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Miles G. Cohen

@milesgcohenabc

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Freelance journalist

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My dog, my guitar and I made GMA today!

Thanks to my friend @harold.d.lopez for producing!! by @milesgcohenabc

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3 years ago

It's the eve of a high stakes hearing that could put Pamela Smart on a path to freedom. I interviewed Smart in prison, and spoke with those who know about her time behind bars, including Bella Gonzalez, pictured, and her daughter "little Pammie."

Gonzalez did nearly 20 years with Smart and named her daughter in her honor

BEDFORD HILLS, N.Y. -- The New Hampshire Supreme Court will decide on Tuesday whether to grant Pamela Smart a chance at a hearing that could put her on a path to freedom.

Smart was convicted in 1991 at age 22 of persuading her teenage lover, Billy Flynn, to kill her husband. She met Flynn, then a student, through her work in a New Hampshire school district. Soon after their affair began, Flynn fatally shot her husband, Gregg Smart, in the head.

The press flocked to Exeter, a small New Hampshire town, to cover the case against Smart. Her trial, three years before that of O.J. Simpson’s, was one of the first to be broadcast live — and Smart quickly became the center of a saga that led to a fervor for true crime and an era of televised trials.

Smart has now spent more than 32 years behind bars for conspiring to kill her husband. Flynn, who pulled the trigger, has been out of prison for nearly a decade.

Her accomplices, including three other teenagers who were charged as adults in the killing, cooperated with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to lesser charges. They have all been released from prison. Smart was convicted at trial of accomplice to murder in the first degree and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Smart's Feb. 14 hearing will be the first time that she has had a chance to challenge the state's repeated denials to make a case for her release.

For Smart, who has exhausted all of her opportunities to appeal her sentence, a commutation remains her only hope to one day get out of prison.

"In some respects the pieces are finally coming together," Smart, now 55, told ABC News on a phone call from Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in New York two weeks before the hearing.

"It feels like the last straw, the last stand," she said. "If this doesn't work out, what is there after this?"

More at link in bio- taken in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women by @milesgcohenabc

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4 years ago

I made the paper! Talked to @nytimes about covering Gov. Ron DeSantis on the campaign trail, and election night at Mar-a-Lago.

great pics by @karstenmoran taken in New York Times by @milesgcohenabc

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4 years ago

First Election Day in the wraps. What a ride. Incredibly grateful for my politics crew @abcnews and all the friends I made on the campaign trail.

Finale of #PowerTripABC will air on Sunday! @abcnewsstudios @hulu taken in Palm Beach, Florida by @milesgcohenabc

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4 years ago

First time in Tampa!
#RaceToNovember shoot with Sen. candidate Val Demings and @linseytdavis on bikes. Gov. Ron DeSantis' return to the campaign trail following Hurricane Ian. And a behemoth of a Cubano sandwich Tampa style (+ lettuce & tomato). #21daysleft taken in Tampa Bay, Florida by @milesgcohenabc

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4 years ago

MATLACHA, Fla. -- Roughly three dozen pastel-colored cottages line the only road to Pine Island, the largest island along Florida's Gulf Coast where Hurricane Ian made landfall.

To get to Pine Island from mainland Florida, drivers must first go over a bridge and through Matlacha, an island community of about 600 people, many of whom are commercial fishermen. Residents there live at the foot of another bridge to Pine Island that was devastated by Ian last week and serves as the only connection to the mainland.

On Wednesday, before meeting with President Joe Biden, Gov. Ron DeSantis visited Matlacha to announce that roads there had been cleared and that the bridge had been temporarily repaired so that its residents could be connected to the mainland. The work took three days, his office later said.

But a quarter mile from where the governor spoke, Matlacha resident John Lynch watched another tide roll in and another piece of his home crumble into the gulf.

The sea wall, which used to keep the waters at bay, has now partially collapsed. If it's not repaired, he said, his cottage will wash away with the tide.

They're focused on the roads and the bridge, rightfully so," Lynch, 59, said on Wednesday as he pointed to the tide that had breached the sea wall and enveloped his home on Pine Island Road.

"People are losing their homes and their businesses" that can still be saved, added Lynch who also owns the Blue Dog Bar & Grill in Matlacha that was damaged by the storm. "I'm looking for that sense of urgency to stop it from getting any worse."

Read the rest at link in bio! taken in Matlacha Florida by @milesgcohenabc

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4 years ago

I'm in a new @hulu docuseries called "Power Trip." The first episode dropped yesterday from @abcnewsstudios @gstephanopoulos productions.

The show follows me and six other reporters embedded with different political campaigns ahead of the midterm elections.

Link in bio!
#powertripabc by @milesgcohenabc

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4 years ago

Joined @gstephanopoulos today on @thisweekabc to talk the campaign trail! First live TV hit... 😁 taken in Miami, Florida by @milesgcohenabc

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4 years ago

The sun rises over an oil field in Hobbs, New Mexico.

It feels like everyone I've talked to here works, or has relatives who work in the oil & gas industry.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis chose this conservative bastion in southeast N.M. to kick off his rally tour across America. "I don't rely on windmills, I don't rely on solar. I need oil and gas," he said to a crowd on Sunday. taken in Hobbs, New Mexico by @milesgcohenabc

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4 years ago

I'm hitting the campaign trail this fall as an @abcnews reporter/producer! Part of the network's first class of midterm election embeds...They even took my pictures 🤣

Thanks to the coolest boss on earth @santinaleuci and to all my friends at @goodmorningamerica! Especially my booking team! by @milesgcohenabc

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4 years ago

In August, Annabell Guadalupe Rodriguez came home from her first day of fourth grade at Robb Elementary School and told her mom about a boy.

She said the boy, Xavier James Lopez, smelled and dressed "really nice," her mother recalled -- and within weeks, the two began passing notes in class. Months later, when the weather warmed, their families got together for weekend barbecues, where Annabell and Xavier would play tag.

Their mothers, Monica Gallegos and Felicha Martinez, soon discovered the children were texting each other "I love you" at bedtime. "Me and Felicha would laugh, like, 'How do y'all know about love?'" Gallegos told ABC News.

By spring, Annabell had a picture of Xavier strung around her neck, a gift from Martinez. She put it on for all of his little league games. Other times, she kept it safely in her backpack.

On the morning of May 24, Annabell and Xavier posed for pictures at an awards ceremony in the school cafeteria. Xavier beamed. He had made the honor roll for the first time. Perhaps Annabell's smarts had rubbed off on him, her mom had joked.

Martinez snapped a photo and the kids ran back to class.

About an hour later, a gunman walked into a classroom and killed 19 students and two teachers. Xavier and Annabell were among them.

The two children will be buried this week at Hillcrest Cemetery in Uvalde, Texas. Martinez and Gallegos made the decision to have their 10-year-olds buried side by side.

"I'm not ready," Gallegos said over the weekend, as she made the final preparations for her daughter's funeral, which will be held today. Xavier's funeral was held yesterday.

Read more at @abcnews (link in bio) taken in Uvalde, Texas by @milesgcohenabc

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4 years ago

Xavier James Lopez was 10 years old. The fourth grader went to class today at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tx. and never came back.

I spoke with his grandmother Amelia Sandoval on the phone last tonight. Xavier liked to play baseball. He loved to dance. He was the "life of the party."

"You send your kids to school thinking they are going to make it back home," she told me. "And then they're not." by @milesgcohenabc

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4 years ago