Patrick Randall Held Husband Down as Flynn Shot Him
By Elizabeth Dinan
Hampton Union, Tuesday, March 17, 2009
[The following article is courtesy of the Hampton Union and Seacoast Online.]
BRENTWOOD — Nineteen years after Patrick “Pete” Randall restrained Gregory Smart while his friend shot him in the head with a .38 caliber handgun, Randall is described as remorseful, accepting of responsibility for the crime and mature.
Citing those and other factors, Rockingham Superior Court Judge Kenneth McHugh reduced Randall’s prison sentence, making him eligible for parole in June 2015.
By an order dated March 11, the judge suspended three years from Randall’s minimum 25-year sentence, with the condition he remain of good behavior while serving out the rest of his term. Upon his release, Randall is court-ordered to be under the supervision of a parole officer for the rest of his life.
Randall was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 40 years to life, with 12 years of the minimum sentence deferred, if he remains of good behavior while incarcerated. Through attorney Mark Stevens, he petitioned the court on Jan. 16 for a sentence reduction, citing the reduced sentence of co-defendant William “Billy” Flynn, who pulled the trigger.
In February 2008, Rockingham Superior Court reduced Flynn’s minimum sentence to 25 years, making him eligible for parole in June 2015. Stevens argued that, since the charges were the same and Randall has been a model prisoner, he is entitled to the same three-year sentence reduction as his co-defendant.
The N.H. attorney general’s office objected, citing Randall’s involvement in a jailhouse assault. McHugh noted the assault was 15 years ago when Randall was first moved to the Maine state prison, where he has been incarcerated since 1993.
Other than that, the judge wrote, Randall’s record is “virtually spotless.”
In a letter to the court, Randall “expresses extreme remorse for the crime and also details the reasons why he got himself involved in such a senseless killing,” McHugh wrote in his order. “While none of his comments are an excuse for his actions, they do explain why he did not value human life at the time that Gregory Smart was murdered. He was a relatively young man when the murder was committed. Thus, he has spent the majority of his life in prison. It appears from his conduct that he has matured and accepted full responsibility for his actions.”
The judge ruled that after serving a total of 25 years, Randall is eligible for parole.
Flynn was 16 when he shot Smart in the victim’s Derry condo. Jurors found the murder was masterminded by Smart’s wife, Pamela, who was then a media coordinator at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton and is now serving a life sentence without the chance of parole. The prosecution proved Pamela Smart was having sexual relations with Flynn, who was a student at Winnacunnet, when she enlisted him to murder her husband. Flynn executed the murder with assistance from his friends; Randall, Raymond Fowler and Vance Lattime Jr. on May 1, 1990.