Media and social commentators were all aflutter last week with the news convicted murder Billy Flynn is set to be released from prison in a few months.
Flynn has the distinction of being the trigger man in the most famous murder in New Hampshire history, an act that will likely follow him to his grave and beyond. Flynn could go on to cure cancer from here, and he may yet die a very old man, but his obituary will likely still note his role in the Pamela Smart case.
For Lincoln County residents, Flynn’s release means something special, because he is said to be moving to Newcastle once he leaves state custody. Everybody with that knowledge seemingly has an opinion and, apparently, comparatively few are welcoming.
Much of the feeling seems to coalesce, understandably, around the chilling words “convicted murderer.”
That is too bad, because for whatever else he’s done, Flynn has, as they say, paid his debt to society. He committed the crime, stood before the court, took his punishment, and served his penalty. You could argue 25 years is not enough for cold-blooded murder and that is an argument, but that has nothing to do with Billy Flynn the person.
He has done what he could, given the acts that he has done, and the rest of us need to let it go. Flynn is poised to move forward with his life and we need to allow him to do so.
We wish Mr. Flynn all the best. He has indicated he wants to live quietly as a private citizen and we hope he does. He has been incarcerated since he was 16. The world is a dramatically different place now than it was when he went in, and of course nothing like the world he has occupied for the last 25 years.
It would be too much, of course, to expect everybody will just forget about his crime, but the fact is, that chapter in the book of his life is closed. How anyone else feels about it is irrelevant.
