Teach Me to Kill: The Shocking True Story of the Pamela Smart Murder Case by Stephen Sawicki

Author:Stephen Sawicki [Sawicki, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-04-28T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

For Dan Pelletier, there was no escaping the Gregory Smart homicide. The investigation was entering its third week, and the detective seemed unable to wrangle a full day off to spend with his wife and new baby daughter.

Pelletier might wake up believing that he need not go in, but inevitably the call would come, and it was back to the Derry Police Department. Robyn Pelletier would roll her eyes in disbelief.

Most of the time, the work was drudgery—leads that went nowhere, interviews that illuminated little, background checks of Pam and Greg that mostly painted a picture of a trouble-free young couple.

Pelletier’s only solace was that he had company. Every available investigator—five detectives and a patrolman who was on a training program in the bureau—was thrown on the case. Only one, who at the time was working undercover drug cases with a regional task force, was kept off.

Generally, investigators seek to break a murder case in the first day and a half. After that, the odds that anyone will be apprehended begin to diminish. Killers can flee the state, even the country. Evidence can be destroyed. Witnesses move on, and the memories of those who remain begin to fade.

Time was marching on. What’s more, all the detectives had other cases in limbo, which could not be left there forever. Pelletier himself had to carve out time to work a few rape cases that had been on his desk when Greg Smart was shot.

At the Summerhill Condominiums, meanwhile, residents began receiving sales calls from security-system installation companies. Some of the neighbors put new locks on their doors. Others placed Louisville Sluggers in strategic locations around their homes. And, a number called the Derry police with concerns about their safety and questions about what was being done to solve this crime.

The residents’ fears were not allayed when Derry Police Chief Edward Garone and New Hampshire Attorney General John Arnold issued a press release that seemed to say that the investigation was at a standstill. The statement asked anyone with information to please come forward. And it refused to rule out the possibility that Smart had indeed interrupted a burglary.

Otherwise, neither the cops nor the AG’s office was commenting to the press, a silence that was worrisome in itself.

In contrast, the widow continued to tell journalists, friends, and family that her husband had surely surprised robbers; she was certain of it.

With no surefire answers, the Derry detectives were all but forced to keep Pamela on their list of possible suspects.

Pam and her family had already been closed out from learning more about the case because Pam had revealed too much to the media. Linda Wojas would call the detectives on her daughters’ behalf, asking for details on the investigation, but came away politely rebuffed.

Now, after the call from Louise Coleman, the Derry cops decided to take a closer look at Pam. Their first stop was Seabrook.

Talking to Cecelia Pierce became a priority. The anonymous phone call, of course, was one reason. But Cecelia had stayed with Pam the week before Greg’s murder, which was interesting in itself.

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