A Brother’s Lament

Dean Smart offers a unique perspective on a murder that rocked the world.

The police officer blocked his entrance and tried to block his view but Dean Smart, standing on the doorstep, saw the body through the screen door. His brother, Gregg, was lying dead in the hallway of the home he shared with his wife Pam.

Dean and his parents lived nearby, and had run to the condo when they heard the sirens and saw the police cars stopping there.

The story of the sensational murder of Gregg Smart and ultimate conviction for the crime of his wife Pam and four high school students is well known, but to hear the tale told from a brother’s point of view takes it to a different dimension.

In “Skylights and Screen Doors” [Mont Clair Press, $14.95], Dean traces the brothers’ seemingly idyllic early life, with the reader knowing it would not end well for Gregg, and then gives details of the murder and trial that news accounts have not.

One odd, prophetic moment that Dean recounts – Pam slides the door to the Smart family’s boat deck back and forth until she attracts everyone’s attention and then says, “Look, I’m in the slammer.” Gregg looks at his brother and says, “I don’t know. She’s crazy, I guess.”

I guess.

Well-written and worth the read.