Part three of three in the series about Gregg Smart's murder and the trial that captivated the region (and the nation) in the winter of 1991. New Hampshire TV station WMUR 9 aired the Pamela Smart trial in its entirety. It was the beginning of our true crime obsession and illustrated how the media reshapes the narrative to often tell the story they want to sell.
Court TV was born.
Gregg Smart is the forgotten victim in the crime of the century - as it has been called over and over given its history of firsts. Gregg was murdered on May 1, 1990. The 24-year-old insurance broker was shot dead in his home six days before his first wedding anniversary.
At first, it looked like he'd interrupted a burglary, because that's what the killers were told to make it look like. As the investigation wore on, it uncovered a plot rife with salacious headlines by a mastermind who was first tried in the media before they were tried in court. The Smart case was a spectacle, the original crime of the century. The first televised trial.
WMUR Channel 9 in Manchester, New Hampshire preempted its daily programming to televise the two-week trial. People stood in line at 2am to get a seat in the courtroom. The pretrial coverage was frenzied. I often cover stories that affected me. This is one of those. I lived in Southern New Hampshire in the late 80s/early 90s. You couldn't go anywhere without hearing the name Pamela Smart.
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Crime of the Truest Kind
Hosted by Anngelle Wood
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Music from Joe only one Kowalski and Andrew King appears in this episode
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