1992 to life for second-degree murder, but with parole eligibility after roughly 25 years. And he was granted parole in 2015.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Okay, but he was a minor when he was charged. But they tried him as an adult.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Yeah, he was 15 years. So he was given 25 years with the possibility of parole, and he was paroled. So he's on, I didn't know this could happen. Paroled for life. So for the rest of his life, he reports to a parole officer.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Okay. I didn't know that could happen either.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

I didn't either. Okay, so he lives up in the northeast area still. He's married and is still alive. Wait, he's married. And I swear I cannot be 100% sure. I think he got married while he was still in jail, which is a whole story right there on its own. Who are these crazy women?

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Who are they? Like, I don't know. I don't even know.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

Yeah, that would be a good podcast. The crazy women that marry men in jail. Ooh, that is a good idea. Okay. That's your retirement podcast. I like it. I like it. So then there was Pete Randall. He's the guy that held Greg Smart when Billy shot him. Yeah, and he received the exact same sentence structure as Billy Flynn, and he was paroled the exact same day as Billy Flynn. So oh wow. Yeah. Then uh J.R. J.R. was the one with the gun whose dad turned it in. He also provided the getaway car, and he was sentenced to life with parole eligibility. His sentence was reduced. He was released on lifetime parole, also. So he's gonna be on parole for the rest of his life. And that was in 2005. So that was roughly 15 years after the murder, which makes him about 30. And then Raymond, he waited in the car. So he was just the getaway driver. He was sentenced to 30 years with parole eligibility after 15 years. So he was also paroled early in 2003.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Yeah, it makes you wonder what the plea deal offer was when they got these harsh sentences. Like how much more worse could it be? Just life, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Yeah, it could have been life.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

No parole, no opportunity for parole.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

And no parole, right. In exchange for them testifying against Pamela Smart, they were given this option of parole. And she was not. So all four of the Boys that participated in the plot, they're out of prison now. Panelist Mart though, she remains incarcerated. And she has several times over the past, what was that, 1992? So 34 years. She has appealed, she's requested a reduced sentence. She is not eligible for parole. She's been denied multiple times. Early on, she said she believed it's possible that Billy could have misconstrued her message and killed Greg on his own wishes. That's BS, I think. She said, I will serve a death sentence, life without parole for a crime I never admitted to. She stated the death penalty has an end in sight. Mine does not. She's been in prison for 34 plus years. And while in prison, she has earned advanced degrees. She's got three master's degrees. She's an ordained minister. And yeah, she's built a reputation in prison for mentoring and rehabilitation efforts. Yeah, okay, good. Despite all of her efforts to appeal and efforts to reduce her sentence, she's been unsuccessful. In 2024, she finally admitted some guilt. And I'm using air quotes. This is what she said. Okay, so she's in a prison group of women. They're doing some journaling and they're asked to get to the heart of why they're in prison. She said for me, that was really hard because going into those places, in those spaces, is where I found myself responsible for something I desperately didn't want to be responsible for, my husband's murder. I had to acknowledge for the first time in my own mind, in my own heart, how responsible I was because I had deflected blame all the time. It was a coping mechanism because the truth of being so responsible was very difficult for me. And I think, okay, that's sort of an admission.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

But can you hear AJ's collar? It's not it's no, it isn't. You're right. It's a half-ass assumption.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

And it was done in conjunction with another request for reducing her sentence. So new information. So as of early 2026, as of January 2026, Pamela Smart's legal team has taken new action aiming to challenge her conviction itself. So they're not asking for a reduction in sentence this time. It's a challenge to her conviction itself. So her lawyers filed a petition for habeas corpus relief in both New York and in New Hampshire. So she's incarcerated in New York, but the crime occurred in New Hampshire. And they're arguing that the original trial was compromised. They claim the jurors, so three claims. Jurors were influenced by pervasive media coverage, blurring the line between evidence and publicity.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

Exactly. I mean, I could see that because it was a sensation. It was, you know, it was sensational.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Yeah. Also, they're claiming transcripts of taped hearings used in the trial included words that may not have been clear or audible on the recordings, allegedly skewing the jury's understanding. So I'm wondering if that includes Cecilia's tapes. I bet it does because those were hard to understand. Lastly, they're claiming that faulty jury instructions in misapplication of New Hampshire sentencing law may have improperly mandated her life sentence. So again, these claims or these actions aim for the first time in 34 plus years to overturn or vacate her conviction. It's not a reduction.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

Wow. Can you imagine that? If it's just like boom, she's out of jail after that long.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

After that long. So she is now 58 years old. And she's been in prison since she was 23, 24. Crazy.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

That is crazy. Okay, so my question is why were pedophilia charges never brought up? I mean, she admitted to being with him and he was 15 years old. Yeah. That was statutory rape. Okay, statutory rape was the right term. Not I mean, it makes her a pedophile, but it's like, yeah, statutory rape would be the term. And part of me wonders if it was because it was reversed. It was a woman with the boy instead of a man with the girl.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

Maybe so. I just Googled and it's AI. But it says, while she was heavily criticized for her grooming and manipulation of Billy Flynn, she was not charged with statutory rape, primarily because prosecutors focused on the more severe charges of conspiracy to commit murder and accomplice to first-degree murder. I guess they went through big stuff. Although statutory rape, that's horrible. That's huge. Yeah. I mean, it's probably because she's the female and the kid is the male.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

Well, you know so much more about this, but then also, like, okay, so they want the harsher sentence, and you can't be tried twice for the same crime. So if the jury had said not guilty, would they then be able to turn around and file charges against her for statutory weight? Do you think that's something?

SPEAKER_00 27:37

I think so.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

Like maybe they put it in their back pocket, like just in case she slips this and we need to do this, because that's a sure thing.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Yeah. I mean, she admitted it. She admitted it. And double jeopardy definitely would have attached to the murder and the conspiracy charges, but they didn't charge her with the statutory rape. So yeah. Maybe it was a backup plan, plan B. It was plan B. I just feel like she really manipulated this boy, these boys. Oh, for sure. I gotta tell you, with teenage people, you really gotta give them some leeway. Their brains are not formed. You gonna know you have two that went through that. And we went through that. I mean, when we were, oh my gosh, no. Rational thinking was really only with me 50% of the time.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

I have to believe that I don't even think then I would have committed murder. You know, I gotta give myself that break.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Oh yeah, absolutely not. Oh my god, never would I have done that. No. I know the difference between right and wrong and have known that since preschool, but yes, you gotta give them just a little leeway. So given that they were manipulated by her, I don't have any problem with them being paroled after a couple of decades.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

And you know, especially the ones that didn't actually pull the trigger but still went along with it. I don't know. I mean, it seems like the girl all she did was have knowledge and not say anything, which is still bad. But she also probably might have been freaking out. Like, if I do say something, I'm going to jail.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

I'm attached to these people. So I was so excited that you picked her because there is a lot of pop culture that goes along with it. So I was like, oh, I have a lot, you know, it's like something to talk about because like we did Claire Harris, like there's one movie. It's like when in an interview with someone, you know, it's like I don't have much in that section. I just breeze right over it.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Same thing with Christine Falling. There was pretty much no possible.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Oh, yes. Oh, that was the one. That was the one with the least amount. That's right. When we did this last time. Okay. So I'm wearing my 1987 White Snake concert tour. It was actually Greg's. They played December 2nd at the summit and Great White opened for them. Oh my god. This shirt's probably, he doesn't fit him anymore. So that's why I've taken it over. But it's probably like one or two washes away from just like disintegrating. But the reason is so I went and looked up all the stuff, and Gus Van Zant made a movie called To Die For. So Matt Dylan plays Greg. When she goes to see him in his band, he's playing the drums. He's wearing this shirt, not just a white snake shirt, this exact shirt. But when I saw that, I was like, that's my shirt. So I had to wear it for this podcast. But yeah, that was a really good movie. And obviously, it was based on their story, and they changed the names and stuff like that. And I like the ending.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

Oh, I love the ending, which is not alone.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

Yes, that was great. She had to pay for it quicker than that. Yes. And Ileana Douglas. I love her. What's she doing now? I wonder. I don't know. She dropped out of Hollywood, but she was in so many great roles. So good. Cape Beer. Oh my god, she was great in Cape Fear. She was in a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

Yeah. You know, she used to be in a relationship with Martin Scorsese.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

Oh, really? Yeah. I would think there's a big age difference, but maybe not.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

I think there is. I think there is.

SPEAKER_01 31:41

But Nicole Kidman played Pamela Smart. And she was so good. She was so good. And Joaquin Phoenix was Billy. Yes. Casey Affleck. Casey Affleck was he the kid with the gun? I can't remember. That was his dad's gun.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

He was either the kid with the gun or the one that held him. I can't remember. But yeah, he was very involved.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

So All-Star cast. So that happened, you said what, 91, right? The murder was May 1st, 1990. May 1st, 1990. Okay. This was so sensationalized because I mean immediately, like Law and Order had just been out for like a year. And in 91, they put out an episode that they used that case as the episode. Like it just went crazy. And then this Gus Van Zant was movie was only 95. They also do a family guy episode that I watched on it. And Chris is teacher, you know, she's the one that comes in. And they think Chris, Peter and Lois think Chris actually killed the husband of the teacher. And then Stewie and Lois go try to hide the body because they don't want Chris to go to jail. So anyway, I highly recommend that episode too. It was good. So one of the things was she was a media person. And in the Gus Van Zamp movie, the character wants to be on TV, right?

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Right. In real life, Pamela's smart. I think she had aspirations to be a broadcaster in broadcast journalism, but this was a stepping stone on the way to that.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

On the school, right. And so in the movie, after it's done and the cameras are all there, she gets her validation. Like, you know, she's putting it out there and like doing all the interviews. But there was also a made for TV movie, and it was the name escapes me. Hold on a minute here. It was Helen Hunt. Helen Hunt was her, and it was so bad, but I did make myself watch it yesterday. It's like, okay, I gotta get this out of the way and just see what it's like. But that was pretty right on for the story that you're telling me, you know, the Helen Hunt version made for TV. So yeah, there's just tons of stuff out there. I mean, I'll link to some of the stuff we brought up, but it's endless because you're right. This is the first time something was on TV the whole time, and it just everybody paid attention to it. And it is kind of a unique story. Like, obviously, people have hired Hitman or done things to try to kill their husband, but like seducing a young boy and coercing him to do that, that was just in a such a small town. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 34:34

It's just like yeah, it was a small town. The murder of Greg Smart in 1990, that was the only murder in that town that entire year. That's good. Yeah, no, it's great, but I mean, compare to well, let's say Houston, yeah, small town.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

We come from a very large town, so we don't know what that's like. There's a murder, if not more than one every day. Yeah, for sure. Not something to be laugh at. Okay, so I'm gonna run and do her chart and then, you know, if we want to talk a little bit more about it, but I feel like I always am dogging on Leo women, you know what I mean? Like there's a lot of Leo women, but I love my Leo women. So, you know, she was a Leo. I'm gonna just kind of brush over it because I really want to talk about one thing more than anything in her chart. But the basics, August 16th, 1967. So her sun sign, her basic personality is in Leo. They crave recognition and presence. Leo's are charismatic and confident and unbalanced. They like could crave attention even if it's bad attention. And so obviously, she was in the media spotlight, the bad attention for what she was in. So her moon is in Capricorn. The moon sign is your internal emotion, what you don't really, you know, share sometimes your deepest, darkest thoughts. And so the moon was in Capricorn and it represents emotional instinct. Capricorn moon is controlled and strategic and image conscious. So she could compartmentalize emotion and doesn't display a lot of vulnerability in public. Maybe that aligned with her composed courtroom demeanor because she really was in the courtroom, just there, composed. So her Venus, her love, this is what I want to get into. Not the number one, but it's in Virgo. Venus is the actual planet for Virgo too. Each sign has a planet that, you know, is identified with it. And so attachment, analytical, selective, and sometimes critical. And apparently she was very critical of him. They weren't even married a year, right? It was like 11 months or something. Seven months in both the movies, which again, they take creative license. She body shamed him. You know what I mean? Like, so called something love handles and whatever. So I feel like that may be the analytical, the negative side of Virgo, right? So her Mars is in Scorpio. That's your action, your intense, secretive, strategic. That's a key word there. They don't lash out impulsively, they plan and operate, you know, and that obviously true. But the one I want to talk about the most is the Mercury. And the Mercury is your communication, the way you express yourself, and it's also in Virgo. And so it makes sense that she's analytical and detail-oriented, precise, controlled in speech, ambitious, is very good at speaking publicly. That is very much someone that could be in a position, like a correspondent or something like that. They're able to think on their feet and communicate clearly. And especially because she remained really calm and composed during the trial. And that's to me, is something that I feel like that's where that comes from. I like that you picked this too, having your legal background, because the court case is, you know, obviously outside of the sad murder, but the court case is what really is why this story is still sticking around today.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

Yeah. And I mean, she's exhausted all of her pellet remedies at this point, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

Is this her last one? Like, is this her last chance?

SPEAKER_00 38:48

Well, no, this is like separate. All of her pellet remedies, she's gone through that. This is just a new angle saying the trial, the conviction needs to be overturned because of this newly discovered, these things that have occurred. And I can't remember all three of them that I said earlier. The you said the tapes, the tapes, the media circus, and that the New Hampshire sentencing guidelines or laws were not adhered to, something like that.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

So for a legal novice, like the appellate efforts, right? There's not a limit, like you can appeal numerous times.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Well, you can appeal if there's, for example, newly discovered evidence that could be grounds for an appeal. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 39:38

So she has to have a reason. And this is not something that is our rights as citizens. She has to pay for this private legally, right? Or no?

SPEAKER_00 39:48

Well, I believe she's got a group of supporters. Another wacky thing about sensational crimes is you've got these women that want to marry these criminals, which is crazy, but you also get a lot of people out there advocating for the criminal. And so she's got a team of people out there that are advocating for her. So I don't know for sure. Maybe they're behind the legal fees. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

But it isn't like the court appointed, it's not going to get appointed because it's an appeal. No, we're not paying for that in the long run, right? Right. Okay. So it has to be new information, and you have to have someone representing you that has nothing to do with the state. Is that correct? Am I understanding this correctly?

SPEAKER_00 40:36

Just say that one more time. Say that again. I don't know if we want to go here because I may say something incorrect too. And people are going, she's a lawyer.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

Well, you know, I mean, you're not going to represent anybody anytime soon. You're retired. So early retirement. Um, you might just, you know, like, don't give out your business card or anything after if you say something wrong.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

She has exhausted her judicial appeal options regarding her conviction and sentence.

SPEAKER_01 41:09

That's the reason they're doing something new.

SPEAKER_00 41:12

Yes. So yeah, this is not an appeal that's come up in 2026. This is a new petition arguing that her conviction was tainted again by media coverage and that her sentence should be overturned. So yeah, she's exhausted her appeals.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

Okay. Well, that's interesting to know because I don't really know a lot about, you know, obviously I know the law to an extent, but not like not all these little intricate details of how, you know, I've heard of like the innocence projects and stuff like that, but I would feel like I don't know that she'd be on the top of the list for the Innocence Project. I feel like there was a lot against her. I don't know. I wasn't on the jury, I don't know what they said.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

So right. What were we doing in 1992?

SPEAKER_01 42:00

I was at a bar.

unknown 42:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:03

Oh, wait, that was early. 1990, I probably was seeing Soundgarden, which is why, you know, you're gonna retire early. I mean, I gotta work for a while because you know, I can't retire, but I did see Soundgarden in Tijuana, so you know, I've got that going for me.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

Right? I mean, God, God, May 1st, 1990, you turned 20.

SPEAKER_01 42:25

Yeah, that was such a long time ago. Such a long time ago. Oh my god. It was all about music then. I was in college and all I wanted to do was go to concerts, so yeah, and that is all you did, and that is all I did. Do you know I have all my ticket subs? Well, not all of them, because I got in to let a shows repaid at the door, or I got in free to a lot of shows, you know, working at numbers and connections and stuff like that. But I have the two giant gallon-sized zipbox bags. And so when I say I can't retire, I just hold those up and it makes sense. I'm sure there was, you know, t-shirts bought then, like there was not just the ticket price that was, you know, spent.

SPEAKER_00 43:14

We built a bar in our basement. We were like, let's take our old ticket stubs, we'll put them on the bar, and then pour epoxy over them and create this really cool bar. And we did that. But Brian took his drill, put a little attachment on it, and mixed up the epoxy to make sure it was nice and blended. But apparently you are not supposed to do that because it creates bubbles. So when we poured the epoxy on the bar over the old ticket stubs, I know it was just white because of all the bubbles.

SPEAKER_01 43:52

Did you at least like laminate the ticket stubs?

SPEAKER_00 43:55

No. So they're ruined. Yeah, they're gone. Yeah, they're gone. I mean there were so many.

SPEAKER_01 44:03

So sad.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

Good times.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

Good times. Yes. Thank you again and let's start thinking about your next like. Oh no, we're gonna do that. You're gonna write about all the crazy ladies that have married serial killers or people in prison, right? That's your next one.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

This is gonna require a lot of research because you know they're not as well known as their crazy women.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

Plus, it might be hard to find out information about them. This might be just a tiny segment on something. You know what I mean? All right, let me think about my next one and I will I'll retail. Okay, have a good night. Bye. Bye. Everyone, thanks for listening to the Femme Fatal, and as always, we'll put links to the stuff we discussed in the episode description. Bye. The Femme Fatal created and hosted by Stacy Dotson, produced by Mark Williams, music by Marsha Yingwing, Chad Schenk, and Greg Loicano.