Pamela Smart case: William ‘Billy’ Flynn up for parole in 1990 Gregg Smart murder

In a Jan. 25, 2008 file photo, William Flynn, center, talks to his defense lawyer Cathy Green, right, at Rockingham Superior Court in Brentwood, N.H. Flynn, is serving a 28 years-to-life prison term for killing his lover Pamela Smart's husband as a teenager in the notorious murder case. He has a parole hearing scheduled for Thursday, March 12, 2015. (AP Photo/Cheryl Senter, Pool, File)
In a Jan. 25, 2008 file photo, William Flynn, center, talks to his defense lawyer Cathy Green, right, at Rockingham Superior Court in Brentwood, N.H. Flynn, is serving a 28 years-to-life prison term for killing his lover Pamela Smart's husband as a teenager in the notorious murder case. He has a parole hearing scheduled for Thursday, March 12, 2015. (AP Photo/Cheryl Senter, Pool, File)
In a Jan. 25, 2008 file photo, William Flynn, center, talks to his defense lawyer Cathy Green, right, at Rockingham Superior Court in Brentwood, N.H. Flynn, is serving a 28 years-to-life prison term for killing his lover Pamela Smart’s husband as a teenager in the notorious murder case. He has a parole hearing scheduled for Thursday, March 12, 2015. (AP Photo/Cheryl Senter, Pool, File)

(AP) The triggerman in the sensational Pamela Smart murder trial is getting his first chance for parole, 25 years after he gunned down the husband of his lover and instructor and launched a case that became an instant tabloid sensation.

William “Billy” Flynn was 16 in 1990 when he and three friends carried out what prosecutors said was Pamela Smart’s plot to murder Gregg Smart. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 28 years to life in prison, minus time served before trial.

A three-person state board on Thursday will decide whether to release Flynn, who turns 41 that day.

Pamela Smart, who was 22 when her husband was killed, was convicted of being an accomplice to first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without chance of parole. During the sensational trial, one of the first high profile cases involving sex between a school instructor and a student, she admitted seducing Flynn but said she didn’t plan the murder.

According to trial testimony, Smart was one of Flynn’s instructors in a self-awareness program at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton when she seduced him. She told him she needed her husband killed because she feared she would lose everything if they divorced.

Flynn testified at Smart’s 1991 trial that she threatened to break up with him if he didn’t kill her husband.

On May 1, 1990, he and 17-year-old Patrick Randall entered the Smarts’ Derry condominium and forced Gregg Smart to his knees in the foyer. As Randall held a knife to the man’s throat, Flynn fired a hollow-point bullet into his head. Randall got 28 years to life; he comes up for parole in April. Two other teenagers served prison sentences and have been released.

Pamela Smart has denied knowing about the plot. But the state’s star witness, a teenage intern in whom Smart confided, secretly recorded her after the killing saying, “If you tell the (expletive) truth, you’ll send me to the slammer for the rest of my (expletive) life.”

A spokeswoman for Smart, who was transferred in March 1993 to New York’s Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for women, told The Associated Press that Smart is taking no position on Flynn’s parole bid but hopes she ultimately gets the same chance at freedom.