From new kid on the block to trigger-man

Bill Flynn was the new kid on the block. He, his mother Elaine, and two brothers moved to Seabrook, N.H. from sunny California.

They moved to New England to start a new life, a life that was all the way across the country from his father’s, whose life all too suddenly came to an end. In court documents obtained at Rockingham County Court House, his mother explains, “I uprooted him from his friends in California and brought him to New Hampshire and, perhaps, in some way, he believed if I had never left his father, he never would have died in that tragic car accident.”

In the spring of 1990, Bill was a sophomore at Winnacunnet High School, and like most guys his age he had a gang of friends and was into cars, heavy metal music and girls. He sported a fashionable mullet and acid washed jeans. But his mother described him under a different light, “Bill was a very angry and withdrawn young adolescent. He lost his father at a very vulnerable age and he blamed me for most of his unhappiness,” she said.

In documents obtained at Rockingham County Courthouse, Elaine Flynn was documented saying, that Bill, “started to come out of his shell when Pete (Patrick Randall) and J.R. (Vance Lattime) decided to befriend him…the year of 1989 Bill spent most of his waking hours over J.R.’s house hanging out with his friends.” He also befriended a fellow student named Cecilia Pierce. Bill became involved in a Self Esteem Project at Winnacunnet, and later became involved with the project’s director.

At the age of 17, William Flynn confessed to the shooting of Greg Smart following a sexual relationship with Pam Smart, based on the desire to be with her. Flynn later testified that he committed the murder on Pam’s instructions.

While their chronological age difference in March of 1990 was six years, it appears they were socially matched. In an exclusive interview with Pam Smart at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, she said that she was 21 years old at the time the affair began with Bill Flynn, however she is documented as being 22-years-old at the time the affair went on.

“I was an immature 21-year-old and Bill was very mature for 16,” she said in a prison interview. Her mother, Linda Wojas, echoes Pam’s thoughts, “She [Pam] was incredibly socially immature…Greg came to her and told her he cheated on her. She was teaching a course on self-esteem when her self-esteem was in the basement.”

On June 10, 1990 Flynn’s accomplice Randall told a friend, Ralph Welch, of their involvement and of the gun that was used. At that time Welch was living with the Lattime’s. In Randall’s statement under oath on Jan. 22, 1991, he told police he only became concerned because Welch “didn’t take it the way I expected him to take it.”

When asked by Detective Pelletier why he even involved Welch, Randall said, “because he had been my friend for like 11 years…so I figured if I told him what went on he’d realize what was on stake, meaning mine and Bill’s and J.R. being involved, he would probably keep quiet.”

In an interview with Raymond Fowler he contradicts Randall saying that after the murder, Welch opened up the door to a room at Lattime’s where he himself “was going on about killing Pam’s husband.” Fowler said that Randall told Welch to keep his mouth shut, or, “you know who’s going to be next.”

Welch then told Lattime’s parents. On the same day Vance Lattime Sr. brought the murder weapon to Seabrook Police Department. Then on June 11, 1990 Flynn, Randall and Lattime Jr. were arrested for the murder of Greg Smart.

During an interview at Bedford Hill Correctional Facility in Bedford, N.Y., Pam wanted to set the record straight, “No, I didn’t seduce him, I feel responsible, yes, if I hadn’t had this affair, my husband would be alive.”

On Feb. 4, 1991, Flynn was brought in for questioning and the following was taken from his statement under oath. At that time Pam’s job title was as a media director. She worked across the street in a trailer, from Winnacunnet High School and had been a volunteer facilitator for the high schools, “Project Self-esteem” program. Flynn was considered a student-facilitator. When he was questioned about Pam’s role in the program he explained, “it was the exact same as mine.”

Both Smart and Flynn worked as volunteers and their goal was to promote better self esteem in those students that needed some encouragement.

Their friendship started during the program in the fall of 1989 and was given the opportunity to grow when Pam asked Flynn to shoot an orange juice commercial with two other students, Cecilia Pierce and Rachel Emond. Paula Fowler, mother of Raymond Fowler even says, “Pam would give all four of the boys’ rides home.”

Flynn stated in his questioning that, Pam and he began a “boyfriend-girlfriend type relationship,” which started on Feb. 5, 1990. Flynn went on to explain that he learned of Pam’s interest from Cecelia Pierce, a mutual friend of the two who also attended Winnacunnet High School. During the conversation in Pam’s office, Flynn explained to police, “first thing she said was she asked me if I ever thought about her while she wasn’t around; and then she went on and she said she thinks about me all the time, and stuff like that.” Flynn estimated it was about a couple of weeks after that that they shared their first kiss at his house.

Lattime, Flynn and Randall were all sentenced to Maine State Prison and remained close. Back in 1991, Flynn told police that J.R. and Pete were his best friends for about four and a half years at that point in time.

A key part of the prosecution’s argument was that Flynn was a virgin prior to Pam, and Flynn testified to this.

Wojas said that, “He [Flynn] presented himself as a 15-year-old virgin and that she [Pam] was the very first person to be intimate with him.”

Pam’s mother is not the only one to dispute this accusation. “I didn’t think Bill was a virgin, he had told me he had been with this girl Katrina…during the trial was the first time I had heard otherwise,” Pam said in the interview.

“Bill was not a virgin at the time he met Pam,” said Raymond’s brother Robert. The family explained that the four boys were always in and out of each other’s houses and that they got to know all three of them. “Bill wasn’t this innocent boy they made him out to be,” Fowler’s brother, Robert, said. Robert Fowler said they were positive of at least one girl that Bill had had sexual relations with, Katrina Raymond, and that the number of girls Flynn had sexual encounters with, according to Robert’s conversation with Katrina, “was more than three girls.”

“Billy Flynn was a nice kid…he wasn’t lying…totally under the influence of Pam,” said prosecutor Paul Maggiotto. Maggiotto said he does not know anything about Bill not being a virgin.

Mark Sisti, Pam’s attorney during the trial, did remark that he did not press Flynn’s virginal status. “Prior consensual sexual activity was not relevant. That issue never came to the forefront of the trial,” said Sisti. However he did not deny knowledge of the accusations. “He [Flynn] didn’t have his first heterosexual experience with Pam…He was a pretty worldly kid, a pretty tough kid, dabbled in drugs.”

Bill Flynn testified at Pam’s trial wearing a baggy sweater that swallowed him up, making him appear much younger than a 17-year-old. Maggiotto said that this was not planned, he was just told to wear something nice, that he would be comfortable in. “He probably didn’t own a suit…The state was not going to pay for one.”

In response to Flynn’s testimony, Wojas said, “I think when Billy Flynn was on the witness stand; I think he was sobbing for what he was doing to Pam.”

In Flynn’s February 1991 statement under oath, he said Pam “said that she didn’t get along with him [Greg] very well…they always faught.”

In the interview with Pam, she admits to taking “a devastating emotional blow” after learning about Greg’s affair.

She said Flynn gave her the attention she was lacking in her own marriage, and admits the affair was a mistake. Pam claims that she ended the relationship with Flynn about one month before the May 1 murder, to mend things with her husband, Greg.

Wojas reiterated the notion of the couple reconciling their marriage by saying, shortly before his death, Greg had come to meet with her and her husband about buying a house in Derry for Pam and himself.

In a January 2005 interview with Eleanor Pam, a trusted friend of Pam Smart, said “She was guilty of having an affair, she’d ended it and trying to conceal it.”

Pam said she believes it is possible that Bill could have misconstrued her message and killed Greg on his own wishes. Pam will serve what she calls a “death sentence,” life without parole, for a crime she has never admitted to. Pam states, “the death penalty has an end in sight, mine does not.”

“The people who murdered our son-in-law can go up for parole and they know that. She can’t. The disparity is awful,” said Wojas. Even with this being said, the state of New Hampshire stands by the 1991 sentencing, and is maintaining Pam Smart received a fair trial.

Flynn, Lattime and Randall received reduced sentences in exchange for testifying against Smart.

Flynn, now age 32, is serving the remainder of his 28 years to life at Maine State Prison, testified two years after incarceration saying, “This is something that I never wanted and if I could, I would change places with Greg, I would, without hesitation…I’m going to have to live with this for the rest of my life and although that’s worst than any sentence that this court could ever put on me, I hope to some day start my life over again and make the best of myself.”

Letters with interview questions were sent to both Flynn and Randall at Maine State Prison.

Neither prisoner chose to respond.

© Copyright 2007 Keene Equinox