Hart, Smith get life without parole for Orange double murder

By DAVID McLELLAN

Recorder Staff

Published: 05-11-2018 2:15 PM

GREENFIELD — Joshua Hart and Brittany Smith will spend their lives behind bars for murdering an elderly couple in Orange.

Judge John Agostini gave each Hart, 25, and Smith, 29, both of Athol, two life sentences without the possibility of parole, to be served consecutively: Hart in the Massachusetts Correctional Institution-Cedar Junction in Walpole and Smith in MCI-Framingham.

Hart and Smith were stone-faced upon receiving their sentences at the Franklin County Justice Center.

“This crime strikes at the very core of all of us. We all have parents. We all see our parents age. We all live alone,” Agostini said.

Agostini said he found Hart and Smith were indifferent to their “evil” crimes, which they confessed to during audio recorded interviews with police following their arrests.

Hart and Smith on Oct. 5, 2016, crept into the home of Thomas Harty, 95, and his wife Joanna Fisher, 77, murdered Harty and fatally wounded Fisher at 581 East River St.

According to Agostini, the only way they will get let out is by a pardon from the governor, and added “how unlikely that may be.”

Agostini also said he did not buy the defenses offered by Hart’s lawyer, Brian Murphy, that Hart merely “helped” Smith, or Smith’s lawyer, Mary Ann Stamm, who said drugs drove her client to murder.

Families’ statements

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Agostini’s comments from the bench succinctly expressed the loss and anger the family members of Fisher and Harty described during the impact statements.

Harty, whose daughter described him as having “nearly perfect” health, still worked as a tool salesman at 95 years old. He was getting ready to hike the Grand Canyon, which he had hiked dozens of times before.

Fisher was in a wheelchair due to a 2013 spinal stroke. Diligent about her exercises, and with the help of her husband, she was learning to walk again, determined to do so without assistance.

Fisher was supposed to make plans with her Catholic Charities nurse, Cindy Sumner-Moryl, for continued “ambulatory therapy,” when Sumner-Moryl arrived for a scheduled visit the day after the attack.

But Harty’s hike and Fisher’s therapy never happened. Hart and Smith, armed with at least one knife and a wrench, entered the couple’s home, stabbed them, attempted to suffocate them and stood on Fisher’s chest to push the air out.

Sumner-Moryl arrived the next day and found Fisher on the floor, her husband dead in his chair close by. Fisher died a month later from her wounds.

Before Hart and Smith were sentenced, the Harty and Fisher families gave statements — some directed right at the perpetrators — about how the murders have affected their lives.

“It consumes my mind every day,” said Fisher’s youngest child, Lucinda Costa, who said she has missed important life events because of the last year and a half in courtrooms.

“I can imagine my mom saying, ‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’” Costa said.

Everyone expects to lose their parents, especially elderly parents, Costa said, but not because they are murdered. The death penalty, Costa said, is what Hart and Smith really deserve.

Karen Herk, Harty’s granddaughter, remembered her grandfather as a loving man who would take her hiking, and insisted he would live until exactly 106 years old.

“The backbone of our family is gone,” Herk said. “Two selfish people maliciously murdered him.”

Smith, a heroin addict, and Hart, with warrants for his arrest from Pennsylvania, had been arrested two days before the home invasion for motor vehicle theft. They were scared they’d face court-ordered drug treatment and jail time, respectively, and decided to find an elderly couple to overpower, steal their car, money and flee the state.

They were eventually arrested in Rockbridge County, Va., having been tracked by Massachusetts State Police, who were mapping fraudulent usage of the victims’ credit cards, as well as cell phone tower signals.

But while their attorneys’ broadly described the attack as an armed robbery gone wrong, Smith and Hart never made any demands of the victims. They instantly attacked Harty and Fisher, stabbing Harty in the neck and throwing Fisher to the floor.

Jack Harty, who was raised by Harty’s mother and considered Harty his brother, said Harty would probably have helped Smith and Hart, generously giving them money if they had asked.

“If he had $10 and you needed $5, he’d give you $10,” Jack Harty said.

Kathleen Koonz, Fisher’s daughter, talked about the influence the couple had on so many lives. She played a video of her late mother and stepfather before the court.

“I want to thank Joanna for being such a great wife and so good to me,” Harty said in the video, describing how Fisher became an avid hiker with him.

Perhaps the most emotional statements came from Don Harty, Harty’s son, who detailed his “hatred” for the two “individuals,” not deigning to call them humans.

“Thomas Harty was my father, and he’s still my hero,” Don Harty said.

“(Harty and Fisher) were just the best people,” he said, before turning to point at Hart and Smith. “They are the worst people.”

Don Harty made it clear that he wouldn’t use a certain word to describe Smith, because he promised his wife he would not. Still, his wrath was obvious.

“It’s my hope that anyone surrounding them going forward reminds them that they’re evil,” Don Harty said.

“First of all, it’s unfortunate their parents didn’t practice birth control,” he added. “If anyone should never had come into this world, it’s those two. They’ve never done anything good in their life.”

Don Harty said the world would be better off without Hart and Smith, and that they deserve the death penalty, although Harty and Fisher would not have supported it. He also said Smith left two more victims by having her two children.

“I hope the first time one of those kids comes home from the playground, as they will, in tears because the kids on the playground said my mother’s a no-good, murdering whore, my hope is, their caretaker or grandmother will use that as a learning experience,” Don Harty said.

Don Harty said he hopes the children will do well, and called it ironic that they will be eligible for the Let Them Shine Fund, which Harty had set up to help orphans and disadvantaged children.

Going forward

Agostini denied Stamm’s motion to allow Smith to stay in Franklin County for three more weeks to see her two children, and said Smith’s family are also victims.

Hart and Smith have 10 days to appeal their guilty convictions, and 20 to appeal their sentences.

After the sentencing, Bucci said he believes any appeals will be unsuccessful.

“This will be the day of reckoning,” Bucci said.

Bucci thanked the police and investigators in the case, and also the Harty and Fisher families.

Reach David McLellan at:
dmclellan@recorder.com
or 413-772-0261, ext. 268.

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